Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[NairWizard]

holy smokes

 

[Frihetsanka]

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.

Yeah, it's their strengths that make them top 10 despite having glaring flaws. It's interesting how people think Chrom is like, mid tier despite being similar to Roy in many ways, and many people cite his recovery holding him down. I don't know if I think Aegis has a much better recovery, but greater strengths make up for it, making them a top 10 character still.

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.

I would say people are more overestimating them than underestimating them, at least historically. Can't say I see many people put them outside of top 10 (MkLeo did, though). These days they might be closer to accurately rated, perhaps?

I don't think they would be better than Steve with a better recovery but maybe better than Sonic. If they also gave Mythra some better kill options (maybe give her Corrin's up-throw or something) the character would be nasty. Still really good though and clearly top tier.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for King Con

1. MkLeo
2. Sparg0
3. Raflow
4. Bloom4Eva
5. Neo
5. KID
7. Tarik
7. Oryon
9. MKBigBoss
9. quiK
9. ApolloKage
9. Neeroz
13. AndresFn
13. Flow
13. MazeBeans
13. Ente
17. Poww
17. Raarchyor
17. Marss
17. Leon
17. Sisqui
17. Etish
17. ChunkyKong
17. Mezcaul

The GOAT is back???

 

[Frihetsanka]

When did MkLeo use Byleth? I only saw Joker but I didn't watch every set. Nice to see MkLeo doing well again, I was hoping he'd lose to Sparg0 though since I want to see Sparg0 as #1 in the world.

Bloom4Eva got double eliminated by Sparg0 for 4th, unlucky. He took Sparg0 to game 5 though! Bayonetta is such a strong character, and Bloom4Eva such a strong player.

Raflow is showing that he's most likely the best Palutena player right now. Nice! Good to see some European players popping off too a bit.

Neo's set vs Sparg0 was "0-3 but it was close though". Game 2 he was winning with Sparg0 at 131.6%, while he was at 0%, but he didn't manage to land another hit and then eventually bet it all on f-smash on shield, but Sparg0 rolled away and killed him with an f-smash near the ledge when Neo was at 85.6%. Unfortunate, had he won game 2 I think the set could've gone very differently... Game 3 he seemed a bit discouraged. Game 1 was also looking good for Neo early on but Sparg0 got a comeback. Both of them are incredible at parrying. Neo is looking like a top 15/20 player right now, another top 8 major finish (5th) with some solid wins (MKBigBoss, Tarik, AndresFn, also Poww, Peanut, and Spectral). As for the Palutena, here's what I think happened: He beat Spectral's Samus game 1, and then he felt "Man, I really don't feel like playing Corrin vs Samus right now", picked Palutena, and proceeded to win twice in a row due to superior fundamentals. He could've won that with Corrin most likely but didn't want to spend the mental energy, is my guess. Having to face Sparg0 for 5th was unfortunate, I think he could've beaten Raflow, Bloom4Eva, and MkLeo if he got a chance to play them, Sparg0 was the biggest threat... Unfortunately he lost to Neeroz the Pikachu 2-3 in winners the day before, oh well. At least he climbed back from losers! A lesser player would've lost before making top 8.

KID is proving that Mii Brawler is more than just a gimmick and likely a solid high tier character. Some think the character has the potential to be top tier, and I could see it, potentially, but I need more data before I'll start putting the character in top tier. For now, high tier seems reasonable.

Tarik's story is similar to Neo's. He lost his top 32 qualifier (same as Neo) to Poww (who Neo beat in losers), and then he went on to beat Supahsemmie, Space, Leon (the French Lucina), Flow, and quiK, before losing to Neo for 7th.

Neeroz (the Pikachu who upset Neo), with seed 32, ended up beating Mezcaul and Ente in losers before losing to bloom4Eva (and he lost to quiK in winners), for 9th. Very solid run for someone seeded 32, especially with the Neo win!

In other news, SHADIC won a local yesterday against MuteAce (Grand Finals game 10, SHADIC from winners side after beating MuteAce in winners finals). SHADIC has gotten so good.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

When did MkLeo use Byleth? I only saw Joker but I didn't watch every set. Nice to see MkLeo doing well again, I was hoping he'd lose to Sparg0 though since I want to see Sparg0 as #1 in the world.

In other news, SHADIC won a local yesterday against MuteAce (Grand Finals game 10, SHADIC from winners side after beating MuteAce in winners finals). SHADIC has gotten so good.

Leo used Byleth in pools. But the tourney SHADIC and MuteAce won is a C-Tier by LumiRank, and more of a regional, not a local.

Speaking of, I'll do the results of the C-Tiers that happened this week too.

Okasuma SP #14
1. Asimo
2. TamaPDaifuku
3. Notton
4. DieGorou
5. Hamazou
5. Moneyright
7. Croske
7. Yn

Route 210
1. SHADIC
2. MuteAce
3. Patty
4. ToasT
5. Skeleton
5. Velta
7. Globo
7. TorTAS

 

[Frihetsanka]

Solo maining vs dual maining/main + secondary is a common topic. I decided to look at the top 50 in Lumirank, and the results maybe surprising for some. This is a rather long post, scroll down for a summary.

1. acola: While he's used Kazuya in the past and tried to use Aegis (but not with great success at majors) he's primarily using Steve, and he seems to get almost all of his results with Steve. I would say he's close to a Steve solo main.

2. Sparg0: While Sparg0 has played many characters in the past, these days he seems to mostly go Cloud for big MUs, occasionally opting for Aegis/Corrin for like, two characters (Sonic and ROB). It's plausible he might use them for other MUs as well in the future (like Corrin vs Min Min, perhaps). His choice of secondaries are also worth considering: He used to main Aegis, so keeping her as a secondary wouldn't be too difficult, and Corrin is a fairly easy character to pick up.

3. Sonix: Sonic solo main.

4. Miya: Essentially a G&W solo main. He'll bring out Steve occasionally but he doesn't really need to.

5. Glutonny: Wario solo main.

6. Light: Fox solo main.

7. Tweek: While he's played many characters in the past, and tried to juggle both Sephiroth and Diddy Kong for a while, lately he's been leaning more Diddy Kong and it seems to be paying off for him. He's even using Diddy in -2 MUs instead of Sephiroth, and still sometimes winning.

8. Yoshidora: Yoshi solo main.

9. Riddles: He plays two characters (Terry and Kazuya). Not a solo main. I'm not sure how much he's actually getting from using these two instead of sticking with one. Is Kazuya not solo-mainable, or does he not want to give up on Terry? Still, he's spent enough time on both to essentially be considered a dual-main at this point.

10. Shuton: He dual-mains Aegis and Olimar and is probably the currently strongest case for why playing more than one character is a good idea. I wonder what would happen if he tried to solo main Aegis? Would his results go up, or is Aegis too inconsistent? If he solo mained Olimar I imagine his results would go down a bit, since that character has fallen off ever since he got hit by the nerf banner (but Olimar is still a high tier).

11. MkLeo: A player who has historically played many characters, and... The Byleth is kind of not really working anymore, not as well as he would hope, at least. The Aegis has been struggling in the past too (relative to what we would expect from Leo). I could see Joker + Corrin being a good combo (since his Corrin is already fairly good and is an easy character to play) but solo Joker could probably work as well. I don't believe the Byleth is really worth it at top level, if he wants to be a top 10 player in this meta his time is probably better spent on stronger characters. He retired the Ike, perhaps it's time to retire the Byleth as well? Byleth may be stronger than Ike, but she's not great. Still, it's not for me to decide, it's up to him.

12. Tea: These days, basically solo Pac-Man main. He's used Kazuya in the past but I'm not sure how well it'd work in the long run. People are getting better at the Kazuya MU and is he willing to spend time to keep the Kazuya strong at a high enough level to make it worthwhile? EDIT: He still used Kazuya at Umebura SP 10.

13. Kameme: He's played a bunch of characters, but I think he'd be best off solo Sora, the character who seems to ne thim the best results.

14. Dabuz: Famously not a solo main, although lately he's been focusing more on the Rosalina and less on Olimar. Min Min sees some use for certain MUs. Dabuz is also in a situation where he's maining a character who is high tier at best and might be mid tier (Rosalina) so solo-maining might not be as viable.

15. Zomba: ROB solo main.

16. KEN: Sonic solo main. He used to play Sephiroth as well but seems to have mostly dropped him in favor of Sonic at larger tournaments. He seems to be doing better as a solo main.

17. Asimo: Playing a character plus their echo is basically solo maining. Ryu solo main.

18. Yaura: Samus solo main.

19. Hurt: Mostly plays Snake. He has a Greninja but I don't know how much use he has from it. It lost him game 1 vs Doramigi at Kowloon 9, but he swapped to Snake and won the set 3-2.

20. MuteAce: Basically Peach solo main.

21. Sisqui: Samus solo main. He uses Incineroar vs Olimars but lost every set I checked out (twice vs Shuton, once vs Dabuz).

22. Zackray: Not a solo main. His Pit is good and he uses his former mains sometimes too.

23. Maister: G&W solo main.

24. Marss: Zero Suit Samus solo main.

25. Kurama: Mario solo main (he's been using Corrin a little and has local wins vs MFA but until he's getting results with Corrin at a larger tournament I'll probably count him as a solo main).

26. Jogibu: Solo Captain Falcon.

27. Gackt: Solo Ness.

28. Bloom4Eva: Solo Bayonetta (basically, he's used Mii Brawler a bit in the past too.)

29. Lima: Solo Bayonetta.

30. Neo: Solo Corrin.

31. ApolloKage: Solo Snake (he dropped his Steve secondary).

32. Skyjay: Solo Incineroar.

33. Umeki: Solo Daisy.

34. ShinyMark: Solo Pikachu.

35. Kaninabe: Solo Fox.

36. Kola: Solo Roy (seems to have dropped his Cloud mostly/entirely).

37. Ron: As far as I know, he's mostly Yoshi.

38. MASA: Solo Falco.

39. Raflow: Mostly Palutena, He sometimes uses Samus with mixed results and it doesn't necessarily peform better than his Palutena (see the Ly set at SSC 2023 or the Neo set at King Kon).

40. Jagaimo: Solo Palutena.

41. Doramigi: Solo Min Min.

42. DIO: Solo Snake.

43. Onin: Solo Steve.

44. SHADIC: Solo Corrin.

45. Big D: Solo Ice Climbers.

46. Tsubaki: Solo Joker.

47. Hero: Solo Bowser.

48. Kome: Solo Shulk.

49. Rarukun: Solo Luigi.

50. Aaron: Solo Diddy Kong (he might start going Corrin + Diddy Kong in the future though, we'll see how that goes, but he got to top 50 with solo Diddy Kong).



Summary:
In the top 50, around 40+ are solo mains! In the top 10, around 7 are solo mains or so. With this in mind, it certainly does seem like the meta, at least at top level, is moving in the direction of solo maining, and in the case of people using multiple characters the second character is usually a former main or an easy to use secondary (like Corrin or Samus).

It's also worth noting that most top 50 players are using top tiers or high tiers, with only a few mid tiers (and all of them have a case for being low high tier) and not a single low tier. Perhaps mid tier mains or low tier mains would benefit more from using a secondary. It does seem that if you main a top tier or a high tier you can do really well (top 50 in the world) as a solo main, and most to players seem to prefer solo maining over playing two or three characters.

Note that it's possible that I've missed someone having a seldom used secondary, although if it's extremely seldomly used I don't know if we should really consider it anyways? And I also don't consider characters only used in locals, or character picks that got no results (like Neo bringing out Sheik vs Zomba and losing). A real dual main/secondary would be used a decent amount of time (like Shuton with Aegis + Olimar, Tea's Kazuya in the past would probably count as a secondary but by now it seems to be mostly retired, etc).

 

[Sucumbio]

9. Riddles: He plays two characters (Terry and Kazuya). Not a solo main. I'm not sure how much he's actually getting from using these two instead of sticking with one. Is Kazuya not solo-mainable, or does he not want to give up on Terry? Still, he's spent enough time on both to essentially be considered a dual-main at this point.

I don't believe he is.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I think playing more than one character is made a thing by some of the top 5 characters being near unbeatable for a lot of the cast. Steve and Sonic in particular, what are you supposed to do vs Acola or Sonix if your main gets destroyed? Without these top characters then almost all players would probably be better off just solo maining. You need the right mentality to play more than one character. I think its hard to pin down what that is, but easy to spot in action. I think the conclusion is that while one is good and overall even seems to work the best for most players:

Two can work especially if they are similar characters and/or you have played the two characters for years and years or one or both of the characters are relatively simple. If your main has clear weaknesses that can be crippling in some matchups its good if your secondary does not share these weaknesses. But secondaries do not have to cover the weaknesses of mains in all cases. If they cover each others weaknesses really well they tend to be dissimilar which can be bad. It can be enough that they are something different that you can use to double the data your opponent has to get a grip on.

Shuton, Dabuz, Riddles and Proto are good examples of dual mainers. Being able to swap mid set seamlessly, mostly not so much to counter matchups but moreso to keep their opponents from getting a grip on them and developing counterplay to their gameplans. Like Proto winning with his Minmin then swapping to Lucina for game 2 then back to Minmin again. This can be really brutal and hard to deal with for the opponent.

I would say Spargo too, but he does not get the mentality right, he's too stubborn, doesnt swap when he should because he decides beforehand what characters to play and whether or not he can swap mid set. He's lost sets he could've won because he's refused to swap for no reason. Granted one can understand why. Sometimes he's able to do the seemingly impossible. But other times he's gotten 3-0'd by Samus because he's refused to swap from Cloud.

And vs Sonix another of his weaknesses as a dual/triple mainer becomes obvious. While he's able to play three characters at a very high level since they are all rather similar this also means that they all share the same weakness which he can't counterpick his way around. They all have bad recoveries. Corrins recovery is also really bad vs Sonic, its not that much of a step up. Moreover he's not really making Sonix have to deal with that much more data, partly because he doesn't swap when he could and prefers to decide beforehand and then stick to whatever he's decided, but also because he plays the same pressure oriented aggressive rush down style with all his characters. And what really is the point of having three swordies with bad recoveries? Two should be enough. Or better yet:

He could keep the Cloud and drop both Aegis and Corrin and pick up a character like Rob, cutting it down from two to three but having a secondary that can actually complement his main. Rob is also a great character to have as a secondary. He's relatively simple, picking him up is super easy and learning his lethal combos isn't that hard either. And if you main Cloud he is a perfect complement with his heavy weight, solid recovery and ability to zone as well as being a top 5 character. If not Rob then there are other possible top characters that can actually complement Sparg0s Cloud properly. If he's not able to click with any of the characters that would benefit him then he should keep playing multiple swordies but one of them should be Lucina who actually has a good recovery and is also more dissimilar to Cloud than Corrin and Aegis in how she's best played. She might not be the best vs Sonic but neither is Aegis or Corrin, and she struggles in a different way at least.

Leo should play Joker and Rob. He likes Rob. He's obviously good at Rob. Rob is extremely good in itself. Both Leo and Spargo could perhaps keep another pocket swordie. But I think they lose more by doing so. Leo playing only Joker and Rob would be great. He needs to stop his dabbling completely and get that extra sauce going on his characters. His Rob could be so much stronger and would be if Leo hadn't wasted so many hours dabbling with a bunch of swordies.

Three is almost always subpar and marks the upper limit but with three you really need the characters to be similar and a ton of experience over time playing them and you need the characters to be simple as well. Dabuz is sort of making three work but his Minmin is still not on the same level as his other characters and is kind of a liability because of it. He should probably drop either the Olimar or the Minmin but it's so late into the game that it might just be better for him to stick it out even though his dual/triple maining isn't quite working out as well as it used to.

Anything that isn't practiced and sharp and has that little extra isn't worth bringing out. Dabbling is bad. Not knowing what to play and second guessing yourself mid set is bad. Swapping just because your main is struggling rather than face adversity is bad. But refusing to swap when you should is also bad. Insisting on trying to play a character you arent clicking with is also bad. If you have mentality issues in general you probably should stick to one character.

You need to weigh a ton on factors against each other. In general you are probably better of Solo maning. But if you happen to have the capacity to dual or even triple main it can be good. Especially if your main gets shut down by one or more of the top of the top characters. But you still need the stars to align. You still need all these other factors in your favor. And you need strong intuition to navigate through all the contradictions that come into play when you dual main. If you can do it all though, it can be a really brutal way of both getting around hopeless matchups and a way to weaponize the amount of data your opponent needs to wrap their head around. If enough stuff lines up then you should dual main. But that is a lot of stuff.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Litvitational 2 is going on and it is a major invitational.

Round Robin Pools:

Pool 1: Peabnut 1st seed with a 2-1 set count and a 7-4 game count. Asimo 2nd seed with a 2-1 set count and a 8-5 game count. Aaron 3rd seed with 2-1 set count and a 6-6 game count. Zomba 4th seed with a 0-3 set count.

Pool 2: Miya 1st seed with a 3-0 set count. Kola 2nd seed with a 2-1 set count. Cosmos 3rd seed with a 1-2 set count. Lima 4th seed with a 0-3 set count.

Pool 3: Light 1st seed with a 2-1 set count and a 8-4 game count. BeastModePaul 2nd seed with a 2-1 set count and a 8-6 game count. ApolloKage 3rd with a 2-1 set count and a 7-7 game count. WebbJP 4th seed with a 0-3 set count.

Pool 4: SHADIC 1st seed with a 3-0 set count. Shuton 2nd seed with a 2-1 set count. Dabuz 3rd seed with a 1-2 set count. Epic Gabriel 4th seed with an 0-3 set count.

Top 8
Winners:
Kola vs SHADIC
Miya vs Light

Losers:
Lima vs Asimo
Zomba vs Epic Gabriel

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Litvitational 2

1. Light
2. Miya
3. SHADIC
4. Lima
5. Kola
5. Zomba
7. Asimo
7. Epic Gabriel
9. Shuton
9. Dabuz
9. BeastModePaul
9. Peabnut
13. Aaron
13. WebbJP
13. Cosmos
13. ApolloKage

 

[Frihetsanka]

SHADIC had an amazing run, no doubts about that. Beating Dabuz, Shuton, and Epic_Gabriel in pools, and then beating BeastModePaul and Kola in winners, before losing 2-3 vs Miya (granted, the two game wins were vs Mii Swordfighter, but he almost won game 5 vs Miya's G&W, almost Grand Finals winners side). And then he lost to Light 2-3, but game 4 was super close and he could've won 3-1. Amazing run, for sure. SHADIC is looking more and more like a top 10 contender with a good chance to get at least top 15 or top 20 this season.

Lima had a strong run too. He started off 0-3 in pools, losing to Miya (game 5), Kola (0-3), and Cosmos (1-3). Not a great start, but then he beat Aaron, Shuton, Asimo, and Kola, before losing to Light, for a respectable 4th place.

While Aaron did end up 13th place, he scored a Zomba win (3-1) and Asimo win (3-2) in pools, losing to Peabnut 0-3 and ending up 3rd in his pools due to tiebreaker rules (three people went 2-1). He then lost to Lima 2-3. Overall the good wins probably made it a net win for him from a ranking perspective.

While Cosmos ended up placing tied for last, he did manage to score a Lima win, and took Kola to game 5. Not too shabby. He lost to Miya, Kola, and Zomba, none of them are bad losses.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 8 for Cirque Du CFL 3. One of the sets have already started due to them going overtime.

Winners:
Zomba vs MuteAce (Mute already won)
SHADIC vs Dabuz

Losers:
Syrup (Lost to MuteAce) vs Asimo (Lost to Zomba)
Peabnut (Lost to Dabuz) vs Miya (Lost to SHADIC)

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Cirque Du CFL 3. Grands made me so nervous. That was such a close and tense set.

1. SHADIC
2. MuteAce
3. Dabuz
4. Peabnut
5. Syrup
5. Zomba
7. Asimo
7. Miya
9. Cosmos
9. Anathema
9. Shuton
9. Lima
13. ApolloKage
13. Quandale Dingleingleton
13. ESAM
13. ChunkyKong
17. Mr. E
17. Goblin
17. sebayee
17. MVD
17. JMafia
17. Light
17. BMP
17. Surehyper

SHADIC is the first solo Corrin to win a major now. Guess it's time for Corrin discussion to come back!

 

[The_Bookworm]

Results for Cirque Du CFL 3. Grands made me so nervous. That was such a close and tense set.

1. SHADIC
2. MuteAce
3. Dabuz
4. Peabnut
5. Syrup
5. Zomba
7. Asimo
7. Miya
9. Cosmos
9. Anathema
9. Shuton
9. Lima
13. ApolloKage
13. Quandale Dingleingleton
13. ESAM
13. ChunkyKong
17. Mr. E
17. Goblin
17. sebayee
17. MVD
17. JMafia
17. Light
17. BMP
17. Surehyper

SHADIC is the first solo Corrin to win a major now. Guess it's time for Corrin discussion to come back!

SHADIC vs MuteAce was a spicy set that went to game 5, set 2. MuteAce SD'ing at near 0 was a big bummer during that final game, but still an immaculate performance from the two.

In the meantime...
Bonito Harbor (Mexican Superregional)
1st: Sparg0
2nd: MkLeo
3rd: Maister
4th: Chag
5th: WaKa
5th: Leaf
7th: Skyjay
7th: Javi
9th: Moe
9th: Bedgar
9th: Guilheww
9th: Tilde
13th: Pollitopio
13th: Bernie
13th: Regi Shikimi
13th: Emm


This one features a spicy Leo vs Sparg0 winner's finals and grand finals that also went to game 5, set 2.

 

[Rizen]

The last several tournaments have backed up what I said about being a top tier but not a top 5 character. G&W definitely preforms very well, appearing in many top 8s but never quite manages to pull the win off. I think Miya was doing really well for a brief period when he started beating Acola and people weren't ready for that level of G&W but now counterplay is coming out. He's getting more realistic results again. The flavor of the month phenomenon is real.

With that said, no other single character is dominating either. Not even Steve. It really goes to show how balanced this game is by how many different characters can win tournaments.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

The main discussion will of course be on SHADIC, who is looking like a top 10 player, and Corrin. But I really want to give a shout-out to Peabnut's . He had comparable wins at this event to the ones Kameme got pre-quarantine, and this is one of the best Mega Man results ever aside from the two majors Kameme won with Mega Man. Miya, Shuton and Zomba wins are utterly fantastic and he only lost to Dabuz twice.

Peabnut has beaten Shuton, Miya, and Zomba back to back! The void left by Kameme's Mega Man has been filled in the best run the character has seen in years.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) March 11, 2024

 

[Frihetsanka]

There's a lot to talk about regarding Cirque, but for this post I will focus on how people placed compared to their seeds, and notable wins and losses.

SHADIC getting 1st with a seed of #7. I always thought he was underseeded at this tournament and should've been over Kola and Dabuz, so should've been 5th (although someone said it was because they wanted to avoid a rematch versus Shuton). It worked out for him though, snagging a Miya win made the rest of his bracket a lot easier (had he lost to Miya he would've fought Lima in losers, which would have been difficult given their past set history). Interesting trivia: Before Grand Finals, SHADIC only lost three games: Two to Newo in the Corrin ditto, and one to Miya. SHADIC also beat GuyGuy (the Luigi main), sebayee (G&W main who upset WebbJP 3-0 and beat Keen 3-2), Miya, Dabuz, and MuteAce twice (with one MuteAce loss). Really strong run for SHADIC! Likely his best run yet.

MuteAce getting 2nd with a seed of #13. That's really impressive! MuteAce played so well. Unlike SHADIC, MuteAce had a lot of 3-2 sets, vs AwDaSea, omega, Shuton (!), Talking Ben (aka Syrup), Dabuz, and SHADIC in Grand Finals. He also 3-0 Zomba! He only lost to SHADIC in winners finals (0-3) and Grand Finals (2-3). The #13 seed taking names!

Dabuz got 3rd with a seed of #6. He beat Riku the Steve 3-0, ApolloKage 3-0, Peabnut 3-0 and 3-2, Talking Ben (Syrup) 3-2, lost to SHADIC 0-3 and MuteAce 2-3. He had a relatively easy run to 3rd from a player perspective, not having to fight any established top 20 players aside from MuteAce (who was #20 last season), although SHADIC is almost certainly going to be top 20 this season at worst (if he keeps performing well he has a good shot at top 10).

Peabnut got 4th with a seed of #30. Peabnut was easily one of the breakout players this tournament. I've been thinking Mega Man is a bit underrated for a while now, and I'm glad to see Peabnut showing that Mega Man can do better than most people think. 3-0 JAVI ON EARTH, Goblin, Shuton (!), Zomba (!), 3-1 AppleWiz, 3-2 Miya (!) only losing to Dabuz (0-3 and 2-3). Amazing run, beating three players who are top 10 candidates (and Miya top 5).

Zomba got 5th with the #1 seed. Apparently he played on a broken controller, which is unfortunate. He beat Dark Wizzy, Surehyper, and Asimo, lost to Peabnut and MuteAce. Not a great tournament for someone looking to be top 5 in the world, especially since his only notable win was Asimo.

Talking Ben (Syrup) got 5th with a seed of #12. with wins on Anathema, JMafia (who upset Kola and Mr. E), Cosmos, and Asimo, losing to MuteAce 2-3 and Dabuz 2-3. The Dabuz set is very noteworthy since he was losing 0-2 with Steve versus Dabuz's Min Min, then he swapped to Ness, won, Dabuz swapped to Rosa but still lost, and then Dabuz managed to win game 5. One cannot help but wonder what would have happened if Syrup had swapped to Ness after game 1? Anyways, 5th at a major and almost upsetting MuteAce and Dabuz, and some solid wins. Strong run from Syrup!

Asimo got 7th with a seed of #8. He made his seed. He almost got upset by BeastModePaul, going to game 5 against a Hero. It seems like Japanese players may be a bit of a disadvantage versus Hero with English menu, but Asimo still managed to clutch it out (and BeastModePaul is starting to look like a fairly strong player). He also beat Mystearica and Anathema. He lost to Zomba and Syrup 2-3. Solid run, not amazing.

Miya got 7th with a seed of #2. Obviously a very disappointing run from a top 5 player. Notably, Hungrybox took him to game 5 in pools. He then proceeded to 3-0 Dominator, MVD, and Lima, before losing 1-3 to SHADIC's rising star. He then lost 2-3 to Peabnut.

That's the top 8. Some other notable placements: Cosmos 9th with a seed of #24, notable wins on Goblin and ApolloKage. Anathema 9th with a seed of #21, notable wins on Kola, MVD, Quandale Dinglelingleton (DDog). Shuton 9th with a seed of #4, with a notable win on Light (3-0) and ESAM (3-1) with losses to MuteAce (2-3) and Peabnut (0-3). Lima 9th with a seed of #14, losing to Goblin and Miya (unlucky, he would've much preferred facing SHADIC), with wins on TM7_ZAP, BeastModePaul, and ChunkyKong. ESAM 13th with a seed of #38, losing to Riku and Shuton but beating Aaron, Dominator, WebbJP, and Jmafia. sebayee (G&W maiin) 17th with a seed of #55, beating WebbJP and Keen and losing to DDog and SHADIC. JMafia (Yoshi and Mii Brawler) 17th with a seed of #37, beating Mr. E and Kola and losing to Syrup and ESAM. Light 17th with a seed of #2. very bad tournament for him, losing 0-3 to AppleWiz the Ice Climber and Shuton's Olimar, with his best wins being JAVI ON EARTH, Keen, and Amnesty (and that one was game 5). BeastModePaul 17th with a seed of #9, beating Cosmos but losing to Asimo and Lima (he was unlucky that Lima got upset by Goblin). Superhyper (Wolf) #17 with a seed of #48, beating Epic_Gabriel and losing to Zomba and ChunkyKong.

Overall, it was a fun tournament, with SHADIC, MuteAce, Peabnut, and Syrup being the big winners. Cosmos and ESAM notably did better than they usually do, which is nice to see. Perhaps they will become top 50 players again one day.

There's more to say about the tournament but I don't want to make this one post too long so I'll make another post later.

 

[NotLiquid]

The last several tournaments have backed up what I said about being a top tier but not a top 5 character. G&W definitely preforms very well, appearing in many top 8s but never quite manages to pull the win off. I think Miya was doing really well for a brief period when he started beating Acola and people weren't ready for that level of G&W but now counterplay is coming out. He's getting more realistic results again. The flavor of the month phenomenon is real.

Miya's last supermajor win was literally less than two months ago

 

[Rizen]

Miya's last supermajor win was literally less than two months ago

And since then people figured out counter play to G&W. Miya's a top 5 player but he's losing to players ranked lower than him quite a bit. He got 17th at Genesis X, Second at Litvetational but with Steve too and 7th at Cirque Du CFL 3. This happens with a lot of characters. They have a few months of doing really well then someone else replaces them. I don't think G&W is going to go away; he'll keep getting top 8s but his flavor of the month period is over. Like I said before, I think Maester's placements with G&W are more indicative of how good the character is.

 

[NotLiquid]

And since then people figured out counter play to G&W. Miya's a top 5 player but he's losing to players ranked lower than him quite a bit. He got 17th at Genesis X, Second at Litvetational but with Steve too and 7th at Cirque Du CFL 3. This happens with a lot of characters. They have a few months of doing really well then someone else replaces them. I don't think G&W is going to go away; he'll keep getting top 8s but his flavor of the month period is over. Like I said before, I think Maester's placements with G&W are more indicative of how good the character is.

In October last year, you made the assertion that G&W does not qualify for being at the top of the tier list on the basis that Miya and Maister both failed to take home several tournaments where the former would regularly place in Top 8. At the same eve of that post, Miya successfully won a supermajor, and has since then won one more in very recent history, while winning four of the seven majors he attended between that time frame, and soundly taking first at Genesis X's pre-major despite his upset the following main event. Your argument back then was that characters like Aegis and Joker were more quintessential top tiers ahead of G&W despite not a single solo-Aegis main reaching the peaks Miya has been doing over the last half year (Sparg0 owes his successes arguably more to Cloud at this point), and Joker's only real prominent main MkLeo no longer being a regular fixture in top 8's and even placing lower than Miya did at the tournament you hold over his head like an albatross.

I know that you've been a skeptic about this character and tried to cool people off on him ever since the 2019 halcyon days of reading into pre-pandemic OrionStats rankings when the character wasn't even top 15 despite rapidly trending upward, so I don't think I can read into your claims about G&W as anything but confirmation bias by looking at a limited time frame for a sample. "Ok, so maybe he's top tier, but Miya didn't do as good in some recent tournaments so G&W is absolutely not top 5" -- even though honestly it's just Genesis X that sticks out as an outlier considering his losses at Cirque 3 were from players who arose as extreme contenders. Like how does that distinction even matter, materially speaking?

 

[Frihetsanka]

G&W not being top 5 is a bit odd to me. If he isn't top 5, then who would take his place? Steve/Sonic/ROB/Snake seem fairly likely, but who would the 5th be? I suppose the main candidates would be Aegis, Peach, Fox, Joker, and Pikachu.

MkLeo does not think Aegis is top 10. Aegis, as a character, has been fairly inconsistent lately. Miya got 7th, Shuton got 9th and Cosmos got 9th, so it's not like Aegis was doing better than G&W at this tournament. We also saw sebayee getting 17th. Miya lost to SHADIC's rising star, in a MU that is likely Even, and Peabnut who played really well and many people do not know the Mega Man MU. Miya got 2nd at the Litvitational 2, 1st at KOWLOON 9 with Sumabato, 2nd at Umebura SP10, 1st at DELTA 7 [FAT], 3rd at Watch the Throne, 1st at Maesuma TOP 15 "FINAL", 2nd at Port Priority 8, 1st at Seibugeki 15, 1st at Rise 'N Grind 2023, 1st at Kagaribi 11, etc etc... Sure, he got 17th at GENESIS X, but overall his placements have been stellar! Even if we just look at 2024 Miya is looking like a top 5 player.

Maister has also been doing fairly well recently, getting 3rd at that superregional yesterday, 9th at GENESIS X (unfortunately for him he ran into SHADIC), 7th at The Coinbox IRL (which was a major), 7th at Luminitoyu Makes Moves Miami 2023, 5th at Luminosity Makes BIG Moves 2024. Granted, 17th at Port Priority 8 but that was a supermajor.

So if it's not Aegis, who else could it be. Peach? I could Peach being top 5. There was a good chance she was #1 in 2019, until she got some pretty significant nerfs, but she's still really strong. Both MuteAce and Umeki are doing really well with Peach/Daisy and Samsora was ranked #2 in Fall 2019, and if he hadn't gotten banned back in 2020 it's possible he would still be doing well (also possible he would've fallen off though, impossible to say for sure). I think it's plausible that Peach is top 5, but I don't think she's better than G&W. Do we factor in difficulty? It's significantly easier to play G&W in a bracket than it is to play Peach.

And then there's Joker. Is Joker top 5? Maybe, but I think he has some bad MUs that hold him back. Arsene can also be a bit inconsistent as a mechanic.

Fox as a top 5 character seems unlikely since he has really bad MUs vs Steve and G&W. If Steve and G&W didn't exist then Fox would be quite a bit better, but since they do exist I don't think it's very plausible that he's a top 5 character in this meta.

And then there's Pikachu. Some people, like ESAM and ShinyMark, think Pikachu is top 5. I don't even think he's top 10, but if you think Pikachu is top 5 then that'd make it a bit more likely that G&W isn't top 5.

So, overall, G&W players seem to be doing better at top level than Aegis/Joker/Peach/Fox/Pikachu players overall (even if Miya does carry the results to some extent), and theoretically the character seems somewhat overtuned. I think even in theory he's probably better than most of them (even ESAM, who is really theory oriented, put G&W in top 3, even above Sonic but under Steve and Pikachu).

If we look at G&W's moves, we can see that many of them are incredible. Contender for the best up-B (recovery, edgeguarding, and out of shield), amazing aerials (people get hit once by nair and take 40-60% damage from nair/up-air combos, fair kills, dair kills and helps him land, bair is a solid kill move), great smashes, a down-B that borderline invalidates some MUs, a neutral-B that edgeguards some characters nearly for free and can confirm into f-tilt kills, two tilts that kill near the ledge... Does he have flaws? Sure. He can sometimes struggle to kill if he doesn't secure a kill in the situation he wants to, he's not amazing on shield, and he is extremely light. Still, with all his strengths and his results I don't see how he's not top 5. He was voted top 3 in the official tier list, and I think they were right to vote him that high.

I think one of the main reasons it took people this long to acknowledge G&W's strength is because he wasn't great in previous Smash games. I imagine that if he had been a newcomer in Ultimate he would've been considered a top tier much earlier. Another reason is that Maister was never as good as Miya.

It's interesting how some characters get rated really high by the community despite not having the results to back it up (like Shulk, Aegis, and Pikachu), and some characters are rated relatively low until one or two really good players pick them up or start doing well (like G&W, Diddy Kong, Kazuya, Bayonetta, Corrin, Sora). There might be more characters that are underrated and just waiting for that one player to pick them up. If Miya hadn't picked up G&W then I doubt G&W would've been considered a top 5 character in 2024.

 

[NairWizard]

It's such an incredible disservice to the hard work and effort of top players to credit their successes or failures to their characters all the time. Realistically there is so much going on at a tournament level with regard to stamina, player-to-player matchups, psychological conditioning per set, etc. that it's difficult to produce a "top 5" -- a useful top 5 has deeper meaning than just examining who is currently doing well in the niche top-level meta.

For me, top 5s are what I'd tell people to play if they came to me looking for advice. Simple criterion. Someone comes and asks, "Who should I play?" and regardless of whether they're an Elite Smash player, going to locals, high level, or a top player, I can offer the same recommendation consistently, and that recommendation won't be overturned within a year of meta changes. That's top 5 to me.

Game and Watch is the best character in the game to me, and here's why: if someone asks me for a good secondary to pick up for their bad matchups, it's going to be Game and Watch almost 50% of the time. Oh, you play Corrin and you need to deal better with the Fox MU? Pick up Game and Watch. You play Sheik and are struggling to kill Bowser? Pick up Game and Watch. You're struggling with a random zoner like Mii Gunner? Try Game and Watch. Wario, Pikachu, Mario, Roy? Just use Game and Watch.

Game and Watch as a secondary supports so many different archetypes in a way that no other secondary does, and on top of that we've seen evidence of how strong he is as a main.

It doesn't matter to me that people aren't using secondary Game and Watch -- the fact is that they could be, it's obvious how strong the choice is, and if some new player comes to me today and asks me who to main or secondary, Game and Watch will be one of my first choices.

He's easy to practice online or off, he's consistent in all game states, he's versatile and fast in the air, and he can even be custom-tailored to fit your particular playstyle, since he has disjoints, burst, and edgeguarding moves. It doesn't matter to me if Miya's results suddenly plunge off the face of the earth, that's definitely top 5 to me.

 

[Rizen]

In October last year, you made the assertion that G&W does not qualify for being at the top of the tier list on the basis that Miya and Maister both failed to take home several tournaments where the former would regularly place in Top 8. At the same eve of that post, Miya successfully won a supermajor,

Quote or it didn't happen. When I said G&W was high tier it was before Miya won anything notable. My perception of him improved with Miya like everyone else's.

Your argument back then was that characters like Aegis and Joker were more quintessential top tiers ahead of G&W despite not a single solo-Aegis main reaching the peaks Miya has been doing over the last half year (Sparg0 owes his successes arguably more to Cloud at this point), and Joker's only real prominent main MkLeo no longer being a regular fixture in top 8's and even placing lower than Miya did at the tournament you hold over his head like an albatross.

You're putting a lot of words in my mouth and mixing the time frame up. First, Aegis had 3 mains in the top 8 of a supermajor. They won all the time. Aegis in their heyday had much greater heights than G&W ever did. Aegis did indeed win tournaments solo; I remember both Spargo and MKLeo using him solo. Cosmos won tournaments with them. Granted they tapered off as time went on but it did happen. My point was just because a character gets less use by top players it doesn't mean they magically become worse. Aegis is still very much top 5 and the official tier list agrees with me. And by the way, MKLeo did win a recent tournament with Joker and Spargo just won one partially with Aegis.

you hold over his head like an albatross.

I know that you've been a skeptic about this character and tried to cool people off on him ever since the 2019 halcyon days of reading into pre-pandemic OrionStats rankings when the character wasn't even top 15 despite rapidly trending upward, so I don't think I can read into your claims about G&W as anything but confirmation bias by looking at a limited time frame for a sample. "Ok, so maybe he's top tier, but Miya didn't do as good in some recent tournaments so G&W is absolutely not top 5" -- even though honestly it's just Genesis X that sticks out as an outlier considering his losses at Cirque 3 were from players who arose as extreme contenders. Like how does that distinction even matter, materially speaking?

No need to get snippy with me; people have different opinions. You've done nothing to disprove my point. The flavor of the months phenomenon is real. Characters rise and fall in popularity. It happened to Aegis, it happened to Steve and it'll happen to G&W. You have to observe long term trends. The problem is people have knee jerk reactions to top players instead of doing this.

And if you want more proof Aegis is top 5 and G&W isn't, look at Lumirank before it reset.

Aegis only rose in rank. They're still top 3 despite losing some of their top player representation. G&W was twelfth. You have to admit Miya's skill is at least somewhat carrying G&W. And that people are adapting. It happens. I waited several tournaments before making a post about people adapting to G&W in case it was a fluke.


Edit,
I guess the crux of my argument is that people put too much emphasis on top players and not enough on long term trends. G&W jumping several spots on the tier list is what I'd call a knee jerk reaction to Miya. It's one player. Let me tell you a story. There's a really good Ike player in my region. He's won over $200 on a single tournament. So for the longest time I thought Ike was high tier. Now I can see he's not. I was putting too much emphasis on one player. Like I've said, there are several top players who I believe carry their characters and Miya's one of them. It's not only possible but common for a player to do better than their character should. Skill can take players the rest of the way to the top.

 

[NotLiquid]

Quote or it didn't happen. When I said G&W was high tier it was before Miya won anything notable. My perception of him improved with Miya like everyone else's.

Following this old post where you cite those three specific characters being better than G&W...

I noticed has been getting 3rd place a lot lately. By Miya losing to Debuz and Acola, Miya losing to Hurt and Acola (sorry I can't remember the tournament names), and Maister losing to Skyjay and MKLeo in Maingame Fest Mini. G&W's really good but not quite at the top of the tier list like Steve, Aegis and Joker. An 'Always the bride's maid, never the bride' kind of character.

... and after Miya finally winning that same day, you argued that Steve, Joker, Palutena, Aegis, ROB, Sonic, and Snake were all better characters than G&W, along with listing a drove of characters you viewed as being about on par with the character. Based on your recent posts about where you place G&W, and the reason you have for bringing that up, I have no reason to believe that opinion has changed much despite you expressing having more faith in Miya.

You're more than welcome to have your opinion, I ain't gonna argue that; Ultimate has a plethora of characters proving their worth every day. I don't know how much I look forward to relitigating talk about Corrin being a top 10 character next month whenever they win another tournament. What I am arguing is your entire thought process which just comes across as kind of myopic to me. The fact of the matter is that Miya wasn't "flavor of the month". He was a perennial top contender throughout all of 2023 achieving things with the character no one else was doing -- ever since his first supermajor win a little over a year from the current date at Maesuma Top 11 -- using a character everyone thought they had figured out because of Maister (who himself as pointed out above has seen a small renaissance of his own), while taking major wins left and right against LumiRank's top players at a time when commonly thought adjacent-to-Steve-top-tier solo mains were nowhere near as consistent with the exception of Sonix (who frankly alone should tell you that looking at Sonic's #9 placement on LumiRank does not say much about competitive measure outside of raw trends).

So if you sincerely believe this;

I guess the crux of my argument is that people put too much emphasis on top players and not enough on long term trends. G&W jumping several spots on the tier list is what I'd call a knee jerk reaction to Miya.

Then you shouldn't use Genesis X as some kind of proof of a long held assertion that G&W doesn't cut the mustard for Top 5, and instead pay attention to what's happening and how long it's been happening, because that's just silly talk. It looks like just as much of a kneejerk reaction against so much that these players have achieved, and what these characters are doing in all of these hundreds of sets that have been played for the last year.

I sincerely cannot view highlighting an isolated incident as anything but confirmation bias when contrast against what's happening with other characters believed to be "top 5" if purely looked at things from a results based perspective. Players underperform for any arbitrary reason. If we measured "the best characters" on a curve of a non-stop first place major wins, which has been your leading argument the few times you've brought up G&W, then none of our cast would qualify for a top spot. This isn't the Smash 4 days or early Ultimate days of dynasties anymore. It's an age of new blood disproving the hell out of notions of who and what can succeed, and Miya brandishing the G&W has shown to be one of the most consistent at applying this in the modern era for reasons NairWizard pretty eloquently covers in their post.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Game and Watch is the best character in the game to me, and here's why: if someone asks me for a good secondary to pick up for their bad matchups, it's going to be Game and Watch almost 50% of the time.

I think G&W might have the best "ease of use" to "strength" ratio in the game. G&W is really easy to pick up, really easy to play, while still being one of the strongest characters. While I do think both Steve and Sonic are better once mastered both of them take more effort to pick up, whereas G&W is quite easy to pick up. If you have infinite time a Steve secondary might be a better fit than a G&W secondary, but if you don't want to spend much time on a secondary, G&W might be a good option.

It doesn't matter to me that people aren't using secondary Game and Watch -- the fact is that they could be, it's obvious how strong the choice is, and if some new player comes to me today and asks me who to main or secondary, Game and Watch will be one of my first choices.

I agree. I think it's pretty obvious that G&W would be a strong secondary for many people. However, even if he's easy to pick up, there's still quite a bit of a time investment in order to use him as a secondary, and a secondary G&W might not be enough to beat the strongest players when even G&W mains fail. Still might be nice to have to say, turn a -1 MU into a +2 MU. G&W, Cloud, and Corrin seem like some of the best secondaries right now (not counting "former mains", which are useful since they don't take as much time to pick up). A Steve secondary is almost always going to be a strong pick, but it's quite a time investment. G&W/Cloud/Corrin may be weaker than Steve, but they take less time and effort to pick up.

 

[NairWizard]

Corrin and Cloud are hard to play correctly. If you don't know what you're doing, then Cloud has plenty of losing matchups, like Lucas and PokemonTrainer. You have to know how to condition into Cross Slash, and that takes a lot of matchup studying, which a character like Game and Watch doesn't require since spaced n-air autoconditions you to get hit by the rest of his kit.

And if you play Corrin like a traditional spacing swordie, then you're just going to lose. The character plays more like Joker than like Lucina, so you need Joker levels of investment to set up Pin whiff punishing. Movement-heavy characters are high-maintenance.

Or, in other words, in the vein of giving advice -- if someone came to me and asked for advice learning one of these three characters, I could explain Game and Watch in a single session, but it would take several weeks of explaining to get across all the relevant details for Corrin and Cloud.

The first thing I'd teach someone looking to play Corrin (after falling f-air conversions) is how to make your jump direction ambiguous. You think Game and Watch cares about ambiguous jumps? He's just going to run in and n-air. It's a lot easier to teach someone how to space n-air than it is to teach someone how to jump in a confusing way.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Y'know, it's interesting. There are many aspects of "easy to play" vs "hard to play". Steve, for instance, has a lot of tech that you might want to learn, and you can't just play Steve as a regular vanilla character, you have to learn Steve specific things. However, Steve has a rather easy time with adjusting his gameplan in various MUs. As a result, Steve can mostly play the same way in most MUs, thus having a really basic gameplan that works in every MU. The same can not be said for characters like Lucina, Palutena, Wolf, and Corrin. They may be simple to pick up and play, but they have to learn MUs.

So it depends a bit on what you want to use your secondary for. Do you want a secondary that you'll use for many MUs, or one that you'll only want to use for a few specific characters? If's the latter, someone like Corrin or Cloud would be useful, since you can just focus on learning that one MUs. If it's the former, someone with an easy gameplan, like Steve or Samus, might be useful.

Or you could go G&W and get an easy gameplan while also being easy to learn and play. If I were to pick one character as a generic secondary that takes relatively little effort while also being super good, it'd be G&W.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Btw, Riddles did a Kazuya Matchup Chart yesterday on his stream

 

[Idon]

Btw, Riddles did a Kazuya Matchup Chart yesterday on his stream

Surprised Diddy is only that slightly losing when Vs tweek that looked really painful for him.

 

[Rizen]

Following this old post where you cite those three specific characters being better than G&W...



... and after Miya finally winning that same day, you argued that Steve, Joker, Palutena, Aegis, ROB, Sonic, and Snake were all better characters than G&W, along with listing a drove of characters you viewed as being about on par with the character. Based on your recent posts about where you place G&W, and the reason you have for bringing that up, I have no reason to believe that opinion has changed much despite you expressing having more faith in Miya.

At that point I had already said that G&W was top tier so my stance didn't change since then. I still believe that except maybe not about Snake being better. Snake's mobility has proven to be more of a weakness than I thought but that's another topic. I think people are overestimating the honeymoon phase of G&W. I've played a lot of tournaments and there's such a thing as knowing the MU but not knowing the MU against a player of a higher caliber. One time I played someone who was PRed 4th in Colorado and he was three stocking me with Fox. At first Fox seemed invincible; like you couldn't do anything against him. We played several friendlies and the games gradually became closer. Eventually I even took a game or 2. I'm seeing the same thing happening with Miya. He's so good he made G&W's weakness not look apparent at first. Then he started losing to more and more people ranked significantly below him. He was 2nd on Lumirank 2023 and now he's 4th (it's not one isolated incident), which is still amazing but cracks are starting to appear in his armor. People light Light and Shadic are adapting and beating him.

Don't take the flavor of the month thing personally: it happens to everyone. MKLeo was indisputably the best player in the world and now he might not even be top 10. The meta is a living organism that is constantly evolving. Aegis were generally considered the best in the game, then Steve started passing them, top players decided to like other characters like Corrin better and also counterplay evolved. People got better at gimping them.

On the topic of G&W's weaknesses: he's a huge glass cannon. He has a ton of cannon with some of the best options of the cast. Amazing advantage state, amazing disadvantage state and a good neutral. But he's also light and not just light but the 3rd lightest character in the game at 75. If someone like Miya, who's a top 5 player, is outplaying everyone G&W looks invincible, very much like how I described Fox at first. But if the player isn't dominating he dies at the drop of a hat. That is why I don't think the average tournament player will have the proportionate success Miya is having. I've played G&Ws several times and never been particularly impressed. He's twelfth on Lumirank. I think Miya is doing better than G&W is good. G&W being light is just as much of a weakness as Aegis' recovery because if the opponent makes a read, they both die at 80%. I've also noticed G&W does not like characters with amazing disadvantage states because his amazing advantage state can't abuse them (like Zachray's Pit). He also can struggle with bigger disjoints than his, like how Debuz's Rosalina beat him twice in a tournament and forced him to switch to Steve the next time. And I just want to say, people always bring up the fact that Aegis don't have solo mains doing well any more but Miya has swapped to Steve several times when he's faced with bad MUs.

 

[NairWizard]

Y'know, it's interesting. There are many aspects of "easy to play" vs "hard to play". Steve, for instance, has a lot of tech that you might want to learn, and you can't just play Steve as a regular vanilla character, you have to learn Steve specific things. However, Steve has a rather easy time with adjusting his gameplan in various MUs. As a result, Steve can mostly play the same way in most MUs, thus having a really basic gameplan that works in every MU. The same can not be said for characters like Lucina, Palutena, Wolf, and Corrin. They may be simple to pick up and play, but they have to learn MUs.

So it depends a bit on what you want to use your secondary for. Do you want a secondary that you'll use for many MUs, or one that you'll only want to use for a few specific characters? If's the latter, someone like Corrin or Cloud would be useful, since you can just focus on learning that one MUs. If it's the former, someone with an easy gameplan, like Steve or Samus, might be useful.

Or you could go G&W and get an easy gameplan while also being easy to learn and play. If I were to pick one character as a generic secondary that takes relatively little effort while also being super good, it'd be G&W.

Yeah, you're right. As you pointed out in another post, it's very hard to use a secondary properly in this game, since most characters require high investment. Game and Watch requiring such little investment is a big argument in his favor. There's no other character who is so consistently strong at all levels of play, and across different levels of investment.

When it comes to tier lists, matchup charts, etc., most players value either power or versatility. Power is the ability to be strong in a particular meta, while versatility is the ability to adapt to any meta. Min Min is a powerful character, whereas Joker is a versatile character. The question of whether or not Min Min is better than Joker depends on what you value.

I personally value a mix of power and versatility, tempered by the realism imposed by accessibility. Game and Watch, like Steve, has plenty of both power and versatility, but unlike Steve, Game and Watch is much more accessible, even in unfavorable metas.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

New episode of Tweek Talks is out

Lot of discussion on Corrin, but also discussion on , Miya's character lineup/how well G&W does against swordies, etc. They also all believe that Corrin was good even pre-quarantine before she got buffed.

 

[NairWizard]

I get that Corrin just won, but we've just had pages of talk about Corrin, and every topic seems to steer back to Corrin -- the Kazuya MU chart was likely only posted because Corrin is listed as one of only 5 losing matchups, the secondary discussion suddenly came back to Corrin, etc.

What more can people in here really say about Corrin? I personally just don't have more insight to offer, unless you guys want to know how to play Corrin. Like, I don't want this thread to be Competitive Corrin Impressions. That's how my Discord servers basically look today already. My last 3 lessons have been people wanting to learn Corrin and they all open with some variant of telling me that she's a top tier.

It's also kinda weird that we only ever get the positive side and never the negative side like NEO's recent matchup chart which gives Corrin something like 30 losing MUs, but instead of that my vote is just that we talk about something else, like Peach or Rosalina.

Or actually, I take that back. Talking about Corrin is fine, but can we talk about something interesting, instead of Corrin being good or having won or her position on the tier list? How about Corrin's frame data, stages that are good for Corrin, counterplay to and counterplay against matchups, something? Something substantial other than "Corrin is #15 and has always been good, people are underrating Corrin" or "Corrin is doing well here's another Corrin result."

I would be happy to have a long discussion on her back-air, for instance. Would certainly be more interesting than this.

The Tweek Talks episode is actually pretty good at taking this balanced view, now that I've watched it. And b-air is even called out explicitly. I also appreciate that Tweek talks about her jab, because that is one of the things that really sets Corrin apart from other sword characters. Having a quick disjointed option up close that doesn't send you in the air (Cloud/Lucina up-b) is strong for mitigating close-range pressure and is one of the reasons that I think SHADIC is doing well vs. Kola's Roy.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I get that Corrin just won, but we've just had pages of talk about Corrin, and every topic seems to steer back to Corrin -- the Kazuya MU chart was likely only posted because Corrin is listed as one of only 5 losing matchups, the secondary discussion suddenly came back to Corrin, etc.

I post matchup charts from top players on here whenever they release on my Twitter or Reddit feed, Corrin being considered a bad matchup for Kazuya had nothing to do with that.

 

[NairWizard]

I post matchup charts from top players on here whenever they release on my Twitter or Reddit feed, Corrin being considered a bad matchup for Kazuya had nothing to do with that.

Okay, fair.

You post a lot of tourney results, matchup charts, links to things, etc. It'd be cool to see some of your thoughts on characters, independent of those things.

Asking in good faith: who do you play? What do you think of the meta?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Okay, fair.

You post a lot of tourney results, matchup charts, links to things, etc. It'd be cool to see some of your thoughts on characters, independent of those things.

Asking in good faith: who do you play? What do you think of the meta?

I play Pyra/Mythra and am fairly positive on the character, still thinking them to be a top 10 mainstay and possibly top 5/right outside the top 5. I think the meta relevant characters are the ones that can play rather defensive but possess a very strong advantage state and good damage output. This is why Steve and Sonic are getting strong results atm, they force the opponent to approach and make the wrong move, and when the opponent makes the wrong move they can capitalize off of it with a lot of damage and edgeguard. ROB, G&W and Snake also all have tools for a similar gameplan. Sword characters/fundies based characters like Cloud and Palutena can possess the tools to beat a lot of the really good characters rn.

That being said, I think characters need to possess a heavy "X-Factor" in order to be like top 20 or better. Either consistent and strong kill power (Diamond Steve, ROB, Kazuya, Pyra, Roy, Corrin, Wario), phenomenal edgeguarding/recovery (Sonic, ROB, Min Min) or strong comeback mechanics (Joker, Cloud) are necessary for success. If your character doesn't have cheese, they're probably not that good. One of the reasons Inkling fell off super hard was the lack of X-Factor, Inkling struggles taking the stock unless you get a really good edgeguard, and it was easy to play around the up-throw into up-air confirm.

 

[NairWizard]

I play Pyra/Mythra and am fairly positive on the character, still thinking them to be a top 10 mainstay and possibly top 5/right outside the top 5. I think the meta relevant characters are the ones that can play rather defensive but possess a very strong advantage state and good damage output. This is why Steve and Sonic are getting strong results atm, they force the opponent to approach and make the wrong move, and when the opponent makes the wrong move they can capitalize off of it with a lot of damage and edgeguard. ROB, G&W and Snake also all have tools for a similar gameplan. Sword characters/fundies based characters like Cloud and Palutena can possess the tools to beat a lot of the really good characters rn.

That being said, I think characters need to possess a heavy "X-Factor" in order to be like top 20 or better. Either consistent and strong kill power (Diamond Steve, ROB, Kazuya, Pyra, Roy, Corrin, Wario), phenomenal edgeguarding/recovery (Sonic, ROB, Min Min) or strong comeback mechanics (Joker, Cloud) are necessary for success. If your character doesn't have cheese, they're probably not that good. One of the reasons Inkling fell off super hard was the lack of X-Factor, Inkling struggles taking the stock unless you get a really good edgeguard, and it was easy to play around the up-throw into up-air confirm.

Nice to see another Pyra/Mythra main. What matchups do you struggle with? I keep seeing people say that Pyra/Mythra is overrated but I always wonder what matchups they think Aegis actually loses. When I play the character, all I feel is boundless power in my hands, and when I lose I always think that it's because I didn't swap at the right time or I got too aggressive/haphazard with n-airs.

The one I hear most commonly is Min Min, but acola's Aegis vs. Doramigi showed that the optimal way to play that MU makes the MU look Aegis-favored. Besides that, I don't really know if P/M lose any matchups. Pikachu, Diddy Kong, Fox, and Wolf all come to mind as possible "difficult matchups," but there's so much room to improve in all of them. In particular, I think Fox and Wolf matchups are going to pan out to be Aegis-favored in the long term, because neither character deals well with Pyra reversals, and for the Diddy matchup, I think just avoiding PS2 fixes most of the issues that P/Ms face in it. PS2 gives Diddy a lot of room to pull banana, and Mythra's speed isn't suffocating enough there relative to the stage size.

Opening up the conversation to other people, does your character do well vs. Aegis, or do you hate the Aegis MU?

 

[Rizen]

Can someone please link me to the current Lumirank chart?

Nice to see another Pyra/Mythra main. What matchups do you struggle with? I keep seeing people say that Pyra/Mythra is overrated but I always wonder what matchups they think Aegis actually loses. When I play the character, all I feel is boundless power in my hands, and when I lose I always think that it's because I didn't swap at the right time or I got too aggressive/haphazard with n-airs.

The one I hear most commonly is Min Min, but acola's Aegis vs. Doramigi showed that the optimal way to play that MU makes the MU look Aegis-favored. Besides that, I don't really know if P/M lose any matchups. Pikachu, Diddy Kong, Fox, and Wolf all come to mind as possible "difficult matchups," but there's so much room to improve in all of them. In particular, I think Fox and Wolf matchups are going to pan out to be Aegis-favored in the long term, because neither character deals well with Pyra reversals, and for the Diddy matchup, I think just avoiding PS2 fixes most of the issues that P/Ms face in it. PS2 gives Diddy a lot of room to pull banana, and Mythra's speed isn't suffocating enough there relative to the stage size.

Opening up the conversation to other people, does your character do well vs. Aegis, or do you hate the Aegis MU?

Finally someone who doesn't underrate Aegis. IMO Aegis is one of Young Link's worst MUs along side Cloud and Hero. Mythra has better hitboxes, framedata and mobility than YL and she absolutely bullies him. Although YL does win neutral, like vs everyone, it's not by a lot and he has a terrible time in disadvantage. Aegis also kills YL earlier than vice versa.

I don't think Wolf wins the MU but it might be even. Aegis is probably the hardest swordie to fight, although Wolf generally does well vs swordies (which is why I secondary him). Mythra is just really hard to deal with and Wolf isn't the best at offstage interceptions. I could also see this as slightly in Aegis' favor.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Nice to see another Pyra/Mythra main. What matchups do you struggle with? I keep seeing people say that Pyra/Mythra is overrated but I always wonder what matchups they think Aegis actually loses. When I play the character, all I feel is boundless power in my hands, and when I lose I always think that it's because I didn't swap at the right time or I got too aggressive/haphazard with n-airs.

The one I hear most commonly is Min Min, but acola's Aegis vs. Doramigi showed that the optimal way to play that MU makes the MU look Aegis-favored. Besides that, I don't really know if P/M lose any matchups. Pikachu, Diddy Kong, Fox, and Wolf all come to mind as possible "difficult matchups," but there's so much room to improve in all of them. In particular, I think Fox and Wolf matchups are going to pan out to be Aegis-favored in the long term, because neither character deals well with Pyra reversals, and for the Diddy matchup, I think just avoiding PS2 fixes most of the issues that P/Ms face in it. PS2 gives Diddy a lot of room to pull banana, and Mythra's speed isn't suffocating enough there relative to the stage size.

Opening up the conversation to other people, does your character do well vs. Aegis, or do you hate the Aegis MU?

I think Diddy Kong can be rather annoying for Pyra/Mythra. Diddy is hard to hit due to how evasive he is, he has good mobility, and js good at edgeguarding them. That said I know that Pyra/Mythra does possess the tools to deal with Diddy Kong, like I think Mythra players can abuse how hard it is to hit Mythra in the matchup too. Sparg0 and Cosmos have beaten Tweek's Diddy with before, though it was a while ago.

 

[NairWizard]

The problem with the Diddy matchup, and I think Aegis’ problem in general, is what moves to use in neutral. If Diddy holds a banana and shields, a character like Corrin can safely shield pressure and mix up the timings of her own shield while threatening to cover roll with a kill move (pin).

Aegis can’t do this. Mythra’s tilts, as good as they are, aren’t safe on shield at all, and n-air is just unsafe enough even with all the timing mixups that you can’t reliably use it in this situation. What moves are you left with? Reverse d-air and grab? Mediocre choices, so instead you have to shield and leave yourself open to Monkey Flip, which often sends you at good edgeguarding angles.

There’s also no way to kill Diddy from this position. You need to swap to Pyra, or already have stage control so you can get a d-tilt confirm near ledge.

We often focus on Aegis’ recovery, and rightly so, but dying at 0 isn’t that bad relative to their strengths. It’s Ultimate; everyone dies at 0 sometimes.

What’s really hard about playing Aegis is neutral zone breaking. It seems like they should have great zonebreaking tools because of dash attack and dash grab along with sliding tilts, but there are a handful of characters who really don’t care about those options and don’t fear Aegis since there’s no projectile or kill move to fear from grounded Mythra in neutral. Any character with a good way to deal with sliding f-tilt on shield is just strong vs Aegis.

It’s a problem that Cloud doesn’t have to deal with, because Cloud breaks your zone just by being on a platform near you (fall through b-air) or above you.

Actually, now that I think about it, Aegis is kinda reverse-Cloud: one is safe on shield and the other is safe on whiff. How interesting, the design team absolutely killed it with this game.