Elitist
Smash Rookie
TL;DR Being able to soft counter low-mid tiers while being (soft) countered by top tiers coupled with having unfavorable match-ups with high tiers (with one or two being unwinnable) make set Little Mac in top 15 with no wiggle room.
With that out of the way, let's talk about Little Mac.
"But Elitist, we've talked about Little Mac before." I know! Let's talk about him again, I like talking about him. If you'd like to skip this, please scroll down to the dotted line.
Little Mac is an experimental character, a polarized one, made, ironically, in the same vein as Jigglypuff. Instead of asking "What happens when we give someone a meager ground game and a very potent air game", the converse occurred. Which is great! Little Mac plays like his own character, which is awesome, especially in a game with over fifty fighters, guys! You can't say Mac plays anything like Sonic, or Ike, Mac plays like MAC, and that's good.
Though Little Mac and Jigglypuff are two sides of the same coin, this coin is weighted, if you will. In the smash series, being in the air is generally a disadvantage, and the goal of being in the air is to get back down to the ground before someone attempts to turn you into combo food. I don't want to talk about how this affects Jigglypuff (especially with the changes to her integral character that have been made) because this is a Little Mac character discussion. What this means for Little Mac, is that he has among the best ground games in the game, with favorable frame data, excellent move utility, and specials made with this in mind to compliment his play. In addition, Little Mac has super armor on his smash attacks, which make it incredibly difficult to contest him in a fist fight, which does well to mitigate his moderate range issue.
Little Mac is weak in the air, we know this, but we have a habit of forgetting his strengths (rather, his ability to do what was mentioned above, get back to the freakin' stage as painlessly as possible. To this end Little Mac has the fifth fastest falling speed in the game, tied with Falco, Roy, and (surprisingly) Mega Man! To put this into perspective, Fox, the fastest faller in the game, falls 0.878%~ faster than Little Mac. while 9% can and will make a difference in some situations, we can all generally agree that Little Mac falls fast enough to tough ground with as little injury as possible. Little Mac is the tied in 29th place for air speed, with Robin, and Rosalina(you heard me correctly). This may not sound all that hot, but Meta Knight, one of the definitive air fighters in the game, is 1% slower than Little Mac in the air. Yeah. Freaked me out, too.
Little Mac's aerials are crud, but an honorable mention to his neutral air, which creates an active hitbox on frame 2, allowing him to get out of some neutral infinites with some tactical mashing, and challenge players in the air, no matter how significant their contest is. Shoutout goes to his wall jump, which is, to my surprise, the best in the game (that tool tip stressing he doesn't use his legs in his attacks is true, but to say they're weak is a bunch of baloney).
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I'm done talking Little Mac up so much.
The dust of the meta game is settling, and Nintendo are soon to pack their things up for this installment of Smash, washing their hands of any more guilt (MEWTWO'S HITBOXES, SHEIK'S FRAME DATA, LORD ELIWOOD, ROOOOOOOOY!). I don't want to say I have x-ray vision, nor precognition, but I do see Little Mac climbing over a fair chunk of the cast with his gloves held high, while being smooshed down by characters with *just* the right tools to keep him in his place, a ground fighter with the worst recovery in the game. Something straight out of a boxing ring, really, where he belongs. I'm going to be That Guy(tm) and say outright that a Little Mac should never beat a competent Mario, (Dark) Pit, R.O.B., and to a lesser extend, Falco, outside of an FD styled stage. I want to say anyone with a meaningful projectile with flinching properties, decent range, without popping him up, can delete Mac's stocks very easily, with a minimum of three reads. He's never going to break out of his position because his flaws are so carefully crafted (or, with the side-b nerf, hamfisted, that's open to conjecture) that Mac cannot be top five, nor top ten. Little Mac can mulch anyone who isn't careful. If they are careful, it's a grueling war you're bound to lose without reading your opponent's entire library. I hate to say that Little Mac loses to camping... but he does, saying he doesn't is a lie. It's why he'll lose to Link and VSS, while having tons of advantages over them, and why he's a serious choice versus Rosalina and Luigi, and you can fight me on these opinions.
I SERIOUSLY advocate picking Little Mac up as a secondary, no matter who you are, where you're from, who you're currently maining, anything. I want to call him something of a Melee Dr. Mario. Easy to pick up, reasonably difficult to perfect, always relevant. Mac is dumb easy to learn, you could win a match with him using Side-B, Down Smash, F-Smash, and Neutral A exclusively, and that is a fact. What makes him great is not throwing out smashes because they're layered in super armor, making them relatively safe. It's that everyone knows he can do this, and have to adjust their strategies accordingly, unlike any other rush down character. The things Mac can make a smasher do is undeniably horrifying, and I guarantee going to Mac for two to three games a tourney can net you a surprise win, by just how unpredictable it is, along with the fact that Little Mac has just enough to survive an encounter with a lighter projectile user.
With that out of the way, let's talk about Little Mac.
"But Elitist, we've talked about Little Mac before." I know! Let's talk about him again, I like talking about him. If you'd like to skip this, please scroll down to the dotted line.
Little Mac is an experimental character, a polarized one, made, ironically, in the same vein as Jigglypuff. Instead of asking "What happens when we give someone a meager ground game and a very potent air game", the converse occurred. Which is great! Little Mac plays like his own character, which is awesome, especially in a game with over fifty fighters, guys! You can't say Mac plays anything like Sonic, or Ike, Mac plays like MAC, and that's good.
Though Little Mac and Jigglypuff are two sides of the same coin, this coin is weighted, if you will. In the smash series, being in the air is generally a disadvantage, and the goal of being in the air is to get back down to the ground before someone attempts to turn you into combo food. I don't want to talk about how this affects Jigglypuff (especially with the changes to her integral character that have been made) because this is a Little Mac character discussion. What this means for Little Mac, is that he has among the best ground games in the game, with favorable frame data, excellent move utility, and specials made with this in mind to compliment his play. In addition, Little Mac has super armor on his smash attacks, which make it incredibly difficult to contest him in a fist fight, which does well to mitigate his moderate range issue.
Little Mac is weak in the air, we know this, but we have a habit of forgetting his strengths (rather, his ability to do what was mentioned above, get back to the freakin' stage as painlessly as possible. To this end Little Mac has the fifth fastest falling speed in the game, tied with Falco, Roy, and (surprisingly) Mega Man! To put this into perspective, Fox, the fastest faller in the game, falls 0.878%~ faster than Little Mac. while 9% can and will make a difference in some situations, we can all generally agree that Little Mac falls fast enough to tough ground with as little injury as possible. Little Mac is the tied in 29th place for air speed, with Robin, and Rosalina(you heard me correctly). This may not sound all that hot, but Meta Knight, one of the definitive air fighters in the game, is 1% slower than Little Mac in the air. Yeah. Freaked me out, too.
Little Mac's aerials are crud, but an honorable mention to his neutral air, which creates an active hitbox on frame 2, allowing him to get out of some neutral infinites with some tactical mashing, and challenge players in the air, no matter how significant their contest is. Shoutout goes to his wall jump, which is, to my surprise, the best in the game (that tool tip stressing he doesn't use his legs in his attacks is true, but to say they're weak is a bunch of baloney).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm done talking Little Mac up so much.
The dust of the meta game is settling, and Nintendo are soon to pack their things up for this installment of Smash, washing their hands of any more guilt (MEWTWO'S HITBOXES, SHEIK'S FRAME DATA, LORD ELIWOOD, ROOOOOOOOY!). I don't want to say I have x-ray vision, nor precognition, but I do see Little Mac climbing over a fair chunk of the cast with his gloves held high, while being smooshed down by characters with *just* the right tools to keep him in his place, a ground fighter with the worst recovery in the game. Something straight out of a boxing ring, really, where he belongs. I'm going to be That Guy(tm) and say outright that a Little Mac should never beat a competent Mario, (Dark) Pit, R.O.B., and to a lesser extend, Falco, outside of an FD styled stage. I want to say anyone with a meaningful projectile with flinching properties, decent range, without popping him up, can delete Mac's stocks very easily, with a minimum of three reads. He's never going to break out of his position because his flaws are so carefully crafted (or, with the side-b nerf, hamfisted, that's open to conjecture) that Mac cannot be top five, nor top ten. Little Mac can mulch anyone who isn't careful. If they are careful, it's a grueling war you're bound to lose without reading your opponent's entire library. I hate to say that Little Mac loses to camping... but he does, saying he doesn't is a lie. It's why he'll lose to Link and VSS, while having tons of advantages over them, and why he's a serious choice versus Rosalina and Luigi, and you can fight me on these opinions.
I SERIOUSLY advocate picking Little Mac up as a secondary, no matter who you are, where you're from, who you're currently maining, anything. I want to call him something of a Melee Dr. Mario. Easy to pick up, reasonably difficult to perfect, always relevant. Mac is dumb easy to learn, you could win a match with him using Side-B, Down Smash, F-Smash, and Neutral A exclusively, and that is a fact. What makes him great is not throwing out smashes because they're layered in super armor, making them relatively safe. It's that everyone knows he can do this, and have to adjust their strategies accordingly, unlike any other rush down character. The things Mac can make a smasher do is undeniably horrifying, and I guarantee going to Mac for two to three games a tourney can net you a surprise win, by just how unpredictable it is, along with the fact that Little Mac has just enough to survive an encounter with a lighter projectile user.
