How much of a difference do tiers make in this game?

[Misdreavus]

While I've played Brawl before, I'm new to playing it as more than a fun "party" game. So I was wondering, how much of a difference do tiers make?

For example, in SSF4, tiers weren't a huge deal. Unless the character was absolute bottom tier, like Dan or Hakan, everyone had a good chance to win. In Marvel 2, on the other hand, if you didn't have Cable, Magneto, Storm, or Sentinel on your team then you've pretty much already lost.

How about Brawl? I know that Meta-Knight is supposed to be ridiculously good, but other than that, how much better would I do if I picked, say, Dedede as supposed to if I picked a mid-low character like Ike, or a bottom tier like Zelda?

 

[JOE!]

Well, from what Ive experienced tiers as a whole don't really matter as much unless you're rock bottom or at the top. For most everyone else they -can- compete but can have some ******** matchups that keep em down (see: DK)

As for Ike/Zelda vs D3,

Ike vs D3: 35/65 D3

Zelda vs D3: 40/60 DDD

so yeah

 

[-Ran]

Tiers matter in any game, since they represent the potential of a character. This is often a matter of the optimal approaches/defenses that a character has. With that said, to prove how important Tiers are in Smash, if you take a look at this chart you can easily see the correlation in placing and tier order.

 

[Problem2]

Going off the release of the new tier list, I would say everyone in Top tier has a good chance of winning a national tournament. I would also say that it is possible for anyone in Mid or above to win a tournament providing either a massive amount of luck or a noticable gap in skill between that player and the rest of the community.

 

[popsofctown]

I would say I win roughly 1.5 times as many matches after switching to MK from midtier.

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[Supreme Dirt]

Metaknight is a step above everyone immediately below him. After that it's a little more gradual with character affectiveness. If you want a character who can do well, pick someone from high/top. If you want a character who can still win but requires significant investment, pick a mid-tier. If you want to spend significantly more time practicing than most players to even stand a chance of making brackets at a national, you can pick a low tier.

Note that there are exceptions to this rule within those groupings. D3 is high tier but feels like a mid tier in a lot of MUs, Pikachu and Diddy require a lot more work than most other high-top tiers, etc.

 

[popsofctown]

Metaknight is a step above everyone immediately below him. After that it's a little more gradual with character affectiveness. If you want a character who can do well, pick someone from high/top. If you want a character who can still win but requires significant investment, pick a mid-tier. If you want to spend significantly more time practicing than most players to even stand a chance of making brackets at a national, you can pick a low tier.

Note that there are exceptions to this rule within those groupings. D3 is high tier but feels like a mid tier in a lot of MUs, Pikachu and Diddy require a lot more work than most other high-top tiers, etc.

Those are exceptions that disprove your rule. The tier list isn't an "ease of mastery" list, nor is it intended to be, it's a comparison of how the characters do when masters of the respective characters play eachother. Adding absurd amounts of investment to a simple low tier character like Ganon isn't going let you master a hidden secret that makes him have options that equal a high tier's kit. You'll still have poorer options, and you'll only win if your opponent drops the ball or you have excellent prediction skills, which comes from knowing your opponent's character, talent, and fighting game experience, not because Ganon's frame data improves the 300th time you play him.