Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hydreigonfan01]

Tweek humbled Riddles in game 3 oh my goodness; my man took <30% lol

EDIT: Anyone else surprised by the relative lack of Steves in this tournament? Maybe it's just the feed I was watching, but I'm struggling to recall any blockhead mains on stream today. Almost thought Genesis had taken a page out of the LMBM rulebook and banned him...

Onin and Miya both got 17th either entirely or with some usage of Steve. Miya's underperformance at the event is probably the biggest story aside from having 3 Corrin players in Top 8.

Edit: I guess the other one is "Mr. Genesis" getting upset in pools before making a nice losers run into eventually losing to Gackt for 25th.

 

[NotLiquid]

Big Chungus was also expected to have a bigger rally this tournament as Europe's best Steve player (seed 57th), but he got upset by Larry Lurr and then eliminated by HERO in losers for a relatively low 97th place underperformance.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Big Chungus was also expected to have a bigger rally this tournament as Europe's best Steve player (seed 57th), but he got upset by Larry Lurr and then eliminated by HERO in losers for a relatively low 97th place underperformance.

Not HERO, Kurama. The Larry Lurr set was game 5. Falco isn't that bad of a MU vs Steve and Larry Lurr is a pretty solid player.

Regarding Steve, there weren't that many super notable Steves attending, and Onin lost game 5 to Neo. Had he beaten Neo I could see him making top 8 from losers. He lost to Tarik in winners, game 5.

 

[NotLiquid]

You're right, I'd crossed my wires since Kurama (who eliminated chungus) was the one that was eliminated by HERO.

 

[NairWizard]

I don't feel the need to comment on Corrin since we've talked about it to death and I'm sure we'll keep doing that over time, but I do want to say that I have a lot of faith in SHADIC. He plays the old style of smash, the Leo and Nairo style, the “Don’t get hit style,” the Brawl style — and most saliently for me, my style.

I learned smash from mew2king many years ago back in Brawl when I was quite young, before Metafy was ever a thing, and this is the style he taught me, the one I’ve refined and studied over three smash titles. This is the way I’ve looked at the game, and I strongly feel Tweek and Leo’s frustration when they look at all the mashing, and their stubbornness in continuing to play “the old way.” This is the beautiful style, the good style. This is smash to me.

SHADIC is easily one of my favorite players. The way he chooses carefully between dashing in neutral and empty hopping based on what will get him hit the least, the way he sets up carefully conditioned whiff punishes with pin, the discipline with which he ignores aggressive f-smash opportunities that another Corrin like Neo would have taken, and heck, even his strong visible emotional response to half the hits he takes as if to say, “No, that’s not acceptable, I got hit because I guessed and I shouldn’t have guessed” — that’s a legend in my eyes, that’s the old style.

And I want to believe that that style still works (which zackray and Leo both tried to show this Genesis too).

I would very much enjoy a SHADIC win even if I don’t think so highly of Corrin, and I do think he has a favorable bracket for it overall. I’ll be rooting for him today.

 

[NairWizard]

apparently I jinxed him while trying to hype him up, my bad

 

[Rizen]

Tweek humbled Riddles in game 3 oh my goodness; my man took <30% lol

EDIT: Anyone else surprised by the relative lack of Steves in this tournament? Maybe it's just the feed I was watching, but I'm struggling to recall any blockhead mains on stream today. Almost thought Genesis had taken a page out of the LMBM rulebook and banned him...

Onin with Steve and Ouch with Wolf did win doubles as some consolation.

 

[Rran]

That was peak Tweek in Game 5 against Tea

EDIT: nice lil' post-game interview w/ him, as well

 

[Rran]

Okay, so initially I was put off by Zomba's seemingly conceited demeanor, but his post-game interview after 3-0'ing Sonix kinda won me over lmao

He is absolutely playing up the heel role, and it takes brass to gas yourself up like that when now everyone in that auditorium would like to see you fail. This kid's got moxie...

 

[NairWizard]

Corrin definitely does not look like a Sonic answer, that matchup looks kinda bad at top level (and KEN seems to play it wrong), despite some of the evidence to the contrary we've seen over the months. It's probably a little better than Cloud-Sonic, but I think sparg0 will have to mix up Sonix by switching between Aegis/Corrin/Cloud if he wants to consistently come ahead in that player matchup. That's gotta be rough to have to keep three characters in rotation just for one player, but I guess that's how strong Sonix is. Pretty incredible game 5 of losers finals.


Also, Sonix's consistency is insane. Top 2 at every single event since Miami, right? Or even before that, there were 1sts and 2nds since GOML back in July, minus the one random 25th at smash con:

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Sonix has put the Corrin matchup as "Difficult to win" on his recent matchup chart, just because Sonix is outplaying Sparg0 and Neo doesn't mean Corrin doesn't go even or slightly win in the matchup. Just as an example, Sparg0 sometimes tries to counter the spin-dash but that's always a bad decision Sparg0 is doing that'll cause him to get punished a large amount of the time.

 

[NairWizard]

Sonix has put the Corrin matchup as "Difficult to win" on his recent matchup chart, just because Sonix is outplaying Sparg0 and Neo doesn't mean Corrin doesn't go even or slightly win in the matchup. Just as an example, Sparg0 sometimes tries to counter the spin-dash but that's always a bad decision Sparg0 is doing that'll cause him to get punished a large amount of the time.

Yeah, fair, but I'm not actually considering results when I say that a matchup is hard, I'm talking about what I see in the games. Sonix and sparg0 are both making plenty of mistakes in the MU, but each time it happens, Sonix brings an additional layer of counterplay, while sparg0 (and Corrin in general) is relying on the same base strengths but with more polish. It feels like an MU destined to get worse with time, similar to Aegis vs. Sonic but instead of starting at +1 and going to 0/-1 it's going to start at 0 and go down to -1/-2.


The reason people think Corrin goes even or wins is because of Corrin's arcing hitboxes, which makes neutral hard for Sonic. Or to be more precise, it makes it harder for Sonic to spin freely, since the arcs will hit Sonic from above, an issue that he faces in the Fox matchup as well when Fox jumps over and n-airs. Sonic has to play neutral focused on dash attacks and f-airs in this MU and that opens him up to Corrin's whiff punishing, which is good.

At Genesis, sparg0 brought a whiff punishing strategy to counter Sonic, and it worked pretty well vs. KEN (despite going to game 5), but Sonix was able to adapt on the fly with feints in neutral. When Corrin tries to whiff punish you she has to give up stage position (reverse up-air, b-air, or Pin variants), so if you feint her out then you get pretty big reward since she's already near the edge of the stage.

Seeing Sonix demonstrate that live tells me that the whiff punishing counter tactic isn't viable long-term. Playing such a strategy, the risk-reward is in Sonic's favor, so sparg0 will have to bring more aggressive Corrin measures -- he tried, here and there, to help close out the set, but it didn't work.

The reason sparg0 is going for those weird-looking counters is because he's getting desperate to hit something, which is happening because Sonix is choking him out and baiting him on the whiff punish attempts. Next time, if sparg0 goes Corrin again, I expect to see more dash-in shield, more jump in reverse n-air hitbox and less up-air.

f-air is Corrin's best combo starter and it also feels like it'll be harder and harder to land falling f-air as the Sonic side of the matchup develops. It takes a little time to set up, and Sonic has ways to hit you for trying to set it up. A little more horizontal range or a little more airspeed on Corrin would be a game-changer for landing it in this MU.


Anyway, I guess we don't want to get into move vs. move analysis in this thread, so let's zoom out a bit. sparg0 chose Corrin over Aegis for this MU for two reasons:
a) Corrin is harder to edgeguard
b) Corrin can insta-pin to hit Sonic if Sonic hangs on to ledge, which Mythra can't really do much against, defusing ledge tension

a) is going to get less important given how many ways Sonic can edgeguard Corrin. The Aegis is going to be a good mixup whenever that's happening, because Aegis presents several advantages over Corrin. They are very similar characters for the most part, whiff punishing swordies with some noticeable holes in neutral but strong vertical conversations.


This situation reminds me a little of the way it was hard for Sonic to fight Ike in early Smash 4, but in the long-term that matchup didn't end up being that bad, because Sonic then and Sonic now is an option-rich character who excels from finding those vulnerable zones in your neutral spacing and pushing advantage. That situation wasn't bad for Ike, though. While wouldn't pick up Ike just to counter Sonic, if you already played Ike and had another character, you could swap between them based on the stage to eke out wins. I imagine sparg0 will have to do this vs. Sonix, rotating his sword options including Corrin.




There are plenty of matchups where Corrin does well; I don't think we need to force this "does well vs. Game and Watch, Steve, and Sonic" narrative to properly rate her. She beats Lucina, beats Kazuya, beats Mario and Ness pretty hard -- those are important matchups to win in a bracket already.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I wonder if we're actually going to get to a point where people think Sonic loses 0 MUs (like some Sonic mains have said in the past). I could see it.

I think Corrin is one of Sonic's worst MUs but I'm not entirely sure it's not even. Sonic is a top 2 character, after all. I do think she does a bit better than Aegis, though (but not that much better).

I think we need to keep in mind that "does well vs X" is relative to how strong the character is. Doing well vs a high tier or a mid tier might mean a +1 or +2 MU. Doing well vs a top 3 character might mean even. Steve, Sonic, and G&W barely lose MUs (I don't think Steve does, and it's entirely possible Sonic doesn't lose any MUs either, I could see G&W having 0 losing MUs as well if pushed, these three characters seem to be a step above the rest).

I don't think Corrin loses to any of them though. I'd say Corrin is the 3rd best character against Steve (and Neo did beat Onin) but it's still even at best (and it's entirely possible Steve beats Corrin slightly, the character is really, really overtuned). She's probably a top 3 character against Sonic too (might be a slight win or could just be even, Sonic is likely the 2nd best character in the game). Corrin vs G&W seems even (I do think G&W loses some MUs though, he's only #3 in the game, not quite as strong as Steve or Sonic).

Ultimately, I don't think this game is quite as balanced as people think. It's not that bad aside from the top 3-5 being really overtuned. If only we had like, one more balance patch the game could've been in a much better state... Oh well. It's still better balanced than Smash 4 and Brawl, at least.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I think this event should still be taken as a positive for Corrin as a whole, after all three Corrin's made top 8, with SHADIC and Neo getting really good wins at the event. SHADIC beating Maister and Yaura are both huge wins, as top Corrin players had never managed to beat top G&W players before. SHADIC, Neo and Leo's Corrin never beat Maister before (and Neo has also never beaten Miya), and Corrin was said to have a bad matchup against Samus but SHADIC managed to overcome it over a top 20 player in the world. SHADIC also beat Glutonny, which is extremely impressive even in a good matchup against Wario, given how good Glutonny is. Neo also beat Zackray, KEN and Onin, which are all great wins too.

Larry mentions this:

I think the big take away from Genesis is that Corrin stocks are at an all time high. 2 Corrin mains(3 players counting Sparg0) made top 8 of the most stacked event of the year so far

— Larry Lurr (@LarryLurr) February 19, 2024

Anyway results for Genesis X.

1. Zomba
2. Sonix
3. Sparg0
4. Tweek
5. Light / Neo
7. Tea / SHADIC
9. Maister / KEN / Shuton / Riddles
13. Glutonny / Zackray / Gackt / Akakikusu
17. MVD / Jakal / Onin / Miya / Kola / Asimo / Skeleton / Raflow
25. Oryon / Flow / Lui$ / MuteAce / loaf / MKLeo / Peckham / Dabuz
33. Shirayuki / ApolloKage / BassMage / Bloom4Eva / AndresFn / Noi / Taikei / Kaninabe / Tilde / Wildz / Yaura / Tarik / Niko / Lima / WebbJP / Kiyarash

 

[NairWizard]

Yeah, this tournament was good for Corrin. The Gluto win in particular is good! For those who don't know, one of the reasons Leo dropped Corrin is because Gluto was beating his Corrin so badly that Leo thought the matchup was impossible. Corrin-Wario is still likely Wario-favored, even though Gluto lost to a Corrin here, similar to how people are arguing that Corrin-Sonic is even despite sparg0 and Neo losing to Sonix, but in the other direction. Winning in that MU and the Yaura MU shows that Corrin has counterplay to her harder MUs.

On Corrin in general, she's solid, and I really like the character (as well as SHADIC). I've played a lot of Corrin myself and I've played her against some pretty good players too -- BassMage, Monte, Lui$. Fire Emblem also happens to be my favorite video game series.

I view her as somewhere in the middle of a cast of mostly playable characters. I don't think she does particularly well into Game and Watch or Sonic; there are about a dozen characters I'd rather play against both of those. But she is one of the best choices against a number of very stubby characters who could ruin your bracket, like Ness or Mario.



In part, I'm being rough on Corrin because the cherrypicking when it comes to Corrin really annoys me. In most discussions these days, every Corrin win is a testament to the character's strength, and every loss is "but that doesn't mean anything, the character just lost because the player was making mistakes." If X top player thinks Corrin is top 20, that's mentioned everywhere, but Y top player quietly puts Corrin in top 40 (like Neo saying she's in the top 40) and no one ever talks about that as if it doesn't exist as counterevidence.

3 Corrins made top 8 but not a single Corrin in top 8 won against a non-Corrin, but you don't hear about that part, because the talk of the day is always how good Corrin is and never about her shortcomings or weaknesses.

I like Corrin just as much as some of you, but someone needs to talk about her deficiencies if we are to have any kind of balanced perspective. Every Corrin discussion you walk into can't be an echo chamber of positive sentiment because nothing gets discussed that way. What is there to discuss? Everyone agrees that she's good now, for the last half year+ people have been saying Corrin is strong.



It was the same kind of thing I saw a couple of years back with Byleth. People were overhyping him because Leo was winning everything. If I posted somewhere about Byleth's obvious weaknesses, there would be 5 people telling me that I'm blind for not seeing the character's obvious strengths.


Somehow it's always Fire Emblem that causes this kind of thing.

 

[Frihetsanka]

KEN also lost to Sparg0 and Neo. It's entirely possible that it's just an even MU, maybe Sonic doesn't lose any MUs at all? I think she's definitely one of the best into Sonic but it's entirely possible Sonic doesn't lose MUs.

I do think Corrin slightly beats Wario but it's not entirely implausible that it's even. Neo thinks it's good for Corrin, at least.

As for Corrin being overrated now, it's possible. I think she's top 15 or top 20 but it's entirely possible she's actually just around top 25. Then again, for the past 3 and a half years she's been significantly underrated by almost everyone.

I also still see a lot of people downplay Corrin (at least in Discord, less so on Reddit or pro tier lists these days). It's getting less common, though. 2023 was a really good year for Corrin and 2024 is starting strong as well. People were calling her a mid tier for years, even after the 2020 buffs (before it's possible she was mid tier, hard to say, SHADIC certainly believed in her even before the buffs, but after the buffs she most certainly wasn't mid tier). I don't know how many times I've seen a commentator call Corrin a mid tier in 2022 or even 2023. I'm hoping it'll be 0 in 2024 (probably, I can't imagine many people still think she's a mid tier).

Corrin's situation is very different from Byleth's situation. Byleth was carried by MkLeo, with Ly using her together with Corrin with some success (though Ly is doing better since he swapped to mainly Corrin). I don't think we ever saw an MkLeo Byleth top 8 a major, yet we've now seen both SHADIC and Neo do it multiple times (and Sparg0 and MkLeo have both had some success with Corrin as a secondary/pocket).

 

[NairWizard]

edit: you know what, never mind. I'm moving on.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

You know, I want to bring up ROB, given that Zomba won. I think ROB is actually on the same level/possibly better then G&W and therefore in contention for top 3. This character has everything, especially with the new tech that allows nair to be positive on shield after using up-B and Zomba has conquered most of ROB's bad matchups at this point other then and , notably 3-0'ing Tilde's and 3-1'ing Sparg0's at GENESIS which is very impressive, and Zomba won a couple of B Tiers in January-February. In addition, Anathema's ROB did very well at King of Bombs, notably beating MuteAce and getting 2nd to SHADIC.

Plus if we get into the theory, ROB has several touch of death combos with gyro setups starting from that nair, and a lot of them are pretty realistic to get in a tournament environment. Then there's other moves like down-tilt, which is up there for one of the best down-tilts in the entire series, laser is a great zoning tool and bair is a good kill move that Zomba is really good at conditioning players to get by.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I have ROB as #4, but I could see the character potentially being #3 if someone really pushes him. Zomba could potentially be a top 5 player in 2024, I believe he could do it. WhyDo made a very interesting video back in October 2022:

WhyDo jokingly called ROB a "Projectile Zoner Rushdown Brawler Grappler Combo Swordie" and to some extent he has a point... ROB sure can do most of those things, and he does them well! The character is big though, and does get comboed.

 

[Rizen]

@Official Tier List

I think people put too much weight on top players' performances when judging characters. ROB's been on the top of Lumirank forever, only under Steve, but people didn't recognize him as a top tier for a long time. Conversely I think several characters' positions on the tier list are slightly inflated by their mains being so skilled. IMO G&W is top tier but not top 5 and Miya's just really good at reading people. I think Diddy's slightly worse than people ranked him due to having some wonky bad MUs with characters like YL and DH and also having very low kill power. But Tweek's skill has inflated his ranking. I also think Fox is inflated by Light being so good.

I judge character ranks on a tier list by how easy it is for them to win tournaments and a large part of that is MUs. I think Fox and G&W being extremely light is a valid weakness just like Aegis' recovery is. They have excellent tools for winning neutral and generally doing well vs opponents but if they get outplayed a little bit they die at 80% off a read. This makes their MUs not as lopsided in their favor, as evident by Miya losing to Zackray's Dark Pit. If a mid level player were to pick up Fox or G&W I don't see them doing quite as well as Light or Miya even relative to a mid level setting.

I say this because I play Young Link, who also has amazing tools in neutral but is on the lighter side and has poor kill power. In theory YL should be one of the best characters because he beats almost everyone in neutral but in practice you don't win neutral every time. Having a discrepancy in when you kill an opponent and when they kill you can be a great leveler. Being light and/or having low kill power are real flaws. Although tbf, Diddy, Fox and G&W do have a lot over YL that makes them better overall characters.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Zackray and Miya made their own top 10 characters

zackray and Miya ranking the top 10 characters (Source in the replies) pic.twitter.com/0Upt9YRXOA

— naru/なる🔜🇯🇵 (@naruinvegas) February 21, 2024

 

[Frihetsanka]

Some of the obvious stuff: Peach relatively high (#3, #5), Snake low #7, #9), Yoshi extremely high (#6, #3), ROB not top 10 (!), Diddy high (#8, #10), Aegis high (#2, #6, the latter is understandable but the former, in 2024? Huh).

 

[Emblem Lord]

I wonder if we're actually going to get to a point where people think Sonic loses 0 MUs (like some Sonic mains have said in the past). I could see it.

I think Corrin is one of Sonic's worst MUs but I'm not entirely sure it's not even. Sonic is a top 2 character, after all. I do think she does a bit better than Aegis, though (but not that much better).

I think we need to keep in mind that "does well vs X" is relative to how strong the character is. Doing well vs a high tier or a mid tier might mean a +1 or +2 MU. Doing well vs a top 3 character might mean even. Steve, Sonic, and G&W barely lose MUs (I don't think Steve does, and it's entirely possible Sonic doesn't lose any MUs either, I could see G&W having 0 losing MUs as well if pushed, these three characters seem to be a step above the rest).

I don't think Corrin loses to any of them though. I'd say Corrin is the 3rd best character against Steve (and Neo did beat Onin) but it's still even at best (and it's entirely possible Steve beats Corrin slightly, the character is really, really overtuned). She's probably a top 3 character against Sonic too (might be a slight win or could just be even, Sonic is likely the 2nd best character in the game). Corrin vs G&W seems even (I do think G&W loses some MUs though, he's only #3 in the game, not quite as strong as Steve or Sonic).

Ultimately, I don't think this game is quite as balanced as people think. It's not that bad aside from the top 3-5 being really overtuned. If only we had like, one more balance patch the game could've been in a much better state... Oh well. It's still better balanced than Smash 4 and Brawl, at least.

I absolutely think Sonic is already at a level where he doesn't really lose to anyone.

Too much mobility and too much burst. Too easy to choke you out slowly in neutral with basic ground control and whiff punishes.

 

[L9999]

Sonix seems like the type of player who is just gonna figure out every matchup eventually.

He used to lose a lot to Aegis and now he whoops all her players, and IIRC has never lost a set to Corrin ever since MK Leo (before playing Corrin was cool).

The same goes for Zomba. He could care less about running into Aegis or Bayonetta, he whoops all their players, maybe one of these days he figures out Miya.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I absolutely think Sonic is already at a level where he doesn't really lose to anyone.

Entirely possible. Corrin and Fox seem like the most likely candidates for beating Sonic but I could see them being even.

He used to lose a lot to Aegis and now he whoops all her players, and IIRC has never lost a set to Corrin ever since MK Leo (before playing Corrin was cool).

If you count online he loses to Sparg0's Corrin sometimes (Coinbox).

Then again, we know that people can win even if it's a bad MU. Tweek beat Tea, and Pac-Man is notoriously bad for Diddy Kong.

 

[Rizen]

Have any notable Sonic players made a Sonic MU chart?

I think Sonic's definitely top 5. I still think Aegis and Joker are better though because they win MUs harder. But I play Wolf and YL, who probably go even with Sonic so I might be underestimating him. I used KRool against Sonic once and that felt pretty bad. It's like trying to hit a squirrel with a tank. I do think Sonic has a lot of even MUs with strong characters but it's hard to judge. One thing I'll say about the Sonic MU is it gets considerably better if you take Sonic to small stages. Sonic's a very stage dependent character. Once I beat Sonic with YL on PS2, he CPed me to Kalos and won, then I CPed him to BF and switched to Link and won. Sonic is much easier if he can't run out of the range of Link's projectiles.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Have any notable Sonic players made a Sonic MU chart?

I think Sonic's definitely top 5. I still think Aegis and Joker are better though because they win MUs harder. But I play Wolf and YL, who probably go even with Sonic so I might be underestimating him. I used KRool against Sonic once and that felt pretty bad. It's like trying to hit a squirrel with a tank. I do think Sonic has a lot of even MUs with strong characters but it's hard to judge. One thing I'll say about the Sonic MU is it gets considerably better if you take Sonic to small stages. Sonic's a very stage dependent character. Once I beat Sonic with YL on PS2, he CPed me to Kalos and won, then I CPed him to BF and switched to Link and won. Sonic is much easier if he can't run out of the range of Link's projectiles.

Sonix did one not too long ago, but it's not a traditional one.

execution based mu chart - no winning/losing/even - NOT a traditional mu chart pic.twitter.com/z1blsOFHxo

— LG Sonix (@UltimateSonix) December 24, 2023

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Dojo #106 results. It's a pre-local for King Con and was fairly top heavy. Leo and Sparg0 notably went their secondaries at this event for experimentation and testing the waters.

1. Neo
2. Sparg0
3. MkLeo
4. Raflow
5. BassMage / KID
7. Neeroz / PeW
9. MoDzai / SOLO / ChunkyKong / Skyjay

I am 100% not posting this because of the Corrin agenda.

 

[NairWizard]

I feel like I’m going to go insane if I hear one more thing about Corrin. The bias from Corrin fans is so strong that it’s hard to talk about the topic at all, but also necessary since Corrin is prominent in the meta.

taking a break from this thread to avoid the Corrin talk post King Con, will still give Metafy lessons over Discord as usual

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I feel like I’m going to go insane if I hear one more thing about Corrin. The bias from Corrin fans is so strong that it’s hard to talk about the topic at all, but also necessary since Corrin is prominent in the meta.

taking a break from this thread to avoid the Corrin talk post King Con, will still give Metafy lessons over Discord as usual

The Corrin agenda comment was a joke tbf. I posted the pre-local results because it was fairly stacked and top heavy so I thought the pre-local would be interesting to discuss.

 

[Rizen]

If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck! has gotten far too many results to be anything less than upper high tier. Although I do think the flavor of the month thing will wear off eventually; just like with Lucina and Roy. It's like I said: swords are really powerful in the meta. That is why I refuse to believe Ike is worse than mid tier.

 

[NairWizard]

The Corrin agenda comment was a joke tbf. I posted the pre-local results because it was fairly stacked and top heavy so I thought the pre-local would be interesting to discuss.

You're fine, I got that you were joking.

I'm venting general frustration, since it just feels impossible to have a conversation on Corrin anywhere. Half the smash servers I'm in are talking about Corrin, it's on twitter, etc. And the consistent theme is that people are only talking about the most cherrypicked positive aspects of the character, from results to theory.

Even if you try to talk about bad matchups, someone will cite a top Corrin's opinion and choose the opinion most favorable to the character as counter, without a shred of matchup detail. It's a quagmire of uncontestable confirmation bias.

I mean, let me put it another way.

Here's just a slice of the positive sentiment I'm seeing:

• Corrin clearly beats characters like Ness, Mario, Kazuya, etc. No one is arguing that.
• Neo and SHADIC have common winning MUs like Lucina so we'll give them most of those.
• Leo recently claimed (some tier list video that got sent to me and timestamped on Discord, it's probably on the Luminosity channel) that Corrin does well vs. ZSS, Snake, Palutena, ROB, and Fox, and possibly beats Diddy.
  • Even though some of those have been seen as harder MUs for Corrin, it's pretty clear that meta developments are pushing them in the other direction -- even ApolloKage had the matchup with Snake listed as even. So if you take only positive sentiment into account, you also have all those from Leo to fall back on.
• Common perception says that she does well against Sonic, Game and Watch, Steve, and Min Min (I disagree on almost all of these, but let's leave my disagreement aside; we're focusing on positive sentiment).
• Then you have the meta evidence -- Corrin's hardest MUs are supposed to be Samus and Roy, but SHADIC has made those look pretty free for Corrin with a little consistency in advantage, beating Yaura and Kola (Kola so hard that he looked lost), so in the current meta they're sitting closer to even.
• And then I'm hearing you guys say that Corrin beats Wario.
  

If you take all that and a few other options I've seen, and aggregate it all into a single list showing only the highlights, you get a matchup chart that would probably look something like this (not exact at all, just threw it together in 30 seconds):

...which is absolutely a top 3 matchup chart.

That is what's bugging me. The Corrin hype base is talking about Corrin as though she is in the Sonic/Steve tier of game characters and then placing her in only high tier. The discourse is extremely inconsistent with the perception, and trying to cut through it to arrive at some kind of competitive truth feels like punching through Steve stone blocks with Mario.


Even if you ignore most of the positive matchups and most of Leo's opinion, a character who is even or better vs. all of Game and Watch, Steve, Sonic, Snake, and ROB, and beats Wario/Min Min/Kazuya is probably not "top 20," but closer to top 5.

It's true that sometimes, a character can be good against top tiers but struggle against random mid tiers. The poster monkey for this is usually Diddy Kong. But Diddy Kong is a very different kind of character from Corrin! He has a specific tool (transcendent banana) that makes him strong against some great characters (swords, Min Min) but that works less well against random wonky zoners, whom he struggles to beat (Pacman, DHD).

Corrin, on the other hand, doesn't have very niche tools like that; she is a generic sword user with strong whiff punishing thanks to pin.

In addition, the 5-8 characters we're talking about that she theoretically does well against are so universally strong and versatile, with unique kits, that it's impossible to do well vs. all of them unless your general level of power is just very high. Falco does pretty well vs. Steve and ROB, for instance, but folds vs. Sonic. For an example of a far more versatile character, Fox does great vs. Sonic and Snake but folds to Game and Watch.


If Corrin is so strong that she's among the best picks against that diverse group of strong characters, then she's definitely not losing to Palutena or Fox or Roy, let alone someone like Belmont, are people serious with that claim? I can't believe that a character with the strength to overcome blocks, Fire!, spindash, grenade, and gyro that consistently could lose to cookie-cutter characters with generic power profiles.


Either Corrin does incredibly well vs. the top 5 characters and has all these incredible matchups and results and is clearly in top 5 contention, OR there are some things that the current theory is missing and she's actually lower and has more losing matchups than is discussed.


I'm not even saying that it's impossible for Corrin to be top 5 -- in fact, as someone who values bold takes, I might buy it, if you spun up that argument and focused on what she still isn't doing that could be done. I'm just annoyed by the way people are talking about it, with a total lack of nuance, and that the viewpoint is incongruous with itself.


"yeah Corrin beats/goes even with all these characters, including the 5 best ones but also most of the cast if you listen to the top Corrins"
"oh and btw she's top 20 maybe"

Like, huh?


/rant (apologies to thread, I'm the one complaining about Corrin discourse and then I'm the one talking about it the most)

 

[Frihetsanka]

lf the smash servers I'm in are talking about Corrin, it's on twitter, etc. And the consistent theme is that people are only talking about the most cherrypicked positive aspects of the character, from results to theory.

Interesting. My experience has mostly been the opposite (people generally being a bit more pessimistic about Corrin, saying she's worse than Byleth etc, though less of that recently, many still think she's worse than Lucina though).

Leo recently claimed (some tier list video that got sent to me and timestamped on Discord, it's probably on the Luminosity channel) that Corrin does well vs. ZSS, Snake, Palutena, ROB, and Fox, and possibly beats Diddy.

I think I've seen two people claiming Corrin might beat Diddy Kong: Aaron (who thinks she's top 10 and maybe even top 5), and now MkLeo. I don't agree with that take, I think it's even or slightly Diddy advantage. Same with Palutena (I'm leaning even), ZSS (leaning slight ZSS win). ROB is even or slight Corrin win (leaning slight Corrin). Fox is probably slightly losing for Corrin (she juggles and ledgetraps him well but his rushdown can be a struggle for Corrin).

Most Corrin mains think Snake is a -2 MU for Corrin and likely her second worst MU (Sheik being the worst). ApolloKage used to have it as +2 for Snake, he recently changed his mind after Neo beating him up in friendlies and in tournament, but I think that has more to do with Neo grinding the MU after being tired of losing to Snakes rather than it being a decent MU for Corrin. The MU seems really bad to me (and is probably holding Corrin back quite a bit).

Then you have the meta evidence -- Corrin's hardest MUs are supposed to be Samus and Roy, but SHADIC has made those look pretty free for Corrin with a little consistency in advantage, beating Yaura and Kola (Kola so hard that he looked lost), so in the current meta they're sitting closer to even.

I don't think those are supposed to be her hardest MUs. I think Roy is even (and SHADIC is, right now, likely a better player than Kola), and Samus slightly losing (SHADIC has lost to several good Samus players in the past, it's a very doable MU but quite annoying for Corrin).

Sephiroth is likely her third worst MU, luckily for Corrin it's not a very common character. I've had it as -2 for quite some time but lately I've been thinking it might just be -1.

Some characters you didn't mention that I think Corrin loses to (slightly) are Greninja, Joker, and Shulk (I'm not entirely sure about Shulk though, I could see it being even, maybe Greninja too but it does seem to be somewhat Greninja favored). There are also a bunch of characters that she might slightly lose to but I currently lean even (like Bayonetta, Mii Gunner, Pikachu, Aegis).

Overall, I think Corrin does really well into this meta (although Snake being common is a serious issue for her). If the meta were more focused on Snake, Sheik, Samus, Joker, Fox, and Sephiroth she'd probably do worse, though. She's also strong in general, especially since Ultimate is very advantage-state oriented (her juggling is amazing and she racks up damage easily in general and has some of the easiest ways to find kills in neutral and advantage out of meta relevant characters). I actually think she's slightly better than in Smash 4, both as a meta character (Smash 4 Corrin, while strong and likely either high-high tier or low top tier, did lose to many top tiers) and as a character in general. While there are some things she misses from Smash 4 (like shield dropping) other changes benefitted her, and updates from patches powered her up.

So, I think Corrin is better than in Smash 4, and is a very strong character in this meta. I do think she has some flaws and she definitely loses more than two MUs. I don't think I'll ever put her in top 5, that'd mean her being stronger than characters like Steve, Sonic, G&W, ROB, and Snake. Is she even stronger than Joker or Aegis? Probably not.

There are so many good characters though and so many that seemed like they would be super good (like Wolf and Roy and Palutena) that have fallen off quite a bit. Perhaps Corrin will end up there one day as well, it's entirely possible. People used to put G&W in like top 20, and then Miya came and showed us what he can do.

Are people not counter-playing Corrin correctly? Neo seems to think so, but Corrin has been in Ultimate since 2018, and Smash 4 since 2016. Granted, she wasn't a meta relevant character in Ultimate until recently. I'm a bit curious what the counter-play will be (aside from shield SDI:ing in some situations).

One of the big upsides for Corrin is that she's relatively easy to play and won't drain your stamina too much (unlike, say, Joker or Sheik). She's not quite as easy as Steve* or G&W, but still definitely on the easier side.

*Sure, he can do advanced tech, but it's not like you need to in order to win. It's Steve, do basic Steve stuff and he's still #1 in the game.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

This is SHADIC's Corrin matchup chart from over a year ago. It's a bit outdated, as it's before Neo's rise and SHADIC's massive leap in skill, but I think most of it is still fairly accurate. At least more accurate then the one where she loses 2-3 matchups.

Ngl though, even if you think all of this is correct, this still looks like a top 10-15 matchup chart to me. I think Sheik being in even and Sephiroth in winning is the most contestable thing about this.

One thing I will say is that I was mostly guessing when it comes to Corrin vs Wario. I assumed "Whiff punishing swordie" vs "character with great air mobility but few disjoints on hitboxes" to be bad for Wario, as it's mostly the same reasons Yoshi struggles against sword characters. But I guess SHADIC and Leo disagree with me.

 

[Frihetsanka]

He made an updated version where he put Fox and Snake in -2 (I agree with Snake and disagree with Fox, and I think Sheik and maybe Sephiroth should also be -2). He also put Sephiroth in even and some other changes.

Here's one that Neo and SHADIC made together.

Me and Shadic made a corrin MU chart
Shadicと一緒に相性表作りました pic.twitter.com/1SQCGEjTV8

— Neo (@Neo_356) June 18, 2023

Both Neo and SHADIC were asked (separately) recently where they think Corrin is. SHADIC wasn't quite sure but though somewhere around top 25 (he said this on his recent Genesis X VOD-review stream). Neo thinks she's top 35 or top 40 as a character, but could be top 15 in the current meta... Which is an interesting way to think about tier lists. To what extent does meta factor in?

This one put Wario as +1 btw. Back when it was posted (June 2023) I mostly agreed with it, now I think it's a bit pessimistic (mostly because I have a more favorable view of Corrin now compared to 2023, when I thought she was around top 30 or so).

 

[Emblem Lord]

So besides Pin, what are Corrin players abusing and doing that Aegis players aren't? The general gameplan of be abusive in footsies and control space is the same for both, no? So, I'm confused.

 

[Frihetsanka]

As a former Aegis main and current Corrin main, here is my take:

Overall, I would say Corrin has a better advantage state and disadvantage state than Aegis, but a worse neutral than Mythra. I think Aegis are likely still better than Corrin (albeit a bit overrated, probably top 10 and Corrin is likely top 15 or top 20). I would say Aegis has two major weaknesses that hold them back from being top 5:

#1. Their recovery. This one is rather obvious. Both of them have a really bad recovery (probably around the bottom 10 range or so). Corrin's recovery, on the other hand, is pretty good. It's by no means amazing, but still, pretty good, above average I would say. It goes decently far, she has some mixup options with bair and dair and a projectile, she can angle her up-B, and it has a bunch of invincibility. Granted, it's not without flaws, and Corrin is suspectible to being edgeguarded by some characters (like Sephiroth and Arsene Joker). Still, I'd say it's above average, probably not a top 20 recovery but maybe top 30 or top 35 (I haven't really made a recovery ranking in years but somewhere around there sounds reasonable to me).

#2. The swap mechanic. It is well-known that Mythra has a strong neutral, but weak killing potential, while Pyra has a weak neutral and strong killing potential. On paper, you'd think that people could just play Mythra in neutral and swap to Pyra for killing, but in practice it's not always that easy, and it also means that it's hard for them to get stray kills from neutral. Corrin, on the other hand, can often just play neutral and get a kill (from bair, up-air, or pin mostly).

Another factor why Corrin players are doing better at top level is that the top Corrin players (SHADIC and Neo) are better than the top Aegis players (with the exception of Sparg0 and Shuton, neither of them solo main Aegis though).

 

[NairWizard]

So besides Pin, what are Corrin players abusing and doing that Aegis players aren't? The general gameplan of be abusive in footsies and control space is the same for both, no? So, I'm confused.

eh, what? This is what I mean by perception. Corrin isn't doing better than Aegis. Corrin is doing great, but let's not overstate how great.

Aegis has been ahead in OrionStats since her release, and the gap has often been 30-40 spots. Almost every PRed player has to worry about a local Aegis or two, but the same can't be said for Corrin.


Even if you focus on just recent or top major results, Sparg0 used just as much Aegis as Corrin at Genesis X (beating a Bayonetta, thus winning one important set with both characters and losing one important set with both characters), and Shuton got 9th.
At LMBM there were 0 Corrins in top 8 (except sparg0 losing a set to Sonix with part Corrin), but SHADIC at 9th.
At Umebura Shuton got 5th while there were no Corrins near top 8.
Back at Seibugeki, Ly got 17th at the same tournament where Shuton got 2nd.
And at Port Priority 8 Shuton got like 49th and sparg0 got 17th but SHADIC got 25th and Neo got 33rd at the same tourney.

Going back, sparg0 won Smash Factor and got 2nd at GOML using a healthy amount of Aegis.

And that's without Aegis even having a single solo main above the level of Blacktwins/Cloudy (who are good but obviously not top players).

To put it in perspective, Aegis gets better results than Fox would if Light started co-maining or dropped Fox. Aegis' results are impressive, not at all indicative of fundamental weaknesses of the character.

 

[Rizen]

I want to say that people tend to overstate Aegis' recovery weakness but it is a genuine flaw. Instead I'll say people don't realize just how ridiculous Aegis' strengths are. They're a monster. Both characters have amazing hitboxes with big curving arcs on all their attacks. Usually sword characters are balanced by having poor hitboxes on a few attacks like Link's Uair sticking strait up without swinging. Mythra's mobility and frame data are nuts; you cannot get out of disadvantage vs her. Foresight gives her a pretty good disadvantage state besides recovery. Then Pyra got a really good midrange projectile to cover her burst weakness. That move really boosts her kit. They also gave Pyra a f3 kill jab in case her other options were too slow. People are underestimating them since their best players don't use them as much but they were still #3 on Lumirank. All I can say is thank god they got a bad recovery because otherwise they'd be better than Steve.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think it's important to keep in mind that perception matters when it comes to representation.

Aegis, on release, was considered a contender for #1, and kept being considered a contender for #1 until around September/October 2022 or so.

Case in point: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/...ial_rsmashbros_ultimate_tier_list_julyaugust/

This was for July/August 2022. Pyra/Mythra were voted #1. Corrin was voted Mid Tier +. It's no surprise that Aegis have significantly better representation than Corrin, Corrin was considered to be a mid tier by the community until late 2022/early 2023 if we are to believe Reddit (and based on how people were talking about her, I think that was generally the case, either high-mid tier or low high tier).

In September/October 2021 Corrin was voted lower than characters like Mewtwo, Lucas, Toon Link, Ike. I've seen people go to great lengths to argue that Ike was better than Corrin back then... No wonder few people played Corrin, people thought she was mid.

I think all of us can agree that back in 2021 and 2022, Pyra/Mythra were overrated (to some degree at least, virtually no one think they're #1 now, and few would place them as #2 or #3), and Corrin was underrated (she's definitely not a mid tier). No wonder that people would opt for Aegis over Corrin! Furthermore, while Corrin is generally easy to play, there was also the common perception that Aegis is also really easy to play. Is that true? I don't necessarily think so, but that's what people seemed to think back then. Given the choice between a character perceived to be #1 in the game and easy to pick up and play, and a character who was perceived to be a mid tier, it's no wonder people would opt for the former.

In 2024, the common perception seems to have shifted a bit. Aegis is now generally perceived to be like #5 at best, and many have Aegis in top 10 now rather than top 3 or top 5. Corrin, meanwhile, is generally perceived to be a high-high tier character, sometimes even low top tier! Furthermore, people tend to be more willing to pick up new DLC characters than picking up some old Smash 4 veteran who they think might be underrated.

At the end of the day, I do think Aegis is still a better character than Corrin, but not by a lot. Aegis is probably top 10, while Corrin is probably top 15 or top 20 (my top 5 is Steve, Sonic, G&W, ROB, and Snake, and I don't see it changing anytime soon, maybe the exact order will but those 5 seem more clearly top 5 than the rest of the cast imo). If public perception had been less favorable of Aegis and more favorable of Corrin, then perhaps the gap between the two in mid level results wouldn't have been as significant. If people, back in 2020, had viewed Corrin as favorably as they do now, then I do believe she'd have more players, both at top level (maybe not many though) and at high/mid level. Unfortunately, probably due to the lack of top level representation (SHADIC was 13 years old in 2020 and Neo didn't play Corrin), people underrated Corrin back in 2020, 2021, 2022. It was only in 2023 people started getting a more realistic view of what Corrin could do.