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Fierce Fencers: Five Experts Weigh In Mii Swordfighter

With the rulesets for Smash 4 at Evo being decided soon and Mii Fighters as one of the top discussion points, we're taking this week to learn a lot more about these characters and the people who play them. Welcome to #MiiWiik! Since the game's release, Mii Swordfighter has gotten a lot of flak and was considered the outright worst in the game until Trela was able to win with him against top players in tournament. He still is ranked 4th from the bottom on the Smash 4 tier list in his 1-1-1-1 incarnation. Is there more to this character than meets the eye? We brought in five Mii Swordfighter experts to find out!

Routa, UnknownKid, AntonyKun, Colgate, and Clash Tournament's own Nyani have all come together to share their knowledge of this character and their potential in Smash 4. Start sharpening those swords as we see if Mii Swordfighter can make the cut!

Disadvantages

Having been considered one of the weaker characters in the game, it comes as no surprise that the character has some weaknesses. All five experts mentioned one thing in particular: his slow movements. As Colgate explained, "Despite having decent run speed, he has 7 frames of jumpsquat and his jump height isn't too impressive." This compiles with unsafe aerials to create a difficult time setting up neutral.

Another thing that was mentioned was a lack of an 'escape option'. "He has a hard time fighting rushdown and combo heavy characters," Routa told us. UnknownKid agreed, adding: "He can be comboed/juggled around very easy since he lacks a quick escape option or something to turn the disadvantage into neutral."

Another difficulty the experts mentioned was a lack of easy kill setups. "Swordfighter is not that great at killing," Routa confessed. "Yes he does have powerful moves like F-Smash, Uair, Bair, Fair etc, but none of them is reliable or super safe to throw out like Doc's Up-smash." Nyani agreed that Swordfighter has a tough time killing: "Against the top 10, I'm always going to find myself struggling to land a kill that isn't a gimp, even if I am winning in footsies and neutral."

Advantages

However, Mii Sworfighter is not without his strengths, and by far the one mentioned most was his ability to wrack up damage quickly though a power juggling game. "His biggest strengths are easily his juggling game," Colgate told us. "His Up-Air and Up-Tilt are great for keeping opponents in the air, making it easy to get opponents to above 50-60% in a matter of seconds, similar to Cloud."

Nyani had a lot to say on his combo abilities and damage wracking as well: "Swordfighter's damage racking is really solid, mostly due to dthrow -> uair doing 20% fresh. Dtilt being our main spacing tool does 8% and can lead to grabs, bair does 14, really just solid damage output overall. Swordfighter also has a surprising amount of strings! Landing with the first one or two hits of fair can allow you to go into dtilt, jab, grab, or even Hero's Spin. Our jab also cancels nicely into grab and other options."

While his ability to quickly gain damage on the opponent was a serious plus, Routa had something else to mention. "I'm 100% sure other Swordfighter mains have praised his ability to rack up damage easily, but I think his edgeguarding game doesn't get enough praise," he said. "He has a lot of tools to use when edgeguarding (*insert aerial here*, Gale Strike, Chakram, Counter, Reversal Slash and Power Thrust). It might not be the most powerful, but I would say when it comes to versatility Swordfighter takes the cake."

Relevant Matchups

The character that Mii Swordfighter has the most trouble against is the same as most other characters. "Sheik is definitely the worst because she is a f-air and balanced character," Antonykun joked. Colgate explained further, saying: "It's not terrible but it's hard to keep up with her speed."

By looking at the top 15 characters on the tier list, Nyani had a few thoughts on which matchups she thought were best for Mii Swordfighter among the top tiers. " I'd say our best matchups there are Meta Knight, Villager, and ZSS. We outrange Meta Knight and Dthrow->Uair actually kill confirms on him pretty okay due to his weight and fall speed. Also, a default-size Swordie is in that weird weight group that falls out of MK's Shuttle Loop a lot. With ZSS, it's hard for her to approach us if we have Tornado and Chakram. We can also beat a lot of her aerials out with Utilt, and she's gimpable with Dair once her Down B is spent. Villager can't really camp us, because Chakram goes right through both Tree and a Lloid Rocket before it starts moving. If you take Reversal Slash, you also have a way to deal with slingshots and bowling ball edgeguards."

Colgate also mentioned Mario as among the characters Mii Swordfighter does well against. "He can juggle Mario well, and box him out with his sword. His dair is also deadly for linear vertical recoveries like Mario's."

Is Mii Swordfighter Viable?

"I strongly believe Swordfighter is tournament viable at a national level, though having a secondary for bad matchups certainly wouldn't hurt," Colgate told us. Nyani, however, didn't have as much confidence: "Struggling so much against Sheik alone makes me feel like Swordfighter might not be able to go solo and win a national. I feel like the character is capable of achieving high placements, but it remains to be seen if anyone can push them to the top." However, she too mentioned his potential with secondaries: "I tend to achieve my best placements when using a mix of Swordfighter and Mario, even better than only using Mario alone."

Routa felt that his strength depended on which moves and sizes were available for use: "Guest 1111? Haha you wish. Guest XXXX? Well Guest XXXX could do some nice things, but I wouldn't still call him viable on a national level, but once you give him the size... Oh boy you are in for a treat. Judging by his MU spread (the Any Size XXXX) I would say he is viable in national level."

CT | Nyani vs Crownless King

A special thank you to all the Mii Swordfighter experts who contributed to this article. To learn more about Mii Swordfighter, consider checking out CT | Nyani's guide on the character and visit the Mii Swordfighter forums here on Smashboards. Learn something exciting about Mii Swordfighter? Tell us in the comments below and stay tuned for the rest of #MiiWiik here on Smashboards!
 

Comments

D
Good to see the Miis getting some spotlight! Still loving this series.

I really wanna contribute to a Dedede one in the future, but I'm not a top Dedede player. :c
 
And people want to limit already bad characters even more by turning off customs... Anyway, Mii Swordfighter is a little bit underestimated, but still not a viable character. Nevertheless, nice to hear some opinions about underused characters like Mii Swordfighter!
 
Swordfighter is heavily underrated. I think they're the best Mii overall.
 
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With the rulesets for Smash 4 at Evo being decided soon and Mii Fighters as one of the top discussion points, we're taking this week to learn a lot more about these characters and the people who play them. Welcome to #MiiWiik! Since the game's release, Mii Swordfighter has gotten a lot of flak and was considered the outright worst in the game until Trela was able to win with him against top players in tournament. He still is ranked 4th from the bottom on the Smash 4 tier list in his 1-1-1-1 incarnation. Is there more to this character than meets the eye? We brought in five Mii Swordfighter experts to find out!

Routa, UnknownKid, AntonyKun, Colgate, and Clash Tournament's own Nyani have all come together to share their knowledge of this character and their potential in Smash 4. Start sharpening those swords as we see if Mii Swordfighter can make the cut!

Disadvantages

Having been considered one of the weaker characters in the game, it comes as no surprise that the character has some weaknesses. All five experts mentioned one thing in particular: his slow movements. As Colgate explained, "Despite having decent run speed, he has 7 frames of jumpsquat and his jump height isn't too impressive." This compiles with unsafe aerials to create a difficult time setting up neutral.

Another thing mentioned was a lack of an 'escape option'. "He has hard time fighting rushdowns and combo heavy characters." Routa told us. UnknownKid agreed adding, "He can be comboed/juggled around very easy since he lack a quick escape option or something to turn the disadvantage into neutral."

Another difficulty the experts mentioned was a lack of easy kill setups. "Swordfighter is not that great at killing." Routa confessed. "Yes he does have powerful moves like F-Smash, Uair, Bair, Fair etc, but none of them is reliable or super safe to throw out like Doc's Up-smash." Nyani agreed that Swordfighter has a tough time killing. "Against the top 10, I'm always going to find myself struggling to land a kill that isn't a gimp, even if I am winning in footsies and neutral."

Advantages

However Mii Sworfighter is not without his strengths, and by far the one mentioned most was his ability to wrack up damage quickly though a power juggling game. "His biggest strengths are easily his juggling game." Colgate told us. "His Up-Air and Up-Tilt are great for keeping opponents in the air, making it easy to get opponents to above 50-60% in a matter of seconds, similar to Cloud."

Nyani has a lot to say on his combo abilities and damage wracking as well. "Swordfighter's damage racking is really solid, mostly due to dthrow -> uair doing 20% fresh. Dtilt being our main spacing tool does 8% and can lead to grabs, bair does 14, really just solid damage output overall. Swordfighter also has a surprising amount of strings! Landing with the first one or two hits of fair can allow you to go into dtilt, jab, grab, or even Hero's Spin. Our jab also cancels nicely into grab and other options."

While his ability to quickly gain damage on the opponent was a serious plus, Routa had something else to mention. "I'm 100% sure other Swordfighter mains have praiced his ability to rack up damage easily, but I think his edgeguarding game doesn't get enough praise," he said. "He has a lot of tools to use when edgeguarding (*insert aerial here*, Gale Stike, Chakram, Counter, Reversal Slash and Power Thrust). It might not be the most powerful, but I would say when it comes to versatility Swordfighter takes the cake."

Relevant Matchups

The character that Mii Swordfighter has the most trouble against is the same as most other characters. "Shiek is definitely the worst because she is a f-air and balanced character." Antokun joked. Colgate explained further saying, "It's not terrible but it's hard to keep up with her speed."

By looking at the top 15 characters on the tier list, Nyani had a few thoughts on which matchups she thought were best for Mii Swordfighter among the top tiers. " I'd say out best matchups there are Meta Knight, Villager, and ZSS. We outrange Meta Knight and Dthrow->Uair actually kill confirms on him pretty okay due to his weight and fall speed. Also, a default-size Swordie is in that weird weight group that falls out of MK's Shuttle Loop a lot. With ZSS, it's hard for her to approach us if we have Tornado and Chakram. We can also beat a lot of her aerials out with Utilt, and she's gimpable with Dair once her Down B is spent. Villager can't really camp us, because Chakram goes right through both Tree and a Lloid Rocket before it starts moving. If you take Reversal Slash, you also have a way to deal with slingshots and bowling ball edgeguards."

Colgate also mentioned Mario as among the characters Mii Swordfighter does well against. "He can juggle Mario well, and box him out with his sword. His dair is also deadly for linear vertical recoveries like Mario's."

Is Mii Swordfighter Viable?

"I strongly believe Swordfighter is tournament viable at a national level, though having a secondary for bad matchups certainly wouldn't hurt." Colgate told us. Nyani however, didn't have as much confidence. "Struggling so much against Shiek alone makes me feel like Swordfighter might not be able to go solo and win a national. I feel like the character is capable of achieving high placements, but it remains to be seen if anyone can push them to the top." However she too mentioned his potential with secondaries. "I tend to achieve my best placements when using a mix of Swordfighter and Mario, even better than only using Mario alone."

Routa felt that is strong depended on which moves and sizes were available for use. "Guest 1111? Haha you wish. Guest XXXX? Well Guest XXXX could do some nice things, but I wouldn't still call him viable on a national level, but once you give him the size... Oh boy you are in for a treat. Judging by his MU spread (the Any Size XXXX) I would say he is viable in national level."

CT | Nyani vs Crownless King

A special thank you to all of the Mii Swordfighter experts who contributed to this article. To learn more about Mii Swordfighter consider checking out CT | Nyani's guide on the character and visit the Mii Swordfighter forums here on Smashboards. Learn something exciting about Mii Swordfighter? Tell us in the comments below and stay tuned for the rest of #MiiWiik here on Smashboards!
And here I was thinking I'd get somewhat of a mention here after my post on the Mii sword social thread. Oh well, I'll just talk peoples ears off about it here. Don't worry SmashCapps, I'm not mad, just a little disappointed in myself for thinking I had a shot.

Anyway, I've seen Nyani's guide. I don't know for sure, but it seems like it was based on a default sized mii, not the most optimal size. It's also quite old, not any updates on patch 1.1.0. the last patch where Mii sword got buffed. Like Routa said, it's when you customize sizes that this character gets really good. If you want to read a guide about swordfighter in smallest size and up to date, read mine.

0/0 has kill confirms on everyone except Luigi and thus the trouble killing problem is fixed. Except on Luigi, of course. That is mostly thanks to the fact that 0/0 jumps pretty high. The combo game is supreme too, with one possible true combo I can think of dealing 40%, but it's hard to set up.
It was also argued that his best strength depends on the size and it wasn't just me who said that. 0/0 reliable and agressive, 50/0 edgeguard expert among the mii swords.

1111, is horrible, no mii sword main likes to play that moveset. It's an insult to the character to force this, because it's one of the worst sets for the character out there and people playing this are a lot more likely to lose, which confirms biases against this character. Ban it, or allow him to have the moves that are actually any good. Otherwise you're doing nobody a favor.

Bad MU's are pretty on point, so I don't have anything different to say. I know I said I didn't like the Mario matchup, but that was mostly because it's a MU where you either dominate or lose horribly due to his combo game. I know you just have to wall him out to win.

That's about what I wanted to say here. I am at least happy to see my main in the spotlight for a while. Perhaps we can get some better legailty for him at EVO.
 
I'm one to root for the underdog. I mained dark pit when everyone was lamenting the clones, and after the first community tier list I got interested in sword fighter and met a great bunch of people at the character board :)
 
It'd be a shame to exclude players just because they played a certain character. Nyani has a pretty clean swordfighter, and it'd be unfortunate to miss out on it because their character is banned.
 
That moment when you read an article about a character you probably won't play in tournament or really ever meet in tournament much, and then you proceed to spend your time browsing their character forum getting information for no apparent reason.
 
I love how the only thing from me in this article is my bad pun at sheik.
Granted the rest of my stuff was probably too negative and brief to make it into an article about how great Swordfighter is
 
I love how the only thing from me in this article is my bad pun at sheik.
Granted the rest of my stuff was probably too negative and brief to make it into an article about how great Swordfighter is
Yeah, I guess we both were a little too negative in our actual post.
 
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Trela is like the perfect guy to ask about this, he played swordfighter for a while and is now having good results at nationals with a top/high tier. He could probably tell us how much of a difference his character switch did.
 
Nice article. I like Swordfighter, as well as Brawler and Gunner. It's too bad that they are usually illegal. I still can't understand why they haven't been legalized yet.

Nice to see Routa Routa mentioned in here too. :)
 
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Anyway, I've seen Nyani's guide. I don't know for sure, but it seems like it was based on a default sized mii, not the most optimal size. It's also quite old, not any updates on patch 1.1.0. the last patch where Mii sword got buffed. Like Routa said, it's when you customize sizes that this character gets really good. If you want to read a guide about swordfighter in smallest size and up to date, read mine./QUOTE]


think it's best to just have all mii´s set to default anyways
 
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the lack of kills is by far the biggest problem, needs access to small size in order to get past that issue, small to tiny swordfighter is likely viable
 
I love how the only thing from me in this article is my bad pun at sheik.
Granted the rest of my stuff was probably too negative and brief to make it into an article about how great Swordfighter is
Yeah, I guess we both were a little too negative in our actual post.
I think everyone had pretty much the same things to say. But deep down in our hearts well all know that you guys, along with DigitalAtom6 DigitalAtom6 , are the true experts of Swordfighter.
 
Mii Swordsman deserves better tbh. I dont use the 1111 custom for mii swordsman but mii swordsman has decent attacks. All mii fighters are underrated
 
D
This is gucci and all, but the Mii Swordfighter in actuality sucks and will never win a national, like ZSS, Rosa, or Sheik.

Truthfully, if you just wanna win, play the best characters. Don't be a memer and handicap yourself.
 
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This is all gucci and all, but the Mii Swordfighter in actuality sucks and will never win a national, like ZSS, Rosa, or Sheik.

Truthfully, if you just wanna win, play the best characters. Don't be a memer and handicap yourself.
(Im probably misinterpreting something)
well most Mii mains don't actually want to win above all else, most people don't. If everyone really did want to win so much everyone would main shiek. I know for a fact that I am not good enough to win a Tournament so i just play the characters i like playing/feel i can be an impact in
 
This is gucci and all, but the Mii Swordfighter in actuality sucks and will never win a national, like ZSS, Rosa, or Sheik.

Truthfully, if you just wanna win, play the best characters. Don't be a memer and handicap yourself.
I've seen a bowser main win a Melee tournament. And bowser is LOW TIER in Melee
 
D
I've seen a bowser main win a Melee tournament. And bowser is LOW TIER in Melee
I'm gonna completely dismiss you because literally what you just said is irrelevant to what I stated.
 
D
Swordfighter is super underrated. The little time I've played I could tell the character had plenty of potential. He has pretty insane strings and options when he has their opponent in the air. Most of their normals are also rather fast, like Jab, D-Tilt and all the aerials barring B-Air (which, despite being autocancelable, it hits rather high). It's like everything Swordfighter has leads to other things (Jabs 1 & 2 > U-Tilt, D-Tilt > F-Air and stuff like that). It helps we have a combo throw that leads to our already-insane U-Air. The only real big problem I've had with the character, as mentioned in the article, is the fact that it has a bit of trouble killing. It takes a bit of reads, but not super hard ones either. As far as I know, Chakram can lead to either an F-Smash or a D-Air to spike (which also combos a lot more reliably to Footstool than you'd expect). Our Smash attacks, U-Air and Link's Up-B are actually really strong KO moves. Like I said, it takes a bit of a read and not overcomitting. Our potential for footsie game seems pretty strong, ee-mo.

For the record, the only customization I go for are:

- Link's Up-B (arguably our best recovery and it doubles as an extra, powerful KO move and it comes out at Frame 8)
- Chakram (Side B). It combos into things and I think it can even combo to itself. Somebody correct me on this. Antonykun Antonykun Unknownkid Unknownkid
- Rainbow Cape. It's pretty much Mario's cape, and it helps me a lot for mindgame stalling in the air as well as reversing a character's recovery or even possible Smash attempts.
 
D
I'm gonna completely dismiss you because literally what you just said is irrelevant to what I stated.
Or you know, people simply just care about doing the best with their character and pushing themselves to the fullest with them? Not all people simply care about just winning. There's many different ways to approach this game and other fighting games in general.
 
@Oz
The chakram infinite is too precise and too esy to get out of to be of any use slow Chakram has too big of a tell to use in a distance other than one that lets you have anything more than a dash attack anyways.

The REAL draw of Chakram (And the reason why it's the best side b special for Swordfighter arguably the best special for him) is the fact that it can cover multiple scenarios by simply changing the angle and speeding up and slowing down the chakram
 
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Or you know, people simply just care about doing the best with their character and pushing themselves to the fullest with them? Not all people simply care about just winning. There's many different ways to approach this game and other fighting games in general.
I agree and disagree with you.

Agree: People should play as the characters that they enjoy the most regardless of how good they are. When you are with friends are in small local tournaments.

Disagree: On the state, regional, national and international scale you are wrong. It is about winning and not about having fun anymore. When there is large sums of money on the line and you do this as a career like Zero, Nairo and ESAM you can no longer solely depend on the characters that you like the most and begin going with the best. Zero dropped Diddy as his main when he plays on the national scale became he does this as a means put food on his table.

On a national scale there is a large chance Miis will never win the entire thing, at least not as a solo main.
 
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Match-ups, what disadvantages, or advantages, a Mii Sword Fighter has, to me, doesn't make a difference whether they should be legalized or not.
(Same goes for their size and moves)

Even if this whole article was about all their disadvantages and how bad they are, with no positive or good points about them... They still should be legalized and given all their moves and sizes.


Zero dropped Diddy as his main when he plays on the national scale
Just thought I would add this about Zero...
The only reason Zero picked Diddy as a main before, was Diddy used to be considered the best. The only reason Zero uses Diddy from time to time now, is that Diddy is still great to use.
 
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