Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hippieslayer]

I wonder if optimizing aegis will involve utilizing their swap more.

 

[NairWizard]

acola vs. Sonix is all about the block counterplay. There are some obvious elements you might observe in the set, like Sonix's use of spring, up-air's effectiveness vs. Steve, Sonix using spins out of disadvantage and resetting, and so on. But the biggest thing is Sonix's counterplay to block formations. acola couldn't find a block formation that worked. He tried many throughout the set and came up short.



At the start, acola builds a 6-block wall here as normal to test the waters and give himself time to mine. However,



A single safe f-tilt breaks both bottom blocks. The remaining formation is made irrelevant after this, because this gives Sonic all the opening he needs. Sonic can both spindash under here or dash under since his dash is pretty low to the ground.



He faces an unreactable dash in up-air burst from the other side of the blocks. This is also high reward for Sonic since there are direct followups with strong positioning.

So clearly 6 blocks doesn't work. It wastes too much time for too little gain.



acola changes tactics and tries 3 blocks now, which would allow him to punish the foot extension on Sonic f-tilt if it's used. But Sonix has d-tilt prepared. He walks back and forth to space the d-tilt perfectly and destroys the bottom block. acola tries to punish the d-tilt, but...




No good. d-tilt is too safe. Sonic dashes away before Steve can reactively punish.



Well, there's no point in building 3 blocks if Sonic can break the bottom one consistently without getting punished anyway and then approach that way. So acola should just place one block so he doesn't have to shield and can spend time mining, right? Might as well.



Unfortunately, this doesn't work that well.
Sonix does a little walk, from the middle of the Pokeball to the right side of the red part. Compared to Sonic's dash, this back and forth walk is noncommittal and allows Sonix to make the timing of his block destruction ambiguous. If acola tries to burst minecart or something, Sonic can react and dash away and even try to punish with b-air at low cost.




The noncommittal movement bothers acola, who is used to being able to react to things, so he decides to test foregoing the block entirely next time.



Unfortunately, dash-up jab is not reactable this way, even if up-air could have been reacted to with shield (later, acola will try to react to up-air with shield but will get shield-pressured for free and hit anyway). So acola both needs the blocks and can't place them in a meaningful way.

Stronger blocks? They don't matter.



Sonic can d-tilt to damage the block, then walk to make the second d-tilt ambiguous. In this situation, acola tries attacking Sonic on a prediction but gets dash attacked for his troubles.

And just like this, without blocks to mine behind, Steve has to guess when Sonic is going to attack. And Sonic was very ambiguous in his timings, so acola couldn't get much started in this set.

That's basically the crux of Sonic's victory over acola. Since Sonic can deal with all the block formations, Steve doesn't really have a good setup to mine.

I expect acola to have some adaptations for next time, in stage pick and block strategy (plus parry attempts), but for this particular set, Sonix had all the counterplay ready and acola didn't find something to beat it in time.

 

[NotLiquid]

In the Lights Out podcast right after Port Priority 8, Sonix made a point that he'd meticulously studied the Steve matchup after having lost to Jake early last year at a pre-local, and he hasn't lost against a single Steve player since then. He'd also sent all of his matchup notes to Ken, and despite Ken not executing on a lot of things he'd documented, it was still enough knowledge for Ken to cinch the win against acola at Maesuma Top 11. I certainly see a lot of the fruits of Sonix's matchup studying with the analysis above, and it's enough for me to believe Sonix when he makes the argument that he's probably the best player in the world at the Steve matchup.

 

[Rizen]

I certainly see a lot of the fruits of Sonix's matchup studying with the analysis above, and it's enough for me to believe Sonix when he makes the argument that he's probably the best player in the world at the Steve matchup.

It's either Sonix or Miya, who has beaten Acola in the last two tournaments they've been in.

This brings up, does Steve have any bad MUs? On paper he should but I believe his damage output and kill power are so good that his worst MUs are probably still even.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

It's either Sonix or Miya, who has beaten Acola in the last two tournaments they've been in.

This brings up, does Steve have any bad MUs? On paper he should but I believe his damage output and kill power are so good that his worst MUs are probably still even.

Sparg0 not being brought up as one of the best, if not the best at the Steve MU is baffling to me, when he dominates acola each time they play and dominated Onin the last time they played.

 

[Frihetsanka]

This brings up, does Steve have any bad MUs? On paper he should but I believe his damage output and kill power are so good that his worst MUs are probably still even.

It's hard to say for sure, but Cloud and Sonic seem like the most likely candidates.

 

[Sucumbio]

Who is doorstop? They knocked mute out of low tier city and made it to losers finals vs dark wizzy the winner of which will face shadic in gf

 

[Frihetsanka]

Solid ZSS player.

SHADIC winning that tournament was fairly expected but still, good stuff.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Corrin. So I talked about Corrin potentially being better than Lucina in this meta and Tweek seems to think so too. Seems more and more top players are thinking highly of Corrin.

Corrin having strong kill confirms, good raw killing with up-air, bair, and pin (and occasionally charging f-smash on shield), decent landing options by swordie standards, decent recovery, really strong ledgetrapping, good combos, good damage overall, some of the best juggling in the game... Yeah, she sure has a lot.

I think she's a solid top 30 character. Top 25 isn't too implausible, although the competition is fierce. I think Lucina is likely a few spots under Corrin, but she's still a good character.

I wonder if Corrin will be used more as a secondary? Sparg0 has been using her on Smash Pros, although that doesn't necessarily mean much (perhaps he just wants to get better at fighting Corrin). According to Tweek MkLeo is still thinking about what to do with his pocket Corrin, so I guess it's not impossible that we'll see MkLeo Corrin again.

 

[NairWizard]

The issue with Lucina is the same issue that Game and Watch had pre-Miya. You need fast, reaction-based fundamentals to make Lucina's advantage state look broken.
I look at Mr. E and Leon and, naturally, they're good players, but they can't push advantage state all the way to the limit. Proto is the closest we've had, and there was still more to push even in his gameplay. Strangely, he played a very bait-heavy neutral with side-b, which I think he also had a lot of room to improve on. n-air is a whole neutral kit by itself, and Proto didn't do as much as he could have with it.

Corrin's issue is that her advantage state even with just a little investment is already near max. There is room for advancement, but it's tough.

Or, to put it another way, if we had a Miya-level player playing Lucina and a Miya-level player playing Corrin, I'd expect the Lucina player to do better.

I do still think that Corrin is incredible, though.
The most compelling thing about Corrin is that she beats all the other sword characters except Aegis, since bait spacing move -> whiff punish pin is effective in neutral vs. everyone else.

Also, I think labels like "top 10" and "top 20" don't mean a whole lot.

The issue is that every single person who is talking about "top X" has a different set of criteria in their heads for the label. What are you valuing? Consistency in bracket? Tournament peaks? Longevity across metas? Upset factor? I don't know what anyone else's "top X" refers to, so a statement like "Joker is top 5" always strikes me as a little meaningless.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Apparently Aaron thinks really highly of Corrin too (and he's potentially picking her up as a secondary or co-main for Diddy Kong). While I certainly wouldn't call her broken I do think she's a good character in general and a really good character in this meta (one could consider her an anti-meta character) and likely top 30 or maybe even top 25 (lately I've been thinking that top 25 sounds more and more plausible).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Apparently Aaron thinks really highly of Corrin too (and he's potentially picking her up as a secondary or co-main for Diddy Kong).

Aaron? That's an ESAM video. When in the video does it mention Aaron picking Corrin up?

 

[Frihetsanka]

Aaron? That's an ESAM video. When in the video does it mention Aaron picking Corrin up?

I suppose the way I posted it was a bit confusing, hah.

I posted a video from ESAM since I thought it was interesting. Then I went on to talk about Aaron, who has been streaming him practicing Corrin recently. And then I went back to talking about the ESAM video (mentioning how I don't think Corrin is broken, but ESAM has a tendency to use that term liberally).

It's good to see some Corrin optimism after people viewing her as a mid tier for years. She was massively buffed in 2020, but most people didn't seem to really acknowledge the buffs.

 

[NairWizard]

and likely top 30 or maybe even top 25 (lately I've been thinking that top 25 sounds more and more plausible).

But what do you actually mean when you say top 25/30? What does that mean to you? Everyone's tier list uses different criteria, so just saying that a character is top 30 doesn't really explain what you're thinking. Am curious how you view characters. Is it solo viability in current meta?

 

[Sucumbio]

Interesting progression for mkleo getting knocked to losers top 8 by a Pichu who subsequently lost to Sora who lost to.... Roy. Roy is so Good at this game! And Palutena is better! But Sisqui better still wow his Samus is crazy. Just not crazy enough to beat Gluto lol

 

[True Blue Warrior]

You know, if Steve was the exact same as he is in Ultimate in terms of moveset and gameplay, with the sole exception that a block cannot be placed in midair unless it is connected to a block that was on the ground, he’d probably get a lot less hate.

 

[Aligo]

The real problem with Steve is his extraordinary damage and frame data, moreso than his more unique properties. Those are tricky, but the ability to kill in 2-3 neutral wins is the main driving force behind the characters power. Even wood tool Steve is far above average in the damage department.

 

[NairWizard]

Why do Aegis players use so much Mythra n-air? Honestly, this move is how 80% of Aegis sets are lost. It's -10 on shield and Mythra drift is just not ambiguous enough to fake people out with it consistently. You really have to condition into it to get results.

 

[Rizen]

After watching Shoe win Keep it Chill 5 with I have to ask, why doesn't ZSS get more use? She has all the traits of a top tier: great disadvantage state with flip kick, amazing mobility, great CQC frame data, long reach with whip, and an explosive kill game that can end opponents' stocks early. She probably has good MUs vs common characters like G&W. What's the deal? Does she just get overshadowed by even more explosive characters like Steve?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

After watching Shoe win Keep it Chill 5 with I have to ask, why doesn't ZSS get more use? She has all the traits of a top tier: great disadvantage state with flip kick, amazing mobility, great CQC frame data, long reach with whip, and an explosive kill game that can end opponents' stocks early. She probably has good MUs vs common characters like G&W. What's the deal? Does she just get overshadowed by even more explosive characters like Steve?

Marss might as well be practically retired at this point, and not having a player as good as Marss is a big deal. Also there's been a lot of times where ZSS's hitboxes (particularly on her kill moves like Up-B and forward air) do not work properly at all.

In other news, EE did a Lights Out online tournament that got a lot of the players that typically go to Coinbox, making it a stacked online tourney. I'll be going over the results for that.

1. Sparg0
2. ShinyMark
3. Sonix
4. Wrath
5. Jahzz0
5. JaZaR
7. Just Blue
7. Vendetta
9. Scend
9. Haunter
9. Grymlynn
9. Yei

 

[NairWizard]

Screenshot from an Mkleo interview translated on reddit.

It seems like Leo kind of gets it, even if he doesn't seem to accept it fully as the gold standard of play. I'll be honest, it was difficult for me too to accept this over the years too. It's so different from any past smash game, and it feels kind of bad to do, almost as if you're playing like a scrub. For veteran players of the series, it's jarring. In the past like in Melee or smash 4, if you missed a move? You probably died for it.

But that is no longer the case: the meta is mashing. Spacing and midrange reaction in neutral are not the meta right now. The game we play is one where hitting more buttons per minute is better, even if you press the wrong buttons sometimes, as long as you are ready to react to any hit that you do get. If you do want to play patiently (anti-mash), you have to play someone like Sonic who can react from across the stage.

There are a few players like Gluto who still play the game the "old way," but the way you should be playing this game is hitting buttons.

 

[Sucumbio]

Reminds of when tweek said it a few years ago talking about jumping in and spamming "lagless" buttons. MKLeo used to dominate by always recovering, always correctly reading get up options, perfect spacing, surprise gimps, basically every solid fundamental. And yeah mashing. Which is legit for everything except offense cause then "you're just mashing" but.. heh. It works. Not with every character obviously, but yeah some characters have a ton of really safe hitboxes that come out quickly, last while and rack up quick to a ko confirm. He'll figure it out.

Oh yeah and to answer your earlier question though I suspect you were being rhetorical lol nair spamming is a thing too cause they can be executed so safely it's just not everyone cares to learn when not to rely on it.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Watch the Throne Days 1 & 2


Group Stage
Pool 1
Miya 3-2 Tweek
Miya 3-0 Kurama
Miya 3-0 Bloom4Eva
Tweek 3-2 Kurama
Tweek 3-1 Bloom4Eva
Kurama 3-2 Bloom4Eva
1st: Miya (3-0)
2nd: Tweek (2-1)
3rd: Kurama (1-2)
4th: Bloom4Eva (0-3)


Pool 2
Sonix 3-0 KEN
Sonix 3-0 MkLeo
Sonix 3-1 Lui$
KEN 3-0 Lui$
KEN 1-3 MkLeo
Lui$ 3-1 MkLeo
1st: Sonix (3-0)
2nd: KEN (1-2; 4-6)
3rd: Lui$ (1-2; 4-7)
4th: MkLeo (1-2; 4-7)


Pool 3
acola 3-1 Glutonny
acola 3-1 Dabuz
acola 3-2 WebbJP
Glutonny 3-0 Dabuz
Glutonny 3-2 WebbJP
Dabuz 3-0 WebbJP
1st: acola (3-0)
2nd: Glutonny (2-1)
3rd: Dabuz (1-2)
4th: WebbJP (0-3)


Pool 4
Light 3-0 Sparg0
Light 1-3 ApolloKage
Light 3-1 Tarik
ApolloKage 2-3 Sparg0
ApolloKage 3-1 Tarik
Sparg0 3-1 Tarik
1st: Light (2-1; 7-4)
2nd: ApolloKage (2-1; 8-5)
3rd: Sparg0 (2-1; 6-6)
4th: Tarik (0-3)


Gauntlet Stage
Pool 1
Dabuz 3-1 Bloom4Eva
KEN 2-3 Dabuz


Pool 2
Lui$ 3-0 Tarik
Tweek 3-0 Lui$


Pool 3
Kurama 3-1 WebbJP
ApolloKage 1-3 Kurama


Pool 4
Sparg0 3-1 MkLeo
Glutonny 0-3 Sparg0


Final Bracket (Tomorrow)
Winner's
Miya vs Dabuz
Light vs Tweek
Sonix vs Kurama
acola vs Sparg0

Loser's
Lui$ vs Bloom4Eva
Glutonny vs Tarik
KEN vs WebbJP
ApolloKage vs MkLeo

 

[Cheryl~]

Oh man, tomorrow's matches are going to be fun. Some hype runbacks happening with Miya vs. Dabuz, Sparg0 vs. Acola, Light vs. Tweek, and ApolloKage vs. MkLeo. Glutonny vs. Tarik is also a somewhat interesting runback now that Tarik was able to take games off of Gluto in their last set at UFA, although it is really sad that the two Europeans ended up having to take each other out for 13th. If Bloom wins his match, he's going to fight the winner of those two, too. Comical tragedy xD

The highlight of this weekend has to be WebbJP, though. Outside of the Dabuz set he's been able to go toe to toe with everyone he's fought in some iffy matchups for Sheik, showing that his performance from LMBM Miami was no fluke. He's definitely going to be someone to look out for in 2024 if he continues to travel often.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Watch the Throne

1st: Sparg0
2nd: Sonix
3rd: Miya
4th: acola
5th: KEN
5th: Tweek
7th: MkLeo
7th: Glutonny
9th: Bloom4Eva
9th: Kurama
9th: Light
9th: Dabuz
13th: Lui$
13th: Tarik
13th: WebbJP
13th: ApolloKage


I do find it funny that in the end, acola's was the biggest threat to Sparg0's path to complete victory.
I find it funny that a few weeks ago, Sparg0 tweeted that he is shifting his focus away from Cloud to focus on his Aegis, but then he proceeds to win the whole event here with solo Cloud in a fairly dominating fashion, only losing to Light during the Gauntlet Stage.

 

[Rran]

It's still wild to me that tournaments are filled with so many unique fighters... Like, w/ this 16-person selection of top players, there's only one instance of overlap between character mains.

 

[Cheryl~]

Sparg0 explaining that the switch to Cloud for Sonix was simply because he wanted to experiment in friendlies and ended up farming Sonix after not picking Cloud vs. Sonic for at least a year is hilarious. The other things he noted like how Cloud has ways to pressure Sonic's ledge hang, unlike Aegis, were pretty interesting as well and he showcased that a ton in his sets, mainly with dash attack.

 

[NairWizard]

The key takeaway here was that sparg0 didn't get edgeguarded at all as Cloud. Almost no early KOs on him at all.

If you don't land edgeguards on Cloud, then of course he is far and away the best character in the game. If Cloud doesn't get edgeguarded, he's S++ tier with a solid gap between him and the next tier down. So people need to brush up on their edgeguarding games vs. Cloud.

Letting sparg0 live to 180% per stock is like letting Olimar get 3 purple pikmin. It's just not the same character any more at that point.

 

[L9999]

Is it time people admit that "FP2 ruined Ultimate" is wrong?

sucks, have many terrible matchups, slips under the radar. and are the only ones who are truly relevant and they have their troubles.

Sparg0 made a strong statement in WTC: "I don't need Aegis." The character was already on a downward spiral and this seems like the final nail in the coffin, the character is not consistent, she's Chrom 2. She's top player poison it seems, MK Leo can't go the distance with her, Shuton has been getting the worst results of his career, and nobody solo mains her. That does not sound like a top 10 character.

Steve meta could be affected by acola's mental state, Sonix/Sparg0/Miya being really cracked at the matchup, USA bullying all the Steve mains into quitting; but I truly wonder if the character is overrated. He's not showing signs of being 2.0 like the anti-Steve crowd preaches as the reason to ban him. When I watched acola VS bloom I counted how many times acola would have died if it was Smash 4. Bayo and Steve are not on the same level AT ALL.

Steve looks like he has more even/bad matchups than people are willing to admit.

 

[NairWizard]

Ultimate balancewise seems fine. It's not the balance that's been the issue for me. It's the way people play now.
Throughout the early metas of Ultimate we talked about how bad it was for Samus to just charge her Charge Shot and hide under a platform instead of "actually playing the game" and how bad it was to just mash with Pokemon Trainer and that you should be reactively spacing in neutral instead, and so many other things similar to that vein of discourse.

As the meta evolves we see more and more that those things that we decried as degenerate and suboptimal? Yeah, those are actually the right way to play the game. Samus can just rely on Charge Shot alone, Steve can just block, Game and Watch can just mash n-air until he gets a hit, etc.

You have to have a keen eye for nuance to appreciate this game the way it's being played right now, and even then it can be tough. Even for me, the game can be challenging to watch at times, since the problems with the ruleset and stage layouts are apparent.

One of the biggest offenders for me is platforms.
In a platform fighter, platforms should enable movement options and aggression. They should let you pressure your opponent or mix them up. In early Ultimate, that was the case, and the top players who dominated were experts at transitioning to and from platforms creatively and also punishing creative platform transitions. Tweek ran a big part of the 2019 Ultimate meta with his platform-based gameplay. Hovering over a platform with a double jump and making it hard to guess whether you were going to land on the platform or drop through it was strong and fun as a core aspect of gameplay.

Today, the meta has evolved to the point where such mixups don't really work any more since everyone has defensive options tuned to handling them. Instead, platforms are almost universally defensive, across all matchups. Steve uses the platform as an additional block; Samus and Rosalina stand under it to dissuade aerial approaches; Cloud b-air walls at an angle such that whiff punishing him is impossible since he can just land on the platform at any time. And on and on.

Platforms are just one aspect of the game, but what happened to platforms is symptomatic of greater gameplay changes in the meta. Half the tournament sets that I watch revolve around positioning counterplay to a strong one-trick defensive tactic, and the vision beneath the many peeled-back layers of yomi is even more horrifying: most often, the answer to the one-trick is an even more defensive maneuver, like Blade Beaming Sonic's repeated spindashes until he's forced to run toward you so you can Cross Slash on reaction (with almost no penalty for whiffing the Cross Slash partly thanks to platforms).

You want to know what's really degenerate about the below image?



It's not that sparg0 is camping Blade Beam. It's that he's standing under a platform. The only way to approach him here is vulnerable to Cross Slash.

Sometimes this game is hard to like, but in the end I still hold out since we have some really fun things still like Skyjay making breathtaking reads with Incineroar or SHADIC tactically whiff-punishing with Corrin pin in neutral. It's a lot better than it was in S4, so I suppose I can't complain too much. The game is definitely pretty degenerate, though, there's no denying that.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Outside of Watch the Throne there was a big superregional that happened this weekend called Santa Paws

1. SHADIC
2. BeastModePaul
3. ShinyMark
4. omega
5. Lima / Kola
7. Anathema / Big D
9. Syrup / Jakal / Peabnut / DJDon
13. ESAM / Onin / AppleWiz / Jahzz0

 

[The_Bookworm]

Ultimate balancewise seems fine. It's not the balance that's been the issue for me. It's the way people play now.
Throughout the early metas of Ultimate we talked about how bad it was for Samus to just charge her Charge Shot and hide under a platform instead of "actually playing the game" and how bad it was to just mash with Pokemon Trainer and that you should be reactively spacing in neutral instead, and so many other things similar to that vein of discourse.

As the meta evolves we see more and more that those things that we decried as degenerate and suboptimal? Yeah, those are actually the right way to play the game. Samus can just rely on Charge Shot alone, Steve can just block, Game and Watch can just mash n-air until he gets a hit, etc.

You have to have a keen eye for nuance to appreciate this game the way it's being played right now, and even then it can be tough. Even for me, the game can be challenging to watch at times, since the problems with the ruleset and stage layouts are apparent.

One of the biggest offenders for me is platforms.
In a platform fighter, platforms should enable movement options and aggression. They should let you pressure your opponent or mix them up. In early Ultimate, that was the case, and the top players who dominated were experts at transitioning to and from platforms creatively and also punishing creative platform transitions. Tweek ran a big part of the 2019 Ultimate meta with his platform-based gameplay. Hovering over a platform with a double jump and making it hard to guess whether you were going to land on the platform or drop through it was strong and fun as a core aspect of gameplay.

Today, the meta has evolved to the point where such mixups don't really work any more since everyone has defensive options tuned to handling them. Instead, platforms are almost universally defensive, across all matchups. Steve uses the platform as an additional block; Samus and Rosalina stand under it to dissuade aerial approaches; Cloud b-air walls at an angle such that whiff punishing him is impossible since he can just land on the platform at any time. And on and on.

Platforms are just one aspect of the game, but what happened to platforms is symptomatic of greater gameplay changes in the meta. Half the tournament sets that I watch revolve around positioning counterplay to a strong one-trick defensive tactic, and the vision beneath the many peeled-back layers of yomi is even more horrifying: most often, the answer to the one-trick is an even more defensive maneuver, like Blade Beaming Sonic's repeated spindashes until he's forced to run toward you so you can Cross Slash on reaction (with almost no penalty for whiffing the Cross Slash partly thanks to platforms).

You want to know what's really degenerate about the below image?

View attachment 381561

It's not that sparg0 is camping Blade Beam. It's that he's standing under a platform. The only way to approach him here is vulnerable to Cross Slash.

Sometimes this game is hard to like, but in the end I still hold out since we have some really fun things still like Skyjay making breathtaking reads with Incineroar or SHADIC tactically whiff-punishing with Corrin pin in neutral. It's a lot better than it was in S4, so I suppose I can't complain too much. The game is definitely pretty degenerate, though, there's no denying that.

I am curious about something related to platforms. Is there a specific thing related to changes in Ultimate's mechanics that makes defensive platform usage the seemingly emerging strategy? Seems to me that a lot of the stuff players are utilizing with platforms today could be applied to earlier Smash games too, unless I am missing something?

There are quite a few things players are applying in Ultimate related to both mechanics and character related strategies that does make me pause and wonder: "could this be applied to earlier Smash games?" Could the strategies of Ultimate Sonic today be more readily applied to SSB4 Sonic to make him top 5 in that game? It is such an interesting question to ask cause not many people really ask these questions, with good enough reason since most players have 0 reason to go back to earlier Smash games.

 

[NairWizard]

I am curious about something related to platforms. Is there a specific thing related to changes in Ultimate's mechanics that makes defensive platform usage the seemingly emerging strategy? Seems to me that a lot of the stuff players are utilizing with platforms today could be applied to earlier Smash games too, unless I am missing something?

It's mostly an Ultimate-exclusive thing. Jumpsquat being universally 3 frames means that you always have access to ambiguous platform pressure on demand, so an opponent approaching from over a platform isn't threatening. Landing lag is also low, so attacks are generally extremely safe on whiff and on shield; you can afford to hitbox-wall under the platform without much risk.

Finally, reward on hit for defensive options like a defensive Cloud b-air is generally pretty high in Ultimate, and that was not consistently the case in previous games. In many games, playing defensively or camping is strong in neutral but weak when it comes to reward in advantage. In Ultimate, since any arbitrary hit can lead to strong juggling, ledgetrapping, or edgeguarding, playing defensively is just as rewarding as playing aggressively.

In an ideal environment, Incineroar should get more reward for calling out your dash back and using Alolan Whip on you than Samus gets for standing under platform and firing Charge Shot at you. But this isn't the case, because Samus can reactively ledgetrap you for your entire stock in many situations, so the risk:reward is skewed in favor of Samus running away camping Charge Shot. You aren't incentivized to go for an aggressive choice here; you'll be rewarded for landing it, but you'll also be rewarded for running away and letting your opponent come to you, so in a tournament setting, it's obvious what you should be doing.

To be clear, I don't mind defensive play. I think it's healthy for the game for some characters to be naturally defensive, like Pacman. But since it's hard to get past an opponent's defenses, it should also be rewarding to do so. I feel similarly about mashing. There should be some playstyles where you just throw out hitboxes again and again instead of reacting to your opponent's movement and options; a Game and Watch or two existing is healthy. But the reward for mashing should be proportional to the difficulty of getting a hit while doing so; in this game, it's easy to get a hit while mashing and hard to set up a whiff punish, so I should get more reward for setting up a whiff punish. But since the reward for everything is pretty much the same, the simplest strategy is always the best: run away, or mash your strongest neutral tool.

Now, if you compare Ultimate to past games, defensive play is still strong but it's not as universally rewarding, and camping under a platform in particular is a lot weaker.

In Smash 4, dash-in shield was a universally strong option and powershielding was incredible. If your opponent camped under a platform, they were doing nothing but sacrificing stage control since you could just run up to them and shield and you had the whole stage to your back. Plus, since dashgrabs were so rewarding, you were both incentivized to run at each other to counteract each other's shields, which leaves the platform out of the equation. Thus, platforms in S4 were usually used for extending strings and combos, and didn't factor into the defensive part of neutral nearly as much.

The way to deal with a projectile zoner in S4 was to walk up and shield.
The way to deal with a projectile zoner in this game is to dash up, jump and use your hitboxes.

See how one of those encourages the zoner to stand under a platform and the other doesn't?

Remember, while this might seem counterintuitive, shielding is usually used as an aggressive option and hitboxes are often used as a defensive option. The better you make hitboxes, the stronger defensive play tends to be. S4 revolved around shield. This game, Ultimate, revolves around hitboxes used after a dash or jump. It's night and day.

That's also why S4 Sonic would never have been top 5. His camping tools and advantage on hit were not the same in S4. Look at Ike vs. Sonic back then and compare to Ike vs. Sonic now.

Finally, don't forget that Small Battlefield and hazards-off PS2 didn't exist, which are both stages that directly enable platform camping.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Outside of Watch the Throne there was a big superregional that happened this weekend called Santa Paws

1. SHADIC

SHADIC looked fairly dominant, I have high hopes for that player (and Neo). Granted, he didn't have to deal with Sheik, Snake, or Sephiroth, but Neo and SHADIC have been able to overcome their bad MUs in the past.

It seems to me that aside from acola Steve players aren't as consistent as you'd think, and even acola is struggling versus at least two players (Sparg0 and Sonix). Syrup, Onin (Pocket), and DJDon all failed to make top 8.

I wonder if there'll be a second Steve in top 30? Onin did make 9th at Port Priority 8 so maybe.

 

[Rizen]

I feel like WTT cements the top five players as, in no particular order, Spargo, Miya, Sonix, Acola and Gluttony. At least for now. (Although Gluttony didn't do too well this time) The other top players don't seem on their level. Tweek looked lost against Miya that last game and vs Acola during their set. Light didn't seem to be playing his best. He lost to Ken, which was surprising because he'd beaten Sonix in the past. None of the other players could really keep up. WebJP almost had several amazing upsets but couldn't quite eek them out. He's definitely a player to watch as he gains skill in future events. All around a very nail-biting and entertaining tournament. TBH, I'm just glad Japan didn't sweep everyone.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Update on character data

It's been a while, but here's the character data update for July-December at Lumirank events! Next week will be the last week before scores reset. Apologies this took so long - it will be weekly again next season thanks to automation. pic.twitter.com/i8BrTKmfFT

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) December 12, 2023

 

[Emblem Lord]

View attachment 381392Screenshot from an Mkleo interview translated on reddit.

It seems like Leo kind of gets it, even if he doesn't seem to accept it fully as the gold standard of play. I'll be honest, it was difficult for me too to accept this over the years too. It's so different from any past smash game, and it feels kind of bad to do, almost as if you're playing like a scrub. For veteran players of the series, it's jarring. In the past like in Melee or smash 4, if you missed a move? You probably died for it.

But that is no longer the case: the meta is mashing. Spacing and midrange reaction in neutral are not the meta right now. The game we play is one where hitting more buttons per minute is better, even if you press the wrong buttons sometimes, as long as you are ready to react to any hit that you do get. If you do want to play patiently (anti-mash), you have to play someone like Sonic who can react from across the stage.

There are a few players like Gluto who still play the game the "old way," but the way you should be playing this game is hitting buttons.

You know what's funny?

As an old man that played traditional fighters too, Melee always felt like free neutral to me. You throw out a crazy button and if you whiff l-cancel covers you. Neutral always felt scrubbier in Smash games. It's just that in Melee you can be killed if you play too recklessly.

There is a reason why Melee was called Marvel Jr. though. Massive low commitment hitboxes at breakneck speeds that lead to a death combo in nuetral.

Smash games have ALWAYS been this way but what hurts ultimate is the input delay. So you can't play "true" footsies and reactively play for space. The game won't let you.

 

[Sucumbio]

View attachment 381392Screenshot from an Mkleo interview translated on reddit.

It seems like Leo kind of gets it, even if he doesn't seem to accept it fully as the gold standard of play. I'll be honest, it was difficult for me too to accept this over the years too. It's so different from any past smash game, and it feels kind of bad to do, almost as if you're playing like a scrub. For veteran players of the series, it's jarring. In the past like in Melee or smash 4, if you missed a move? You probably died for it.

But that is no longer the case: the meta is mashing. Spacing and midrange reaction in neutral are not the meta right now. The game we play is one where hitting more buttons per minute is better, even if you press the wrong buttons sometimes, as long as you are ready to react to any hit that you do get. If you do want to play patiently (anti-mash), you have to play someone like Sonic who can react from across the stage.

There are a few players like Gluto who still play the game the "old way," but the way you should be playing this game is hitting buttons.

Well we know your stance on Ultimate's mashiness what do you think of Rage lol.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

New Light's Out, Sparg0's on as a guest to discuss his thoughts on the meta

 

[NairWizard]

Well we know your stance on Ultimate's mashiness what do you think of Rage lol.

Good mechanic in moderation. The point of smash is to take a stock, not win percent. There should be a penalty for letting your opponent live to ridiculous percents.

But I don't like the weird janky rage kills at 0 in smash 4, that was too much.

You know what's funny?

As an old man that played traditional fighters too, Melee always felt like free neutral to me. You throw out a crazy button and if you whiff l-cancel covers you. Neutral always felt scrubbier in Smash games. It's just that in Melee you can be killed if you play too recklessly.

There is a reason why Melee was called Marvel Jr. though. Massive low commitment hitboxes at breakneck speeds that lead to a death combo in nuetral.

Smash games have ALWAYS been this way but what hurts ultimate is the input delay. So you can't play "true" footsies and reactively play for space. The game won't let you.

I have a lot of respect for Melee, but there is a reason I don't play or talk about Melee for sure. Lowkey agree.

But one nice thing is the variety of movement options in Melee. Ultimate just doesn't have the same level of movement.