Meta Competitive Neutral, Advantage, and Disadvantage Character Rankings

[jet56]

Gunner's fair also combos into many of Gunner's moves (these combos and follow ups are listed in the true combo and follow up thread). It can true combo into charge blast at low percents and this is a kill setup at high percents. Fair can combo into dash attack and start a string into another fair. Also Gunner's fair combos into itself. While Gunner has a strong keep away game, Gunner can also get some solid conversions from winning the neutral. Also, fair is safe on perfect shielding. The 0 to death combo that Gunner has against Little Mac involves grab releasing Little Mac off of the stage and using down smash to spike Little Mac (due to the distance that the grab release sends Little Mac, his options are covered by down smash. Escaping the grab release downward would also get Little Mac killed by down smash. The combo counter considers it a true combo, and it is very easy to gimp Little Mac from a grab release since he is not able to get a high recovery). While it is not a reliable kill confirm since it is very easy to escape a dashgrab at 0% (Little Mac also can avoid the down smash with the help of a wall jump), it shows that Little Mac's recovery can get him killed very early. Back throw at the ledge can kill Little Mac around 140% since it sends Little Mac too far to recover. Also, Gunner's zoning tools are not similar to Ness (Our shorthop fair is a much faster and safer option than either Ness or Lucas's PK Fire. Also, charging charge blast is a great option to get opponents to approach Gunner that Ness or Lucas don't have. In addition gundashing with fair allows Gunner to have more mobility in the neutral than either of them). Did you mean Lucas?

I agree that Little Mac's advantage state is good (I was surprised that it only got one star on the last advantage state list), but it isn't good enough to warrant a 4 star rating. The characters that I have listed in my last post clearly have better advantage states than Little Mac along with ,,, and(due to their more reliable combo games and reward from grabs. They also have good kill confirms and power). The great amount of characters that have better advantage states (along with the other characters that arguably have better advantage states) than Little Mac are more than enough to keep him out of the 4 star range for advantage state.

Some of Little Mac's recovery mixups are stage dependent. Also characters like Mii Gunner can cover his options very easily (flame pillar covers the ledge for at least 40 frames, and this is very deadly to Little Mac's recovery. Spamming flame pillar at the ledge can kill Little Mac very early. Gunner can also use up smash to catch rolls and jumps. Charge blast or fsmash can also cover every ledge option when timed properly. A misspaced flame pillar along with up smash covers every ledge option). Little Mac's landing options are solid, but they can be punished, and they are not enough to make up for his recovery. For these reasons, Little Mac's disadvantage state is not very good.

Alright im gonna be straight up honest here. Why do i care about Mii Gunner? He is completely irrelevant in the meta, is almost never used in competitive play (in fact, in some regions mii's are outright banned), and i don't think i would ever see one in bracket because they wouldn't even get that far. Im not trying to be rude, but why would i care about a MU im probably never going to see? I could keep arguing about it, but are we going to use one potentially bad MU to justify whether a characters neutral is good or not? And im not even admitting to the fact that Gunner even wins the MU against mac, but i don't want to discuss it when i don't know enough about it in general, because i never see it. TLDR; I don't care about mii gunner because i will never see that MU in bracket at a high level.

I rate it that high for a couple reasons. First off, little mac is amazing at covering landings with tools like his smashes, utlit (which is almost a mirror to ZSS utilt) and Up B to net stocks or hard reads. Second, when little mac is in advantage, he really doesn't need to juggle, as catching a landing will net him a stock typically usually around 100%. Not to mention it gives little mac much needed stage control when he is in advantage state, and can easily chase and keep up with opponents airborne due to his movement and footsies. He has a 4 star rating because he doesn't need to go through the effort of juggling an opponent, or keeping them in the air, as catching their landing or pressing them offstage so they can eat a Dsmash edgeguard is all he needs to net the stock (which lets not forget, is the most important factor in determining the rating of the neutral state, and of a characters viability in general.

Little mac has the same recovery mixups, regardless of stage, unless it has a wall, in which case he gets his wall jump.http://smashboards.com/threads/lets-talk-about-landing-options.421194/ im posting this again for reference. The reason people THINK little macs disadvantage state is terrible is because they are very linear about how they land or recover. Im not arguing he has a great advantage state, but he has an easier time getting down than other characters (Donkey Kong, Bowser, and others come to mind.)

To bring this all back around, if i were to rate mac it would be:

Neutral:5
Advantage:4
Disadvantage: 2:5

However, i think he should be 4:5 overall, because his neutral is SO strong. Here is a little food for thought.

Jab
Dtilt
Utilt
These all combo into UP B (which kills Bowser at about 120% from the ground)

Ftilt
All his smashes
Up B
Side B
Neutral B (both charged and uncharged)
Counter

All kill when landed at about 120% on most of the cast from the center of the stage. Some of these kill much earlier, depending on the move used, the weight of the character, position on the stage, and more. The point is, Little mac has to win neutral only 2-3 times before his opponent has to worry about losing the stock. Not to mention the literally little mac's ENTIRE MOVESET can net him a stock under 120% in almost every situation.

 

[Amadeus9]

Alright im gonna be straight up honest here. Why do i care about Mii Gunner? He is completely irrelevant in the meta, is almost never used in competitive play (in fact, in some regions mii's are outright banned), and i don't think i would ever see one in bracket because they wouldn't even get that far. Im not trying to be rude, but why would i care about a MU im probably never going to see? I could keep arguing about it, but are we going to use one potentially bad MU to justify whether a characters neutral is good or not? And im not even admitting to the fact that Gunner even wins the MU against mac, but i don't want to discuss it when i don't know enough about it in general, because i never see it. TLDR; I don't care about mii gunner because i will never see that MU in bracket at a high level.

I rate it that high for a couple reasons. First off, little mac is amazing at covering landings with tools like his smashes, utlit (which is almost a mirror to ZSS utilt) and Up B to net stocks or hard reads. Second, when little mac is in advantage, he really doesn't need to juggle, as catching a landing will net him a stock typically usually around 100%. Not to mention it gives little mac much needed stage control when he is in advantage state, and can easily chase and keep up with opponents airborne due to his movement and footsies. He has a 4 star rating because he doesn't need to go through the effort of juggling an opponent, or keeping them in the air, as catching their landing or pressing them offstage so they can eat a Dsmash edgeguard is all he needs to net the stock (which lets not forget, is the most important factor in determining the rating of the neutral state, and of a characters viability in general.

Little mac has the same recovery mixups, regardless of stage, unless it has a wall, in which case he gets his wall jump.http://smashboards.com/threads/lets-talk-about-landing-options.421194/ im posting this again for reference. The reason people THINK little macs disadvantage state is terrible is because they are very linear about how they land or recover. Im not arguing he has a great advantage state, but he has an easier time getting down than other characters (Donkey Kong, Bowser, and others come to mind.)

To bring this all back around, if i were to rate mac it would be:

Neutral:5
Advantage:4
Disadvantage: 2:5

However, i think he should be 4:5 overall, because his neutral is SO strong. Here is a little food for thought.

Jab
Dtilt
Utilt
These all combo into UP B (which kills Bowser at about 120% from the ground)

Ftilt
All his smashes
Up B
Side B
Neutral B (both charged and uncharged)
Counter

All kill when landed at about 120% on most of the cast from the center of the stage. Some of these kill much earlier, depending on the move used, the weight of the character, position on the stage, and more. The point is, Little mac has to win neutral only 2-3 times before his opponent has to worry about losing the stock. Not to mention the literally little mac's ENTIRE MOVESET can net him a stock under 120% in almost every situation.

Except his neutral isnt amazing. His boxing is great, but all you have to do to deal with his boxing is avoid his boxing range. Camp a platform or something. Bam, he's not threatening. This makes him very much a passive whiff punish character. Reactive rather than proactive. Not a good trait. He can't really pressure, either.

 

[jet56]

Except his neutral isnt amazing. His boxing is great, but all you have to do to deal with his boxing is avoid his boxing range. Camp a platform or something. Bam, he's not threatening. This makes him very much a passive whiff punish character. Reactive rather than proactive. Not a good trait. He can't really pressure, either.

Which is dependent on stage.

"
A very valid point, and im glad you brought it up because it slipped my mind. This is very true that little mac is one of those characters very affected by stage (probably the character in the whole cast the most effected by it.) I do have something to counter that though. Stage bans and picks. with the new evo stage list (Thank god), little mac will now always, with the proper bans, go to:
FD
Lylat
Town & City

If i were to ban first, i would ban Smashville. then my opponent would ban two stages, but he can't ban all 3, so i get one of the stages that little macs neutral shines on. This would most likely be T&C, as most people hate Lylat, and FD is a auto ban. If they were to ban first, it would probably be FD, then i would ban Battlefield and Smashville, leaving them with Lylat or T&C, which is again, where little mac wants to go game one.

Also, on the subject of T&C being matchup dependent due to its platforms, this is true, but what makes it so good for mac is that it is a FD stage half of the time with a shorter blast ceiling. if a mac player were to employ patience (a lot of it) and pick his fights when the stage was flat, he would still do extremely well. even if they manage to get percent lead, you have almost 3 minutes of flat stage to work with, and if you take stock lead from an early kill off the top or from a smash attack/ftilt, you can then force them to approach you since you have lead.

I agree, we can't look at mac's neutral in a vacuum, and stages do come into the equation. But the competitive scene and the ability to pick and ban must also be taken into consideration as well. Now, if we were judging and teiring the characters neutrals by looking at all their stages and MU at once, then i would agree. (and if this is the case, then i apologize for the misunderstanding.) Otherwise, i would find it unfair to judge mac's neutral based on the fact he has multiple bad stages, when the player is not going to opt to play on them if he's smart.

The worse case scenario would be i lose game one one on the stage i preferred. if that would be the case, then i would counterpick to the stage i wanted as mac, and if i won, then i would ban FD, and change my character to Cloud.
Now, if i won game one with mac, i COULD ban FD and go cloud, so as to not deal with the bad stage pick for mac, then if i lost with cloud game 2, i would go back to mac and counterpick to the stage i wanted, (this isn't really an argument for little macs stance in the neutral, but how i as a mac main handle his disadvantages.) In short, if i win game one, i am going to get 2 games with one of the 3 stages i want to play on (FD, Lylat, T&C) if it does go to game 3. I don't want to get into how a mac main handles a Bo5, as that would be more unnecessary text for you to read. I did enjoy you bringing up the point, and it was very valid."

Also, it should be worth pointing out that the opponent must have percent lead in order to camp and win the match. Which it means at some point they must deal percent, meaning they have to at some point "box" and play neutral with little mac. And if they don't have lead, they must continue to do so until they gain percent lead. Fun story: I had a fox who tried to shoot lasers at me then run away, so i hopped over the lasers until i was close enough , waited for him to shoot another laser at close range, and hit him with a fsmash (which does 25%) then, he ran to the top platform and camped me out for the next 5 min. BUT i still had a 24% lead, and he had only 45 seconds to win, so he runs back down and tries to get percent on by approaching me (which btw, its a lot easier to tell what someone is doing when they are going for a singular objective), but ultimately fails, because he has to "box" me while under pressure. Ironically, he put himself in a bad position by trying to camp out mac. needless to say, i timed him out, and stopped employing that tactic from then on against me. Even if they obtain percent lead, there are ways for mac to deal with it, depending on stage of course. Sharking, shield pressure, and taking an early stock are all ways to handle it.

 

[Vincent21]

Disadvantage: i know what you are thinking, he has one of the worst disadvantage states in the game. Well yes and no. while it is true that he can't do anything much while in the air, this isn't to say he doesn't have tools to get out of the disadvantage state. A frame 2 nair, frame 3 Up B that can kill pretty early off the top if you catch an opponent getting greedy, a very good fall speed (and overall, good air mobility ironically), all give him plenty of options to get back down to the ground pretty fast.
http://smashboards.com/threads/lets-talk-about-landing-options.421194/ a list of all of macs landing options.
the reason why there might be a misconception that little macs disadvantage state is absolute garbage? most mac mains only try to employ 2-3 of these options (usually a double jump or straight lunge, and typically they use the wrong options at the wrong time, or they don't mix it up.)

This severely ignores the fact that, despite Mac having non-linear recovery options, the range at which his margin of error becomes nil is far too large for that to have as large of an impact as your stating.

Yes, you have nair, wall jumps, more proactive UpBs, and a lot of other tools that allow Little Mac to weasel his way out of disadvantage, but he has to care at nearly 0%. Something as simple as being stuffed at 30% when recovering is fatal. The simple fact of the matter is that the stakes are too damn high. When you're already thinking about the stock at nearly 0% your disadvantage state is in the bottom 5 with no real wiggle room. Almost no other character suffers that issue in disadvantage, and this becomes even more hugely pronounced against characters like Shiek who can ferry you to the ledge and force you to make these choices in the beginning 20 seconds of the game or less. Life or Death.

Disadvantage is not solely about having options. It is primarily a measure of your margin for error. How bad can your situation be before you risk death? How many times can you get stuffed in the same ledge grab attempt? How often can you afford to be put in juggle state?

And all the answers to these questions are terrible for Mac. He has a fast-fall speed so he's combo food. Get juggled can't happen too often, and when it does you have.... nair. Hall mary UpB hard read on I guess, which is stupidly high risk

You can't make a single mistake when recapturing the ledge, regardless how varied your approach it. With the exception of stages with wall jump options, Mac is rarely afforded the luxury of saving his jump, so getting stuffde ONE TIME kills you. Whether you recover low with a defensive UpB or used varied timing Side Bs to bait whiffed punishes. At the end of the day you have zero room for error, and room for error is critical to disadvantaged play.

Don't oversell it. It's easily bottom 3 or 5.

 

[Megamang]

The only redeeming factor to Mac's disadvantage is the fact that he is gaining meter throughout the time he is being beaten. This doesn't salvage it at all IMO.


I talked with Naoto (good Mac main, watched him KO punch abadango like a boss) about this on smashladder. We thought it'd be cool if Mac could spend his meter in other ways. Perhaps holding B after your up B would burn meter fast, but allow you to continue ascending! This isn't the place to discuss this, but I wanted to add in that even top Mac players acknowledge his Disadvantage state really sucks. This is balancing though, because his neutral is really good and his advantage above average, so it makes sense that a ground dominance character struggles when not on the ground.

 

[jet56]

There is too much weight put on "margin of error" and not enough on "options in disadvantage". And actually, little mac doesn't NEED to use his double jump nearly as much as people seem to believe, most mac players do so because of pressure, panic, or not enough knowledge on little mac's options when he is in disadvantage. Because little mac is not linear in his options in disadvanatge, it actually makes it that much harder to efficiently seal the stock. And as Megamang said, he is netting meter for a K.O. punch , which could easily turn it around (not to mention little mac benefits heavily from rage). Besides, there are certain characters who while may not die off of one read offstage, have absolutely no chance of getting back if the opponent does it right (most characters without hitboxes on their recovery options, or characters that have no safe way of landing, such as to name a few.) while im not claiming these character to have overall worse disadvantages, The fact is, little mac still has the 50-50 at his disposal even when burning his double jump (up B low, side B to ledge, with the added ability to do either recovery move early to messup timing on the opponents edgeguards.) while others only have one recovery option that is easily exploitable.

 

[Amadeus9]

There is too much weight put on "margin of error" and not enough on "options in disadvantage". And actually, little mac doesn't NEED to use his double jump nearly as much as people seem to believe, most mac players do so because of pressure, panic, or not enough knowledge on little mac's options when he is in disadvantage. Because little mac is not linear in his options in disadvanatge, it actually makes it that much harder to efficiently seal the stock. And as Megamang said, he is netting meter for a K.O. punch , which could easily turn it around (not to mention little mac benefits heavily from rage). Besides, there are certain characters who while may not die off of one read offstage, have absolutely no chance of getting back if the opponent does it right (most characters without hitboxes on their recovery options, or characters that have no safe way of landing, such as to name a few.) while im not claiming these character to have overall worse disadvantages, The fact is, little mac still has the 50-50 at his disposal even when burning his double jump (up B low, side B to ledge, with the added ability to do either recovery move early to messup timing on the opponents edgeguards.) while others only have one recovery option that is easily exploitable.

I mean if what you got from megamangs post is that little macs disadvantage is good cause it lets him charge meter, you made a mistake somewhere

 

[jet56]

I mean if what you got from megamangs post is that little macs disadvantage is good cause it lets him charge meter, you made a mistake somewhere

I never said that his disadvantage was good because of meter build. I don't even think his disadvantage is good. It is a benefits he gains, even if that benefit is minimal. My argument is that his disadvantage is not a bottom 3 or 5, not that it is good.

 

[Djmarcus44]

When I was posting about Mii Gunner, I was trying to show that Gunner's neutral was better than Little Mac's. The only reason why I mentioned the improbable 0 to death that Gunner has on Little Mac is to illustrate the weaknesses of Little Mac's disadvantage state. While most of your points about Little Mac's neutral, advantage, and disadvantage have been accurate, your ratings for Little Mac seem to be too high relative to the rest of the cast. After looking back on the points made in this thread, it seems that I forgot to ask you some questions that would have made this discussion much more efficient. What position would you give Little Mac's neutral, advantage and disadvantage relative to the rest of the cast? Since I realize that your distribution of the star rankings can be different from other people (For example, most people think that only one character should get a 5 star rating, while some other people think that multiple people should get that rating), I would want your ranking of Little Mac's neutral, advantage, and disadvantage in a position relative to the rest of the cast (such as "top 5 neutral") in order to get a understanding of how you give out the star ratings.

By the way, who do you think has a worse disadvantage state than Little Mac?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Mac at least has a Counter and a KO meter filling up as he receives hits.

I do not think Captain Falcon, for example, has an "at least" property, he just gets juggled and gimped.

 

[Djmarcus44]

Captain Falcon can use Falcon kick as an occasional landing mixup. His nair can also help him land since the move is decently safe on shield. While his recovery is pretty bad, it is still better than Little Mac's. His heavy weight also allows him to live longer.

 

[TriTails]

Captain Falcon can use Falcon kick as an occasional landing mixup. His nair can also help him land since the move is decently safe on shield. While his recovery is pretty bad, it is still better than Little Mac's. His heavy weight also allows him to live longer.

Falcon Kick is absolute trash mid-air what are you talking about.

Not only that it has long FAF both mid-air and landing. It's frame 16 and doesn't kill (The hitbox also doesn't linger as long as you would like it to), All while having Falcon falling at the speed of a thwomp. It has 49 frames of landing lag and is easily punishable by any means.

Sure, you may hit people with it sometimes when they are trying to up air you, but.... who takes to the air when juggling Falcon anyway? You wait for him to land and do whatever. His airspeed is good, but mediocre accel and fast fall speed doesn't help.

His weight and falling speed means he is the perfect combo food ever. He can't do a single thing when you're stringing attacks on him. Maybe mash jump and hope it works I think.

His recovery is extremely exploitable where if he recovers high, he'll get hard punished and where if he recovers low, he'll get wall tech jump + F-air to his doom. It's also not too hard to guess when Falcon's going low or high. Not better than Mac but definitely one of the worst due to techs existing.

 

[Djmarcus44]

Falcon kick is also not that bad of an option for getting Captain Falcon to the ground quickly before an opponent can get in position to punish him. I realize how punishable the move is in most situations (That is why I said that Falcon kick was an occasional landing mixup. While the move is bad in most situations, the threat of a falcon kick is enough to keep most characters from going into the air to juggle him). If an opponent is going to wait for Captain Falcon to land, Captain Falcon can use his good aerial mobility to get in a position to hit them with nair.

I know that Captain Falcon has a very bad disadvantage state. I am just bringing up his tools in this area because I am not sure if his disadvantage state is the worst in the game.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Worst disadvantage is probably Bowser, CF, and Ganon. I guess Robin can go in there too.

 

[TriTails]

Falcon kick is also not that bad of an option for getting Captain Falcon to the ground quickly before an opponent can get in position to punish him. I realize how punishable the move is in most situations (That is why I said that Falcon kick was an occasional landing mixup. While the move is bad in most situations, the threat of a falcon kick is enough to keep most characters from going into the air to juggle him). If an opponent is going to wait for Captain Falcon to land, Captain Falcon can use his good aerial mobility to get in a position to hit them with nair.

I know that Captain Falcon has a very bad disadvantage state. I am just bringing up his tools in this area because I am not sure if his disadvantage state is the worst in the game.

Falcon Kick has a tiny hitbox that does not cover Falcon horizontally. The hitbox also does not linger (Well, it DOES. But the hitbox size...) and you just sometimes bolt down there and pass 'em by. I don't think it even kills as early as Ganon's Down-B because let's be honest, if you're having that much lag and risk when using it you're gonna need Ganon-tier level of reward.

Mixing up is a legit strategy, but when you take 50% every time you're combo'd and how hard it is to gain the not even good reward you think twice about using this move. Ganon at least has the reward where if the opponent is careless he can kill them at 70%. Falcon Kick doesn't have that luxury. When people are taking to the air to juggle you I'd much rather D-air tbh (And that is if you can challenge them. There's a lot of good U-airs in this game)

Falcon doesn't move all that well in the air. Considering airspeeds typically are slower than run speeds, you can usually just run and wait him out below as N-air doesn't hit downwards. Although, he is better at this stuff than, say, DK.

(Falcon mains feel free to rip this post to pieces if I said any injustices about the captain. I do play this character but I don't feel like knowing his every options yet)

 

[kendikong]

Zard has quite a strong advantage state, which is possibly the best thing that zard has. His ability to follow people's movement in the air with his fast dash and catch them with an anti-air Usmash is really strong(beats out even Cloud's Dair). A lot of the cast will not be able to get away, especially on omega stages. If they opt for double jump retreat away, Zare flare blitz will make them regret their decisions.

And not to mention the flamethrower at the ledge can keep a good number of the cast on the ledge for quite a lengthy amount of time. (especially some character's like DK, Cloud, Bowser Jr, Bowser, Lucas, etc)

I would say at he's a 4/5 star advantage state character. He's 5/5 against a number of characters, but I'll say 4/5 because of some characters having really good get away options.