I want Mario to be a good character

[TriTails]

I do just fine with LM, even the not scrubby ones that spams dash attack, but whatever.

Back to Mario... then if he has all of these weaknesses, then why are people suddenly just jumping to 'Mario is top tier' bandwagon? Huh, guess it's person specifics.

Well, now I see your point. Thing is, I doubt if Mr. Sakurai would even look at him for buffs. People are going like 'Mario is top tier' (High tier, can accept that. Top tier? No) and 'Mario is balanced' that, even if they buff him, chances that it's going to be minor buffs. But hey, we are talking about the same guy who buffed Shulk with uneeded damage buffs (No, I'm serious. All of those damage buffs could have gone to Lucina) and apparently smashed Greninja (From what I have heard). So.... who knows? They may buff him again. Only time will tell.

 

[A2ZOMG]

It should be noted, Mario was legitimately buffed by the DI changes in that patch which added just a little consistency to some of his juggles. He was however actually pretty blatantly outright terrible before then. I still don't think he's great and find him overall explicitly worse than his previous iterations in terms of options and matchups...even though he doesn't have any unwinnables currently.

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

I couldn't disagree more an that statement. I find this iteration of Mario even better than his last incarnation.

 

[Holla@ChaBoi390]

I can understand people arguing against those who say Mario is a top 5 character but to say he is bottom tier is a stretch. He is a good, balanced character, who can do a little of everything. He may feel average but that was an intended design decision. He is Smash's Ryu, easy to pick up and learn but rewarding to master.

Honestly, he does well against most characters, even his supposed mismatches like Marth, Diddy, and Rosalina. The only real problem I have with Mario is that it is hard to KO in some situations, leading to lost leads if you can't get the kill quick enough. He also has a short range compared some of the cast.

What Mario does have though, which outweighs his difficulty to KO some of the cast, is a great set of gimping tools in his fair, his cape, and his FLUDD. Adding on to his strengths, he is very mobile, has a great nair, a good spacing tool in his fireball, a powerful fsmash, and very quick dsmash.

Yes, I've mained him for years so I can't say I'm not a little biased. However, his strengths and weaknesses add up to a solid, mid-high tier character.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

I agree with most of the concerns regarding .
The primary changes i would make to mario is to change his f-air to the same one he had in smash 64, make his DA have less ending lag and FLUDD should have more Knockback. I would also change his Back Throw so that it can KO earlier, as Mario lacks any good finishers besides his U-Smash and the EJP custom.

 

[MarioMeteor]

I agree with most of the concerns regarding .
The primary changes i would make to mario is to change his f-air to the same one he had in smash 64, make his DA have less ending lag and FLUDD should have more Knockback. I would also change his Back Throw so that it can KO earlier, as Mario lacks any good finishers besides his U-Smash and the EJP custom.

Tornado in the air, Dsmash, meteor smash. But most of Mario's kills come from edgeguarding, not just plain force.
Now anyway, by what stretch of the imagination is Mario bad? I'd say he's easily top 10. Not top 5 like some people are saying, but you'd have to be completely blind and/or insane to think that Mario is bad.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Tornado in the air, Dsmash, meteor smash. But most of Mario's kills come from edgeguarding, not just plain force.
Now anyway, by what stretch of the imagination is Mario bad? I'd say he's easily top 10. Not top 5 like some people are saying, but you'd have to be completely blind and/or insane to think that Mario is bad.

Mario gets almost all of his KOs from U-smash and B-throw against people that aren't terrible at this game. It's fairly difficult for Mario to KO his opponent offstage given he can't cover that many options and doesn't hit very hard with most of his better aerials.

What matchups does he win? He most definitely does not beat any of the good characters in this game. He goes debatably even with Fox and Falcon, and that's as good as it gets for him. Diddy, Sheik, Pikachu, Ness, and Luigi are significantly not in his favor. Yoshi, Wario, Rosalina, ZSS, and Sonic have slight advantages against him. That's already at least 10 characters that are clearly better than Mario.

He also does quite poorly against a lot of characters that are not even considered great currently. Duck Hunt is uphill when you can't Fireball camp him and his aerials are both fast and have massive range + being a very short character. Ganondorf does N-air and D-tilt and covers most of Mario's options for better reward. Marth, Metaknight, Pit/Dark Pit, and G&W are still basically fast sword users than Mario has trouble approaching and recovering against. Donkey Kong is a heavy that Mario actually has trouble comboing due to his invincible Up-B.

Top 20 is a massive stretch for Mario, when I look at it this way.

 

[MarioMeteor]

Mario gets almost all of his KOs from U-smash and B-throw against people that aren't terrible at this game. It's fairly difficult for Mario to KO his opponent offstage given he can't cover that many options and doesn't hit very hard with most of his better aerials.

What matchups does he win? He most definitely does not beat any of the good characters in this game. He goes debatably even with Fox and Falcon, and that's as good as it gets for him. Diddy, Sheik, Pikachu, Ness, and Luigi are significantly not in his favor. Yoshi, Wario, Rosalina, ZSS, and Sonic have slight advantages against him. That's already at least 10 characters that are clearly better than Mario.

He also does quite poorly against a lot of characters that are not even considered great currently. Duck Hunt is uphill when you can't Fireball camp him and his aerials are both fast and have massive range + being a very short character. Ganondorf does N-air and D-tilt and covers most of Mario's options for better reward. Marth, Metaknight, Pit/Dark Pit, and G&W are still basically fast sword users than Mario has trouble approaching and recovering against. Donkey Kong is a heavy that Mario actually has trouble comboing due to his invincible Up-B.

Top 20 is a massive stretch for Mario, when I look at it this way.

Don't be so dramatic. Every character has bad matchups. Mario has no unwinnable matchups or really any below maybe 65:35. Some of these sound like your own personal problems and not issues that Mario himself actually has. Because DK's Spinning Kong is invincible the entire matchup is ****ed? Like I said, drama. Mountains out of molehills. All of these issues can be overcomed.

 

[FullMoon]

Without a complete move set overhaul, Mario will never be a character with good range on most moves. That is fine by me. That was never how he was designed in his own series. I am however going to be disappointed about not getting a ground pound or a stomping move (like Greninja or ZSS...who don't even do that in their own games).

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Bounce_(move) Just felt like pointing this out.

As for Mario himself, I honestly feel he's good but people are overrating him a bit. He's certainly good, doesn't have any unwinnable MUs and has good combo potential, but he has some trouble getting kills sometimes due to not really having any good kill setups, he does have a rather poor range as well and for the most part he doesn't look like he has any advantages against the top characters of the game. I can't see him being more than mid-high myself. He can perform well and has fast moves, but I don't think he is as good as the likes of Ness, Yoshi and the others high tiers.

 

[HeroMystic]

I'm going to note "mid-high" tier would still be in the realm of Top 20, which I feel is where he's at right now.

 

[FullMoon]

Yeah I can see Mario being in Top 20, he definitely has the frame data and the combos for it, but I can't see any higher than that. What I said is mainly for people who think he's something around top 10, I've seen that sometimes.

I like playing Mario and he's really fun to play with in this game, Top 20 seems right for him since he's definitely a powerful threat. He's certainly the character I do best with outside of Greninja at least.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

May just be me, but I think mario has too many poor MUs to be in the top 20. I actually think that he's in the lower half of the tier list.
Also, I'm not sure how mario is being overrated when the only people who think he's top tier are some higher level players like ZeRo and Dabuzz.

 

[HeroMystic]

Zero, Dabuz, M2K, NAKAT, Ally, and several other high tier players believe he's at least Top 20 (Ally thinks he's top 15, Zero believes he's Top 7).

The Competitive forum in general believes he's high tier. It's literally just this forum that believes he's on the lower half.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Don't be so dramatic. Every character has bad matchups. Mario has no unwinnable matchups or really any below maybe 65:35. Some of these sound like your own personal problems and not issues that Mario himself actually has. Because DK's Spinning Kong is invincible the entire matchup is ****ed? Like I said, drama. Mountains out of molehills. All of these issues can be overcomed.

I'm being realistic here.

Mario loses to most characters in this game about 45/55, a few 4/6s against top tiers, and a minority of matchups are even for him, and then he has like maybe 5 or so matchups against niche characters that are explicitly his favor.

That does not make him good, or even remotely top 10 as you suggest. For that matter, he almost certainly isn't top 20 if we talk matchups.

This isn't about me having trouble playing the character. I still play a lot of Mario, and I've been told by people locally that I should main him. However realistically I rarely ever feel like any of his matchups are "good" as people claim.

Mario still has a terrible F-air, a mediocre DA, a below average negative state, and he has considerable trouble pressuring characters on the ledge and low recoveries offstage on top of generally doing really low damage, even with some situational combo strings that don't work in all matchups. Furthermore Mario is hurt a lot more than most characters by the universal nerf to SH aerials where most of them hit higher in this game.

 

[NairWizard]

I'm of the opinion that Mario is clearly top 5 in a customs environment and may even be the best character in the game, though I know it's utter sacrilege to say that on this forum.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I'm of the opinion that Mario is clearly top 5 in a customs environment and may even be the best character in the game, though I know it's utter sacrilege to say that on this forum.

Honestly, I could buy this argument to an extent. Customs Mario benefits REALLY HUGELY from every custom variant except Fire Orb.

 

[Mister Eric]

@ A2ZOMG MM me.
I play ROB
ROB is free.
pls.

 

[NairWizard]

Honestly, I could buy this argument to an extent. Customs Mario benefits REALLY HUGELY from every custom variant except Fire Orb.

Yes, that's about the gist of my reasoning. He has some bad MUs in non-customs, such as Luigi, Diddy Kong, and Ganondorf (I really don't think that he loses any other MUs besides these by more than 5 points, though; most of the Pikachus see the MU as even for example, even with Pikachu's superior ground game, since trades go in Mario's favor so much). But Mario with the right custom set can go even with or beat any character in the game, and that's huge. Trouble with Luigi? Fast Fireballs, Gust Cape, High Pressure Flood. Losing 60:40 -> winning 55:45.

Trouble with Zelda? Take the power up-b (you don't need a good recovery against her anyway) and Shocking Cape (what is there to reflect? Phantom is meh, just get better KO power).

and so on

Customs Mario doesn't have bad MUs, which is not something that any other character in the game can say, not even Sheik, who comes really close but may lose here or there.

really good airspeed and really good frame data makes him very flexible already, so with these extra options from customs, I'm pretty sure he's top tier

 

[HeroMystic]

My issue with banking on Customs Mario is it's mostly theoretical. Like, sure Mario is probably the most variant out of all characters (the majority of characters just seem to have straight upgrades or useless downgrades), but characters still have their own customs that strengthen them.

I know Nyani strongly prefers Customs Mario over default Mario and I feel the same, but no bad match-ups whatsoever? Seems too good to be true.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Yes, that's about the gist of my reasoning. He has some bad MUs in non-customs, such as Luigi, Diddy Kong, and Ganondorf (I really don't think that he loses any other MUs besides these by more than 5 points, though; most of the Pikachus see the MU as even for example, even with Pikachu's superior ground game, since trades go in Mario's favor so much). But Mario with the right custom set can go even with or beat any character in the game, and that's huge. Trouble with Luigi? Fast Fireballs, Gust Cape, High Pressure Flood. Losing 60:40 -> winning 55:45.

Trouble with Zelda? Take the power up-b (you don't need a good recovery against her anyway) and Shocking Cape (what is there to reflect? Phantom is meh, just get better KO power).

and so on

Customs Mario doesn't have bad MUs, which is not something that any other character in the game can say, not even Sheik, who comes really close but may lose here or there.

really good airspeed and really good frame data makes him very flexible already, so with these extra options from customs, I'm pretty sure he's top tier

Actually against Zelda, I currently would run Super Jump and High Pressure FLUDD to do really funny things to her offstage given this can harass her from ranges outside of her Up-B sweetspot range (also her D-air is actually really scary against Mario's recovery). Not yet very sure about D-throw Explosive Jump punch combo range on Zelda. I don't think it kill% combos on her though, which then makes it less useful.

Explosive Punch and Fast Fireballs however make the Diddy matchup probably even. On someone like Diddy I'm pretty sure if you do it perfectly it combos at KO percents. Yeah like...you thought Diddy Hoo Hah was crazy? D-throw Up-B in some matchups DESTROYS people. Unlike Doc Ol One Two, it's not useless as a recovery move either.

Even Scalding FLUDD as far as I'm aware has niche matchup utility as an anti-air or disjointed damage tool in matchups where edgeguarding isn't super practical. Such as against Peach. Similarly Shocking Cape also has good disjointed range and damage, which is valuable against Marth, Duck Hunt, and most sword users.

 

[HeroMystic]

@ A2ZOMG

The Demo Combo (D-Throw > U-air > U-air > Up-B) with EJP equipped kills Mario on FD at 55%. D-Throw > Up-B kills Mario on FD at 97%. Should give a rough idea on where Diddy and others would stand.

 

[FullMoon]

Okay Custom Mario looks pretty scary from what I'm reading here, gonna keep this in mind when I begin to play with customs more often.

 

[NairWizard]

My issue with banking on Customs Mario is it's mostly theoretical.

Of course it's theoretical. Unless you are Ally-level good, it's all theoretical because you can't put into practice the "perfect Mario game," can you? You can at best have some experience at up to high level, but when we talk about how good characters are we talk about how good they are at the highest level. That's theory, unless you can also play at the highest level to put the theory into practice and back it up. Literally by posting here we are theorizing.

All this talk of Mario in this topic is theorizing, with a bit of our experiences mixed in. Customs isn't extra-theoretical beyond the normal level of theoretical, because many of us have played with customs. From what I've seen of customs, I don't see Mario as losing any matchups. That could change as other custom characters develop, but that's my initial impression.

 

[HeroMystic]

Of course it's theoretical. Unless you are Ally-level good, it's all theoretical because you can't put into practice the "perfect Mario game," can you? You can at best have some experience at up to high level, but when we talk about how good characters are we talk about how good they are at the highest level. That's theory, unless you can also play at the highest level to put the theory into practice and back it up. Literally by posting here we are theorizing.

I do agree with you, here. We're all theorycrafting in this thread and probably everywhere else in the competitive section. The issue I take with, in terms of theory, are the things overlooked. I enjoy bold statements (especially ones we can all agree on), I just prefer to take a more grounded approach.

For instance, Thinkaman has stated more than a few times that Mario's customs are actually underwhelming, and his tourney scene has been playing with customs for ~4 months. Of course he's no Mario main, but it gives me the perception that even if his customs are versatile, they may not be strong enough to completely change some of his less-than-stellar MUs.

For instance, if DHD truly hard counters Mario, does his customs suddenly turn this into an even MU?

 

[A2ZOMG]

I do agree with you, here. We're all theorycrafting in this thread and probably everywhere else in the competitive section. The issue I take with, in terms of theory, are the things overlooked. I enjoy bold statements (especially ones we can all agree on), I just prefer to take a more grounded approach.

For instance, Thinkaman has stated more than a few times that Mario's customs are actually underwhelming, and his tourney scene has been playing with customs for ~4 months. Of course he's no Mario main, but it gives me the perception that even if his customs are versatile, they may not be strong enough to completely change some of his less-than-stellar MUs.

For instance, if DHD truly hard counters Mario, does his customs suddenly turn this into an even MU?

Fast Fireballs and Shocking Cape are non-trivially better against Duck Hunt than default.

I don't really agree with Thinkaman on his opinion of Mario and Doc customs, personally.

 

[NairWizard]

For instance, if DHD truly hard counters Mario, does his customs suddenly turn this into an even MU?

I don't believe that Duck Hunt Dog comes even close to hard-countering Mario. Cape disrupts DHD's poor recovery and his can setups, and I can tell you right here right now that DHD does not just disregard Mario's fireballs even by default. DHD has more trouble KOing than Mario, and his landings are not clean at all so punishing one with an up-smash is not hard.

That's kind of the thing. Mario is already versatile, he doesn't lose any MUs by more than 5-10 points imo. Customs just push his MUs 5-10 points up in many cases (but not in others! for instance, his DK matchup likely stays the same, which is about 50:50 imo).

Of course, Diddy and Sheik are in all likelihood still better, because they flat-out destroy some characters and despite having some iffier matchups than Mario, they have an advantage in that Mario will never flat-out destroy anybody. Still, not having any bad matchups is a pretty big deal.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I don't believe that Duck Hunt Dog comes even close to hard-countering Mario. Cape disrupts DHD's poor recovery and his can setups, and I can tell you right here right now that DHD does not just disregard Mario's fireballs even by default. DHD has more trouble KOing than Mario, and his landings are not clean at all so punishing one with an up-smash is not hard.

That's kind of the thing. Mario is already versatile, he doesn't lose any MUs by more than 5-10 points imo. Customs just push his MUs 5-10 points up in many cases (but not in others! for instance, his DK matchup likely stays the same, which is about 50:50 imo).

Of course, Diddy and Sheik are in all likelihood still better, because they flat-out destroy some characters and despite having some iffier matchups than Mario, they have an advantage in that Mario will never flat-out destroy anybody. Still, not having any bad matchups is a pretty big deal.

DK on default settings I believe clearly wins against Mario because he can Up-B out of many of Mario's strings (including anything with D-air), dealing a lot of damage to Mario sometimes. He can also easily cover Mario's low recovery with a correctly timed Up-B and gimp him.

On custom settings it's probably one of Mario's few remaining clearly disadvantageous matchups, though High Pressure FLUDD and Gust Cape help a little.

 

[NairWizard]

DK on default settings I believe clearly wins against Mario because he can Up-B out of many of Mario's strings (including anything with D-air), dealing a lot of damage to Mario sometimes. He can also easily cover Mario's low recovery with a correctly timed Up-B and gimp him.

On custom settings it's probably one of Mario's few remaining clearly disadvantageous matchups, though High Pressure FLUDD and Gust Cape help a little.

That's probably fair; I'd need to see the MU played out to say for sure, but I can buy that Mario loses to custom DK.

 

[Dabuz]

A2zomg has been saying mario is bad since the game's release when it's been proven he's anything but bad/ mediocre.

 

[A2ZOMG]

A2zomg has been saying mario is bad since the game's release when it's been proven he's anything but bad/ mediocre.

You want to argue results? Mario is not the only unremarkable character who has gotten random good results under strictly amazing players since the game release. I'm not seeing characters put in work so much as players in this game, outside of the fact Diddy and Sheik are basically everywhere.

 

[MarioMeteor]

Custom Mario can be truly disgusting. I think Mario is probably the only character who doesn't have a bad custom. And maybe Lucario. I rock 2323.

I'm being realistic here.

Mario loses to most characters in this game about 45/55, a few 4/6s against top tiers, and a minority of matchups are even for him, and then he has like maybe 5 or so matchups against niche characters that are explicitly his favor.

That does not make him good, or even remotely top 10 as you suggest. For that matter, he almost certainly isn't top 20 if we talk matchups.

This isn't about me having trouble playing the character. I still play a lot of Mario, and I've been told by people locally that I should main him. However realistically I rarely ever feel like any of his matchups are "good" as people claim.

Mario still has a terrible F-air, a mediocre DA, a below average negative state, and he has considerable trouble pressuring characters on the ledge and low recoveries offstage on top of generally doing really low damage, even with some situational combo strings that don't work in all matchups. Furthermore Mario is hurt a lot more than most characters by the universal nerf to SH aerials where most of them hit higher in this game.

You say you're being realistic then you go on and say that Mario loses to most characters in the game. It sounds like you're arguing with yourself. See, you're reasoning has two big flaws. Number one is most of this is you struggling with the characters you mention, then writing them of as "matchups". The only problem characters Mario truly has are Luma, (not Rosalina, Luma) Sheik, Diddy, and Yoshi. But that's just what I think. Which smoothly transitions into flaw number two: There are no definitive matchups yet. This is essentially you fabricating. I could see if there was a thread or a list or a pro backing you up and saying, "Mario loses 44/55 against (insert character here)". But right now it sounds like your thinking this as you type and expecting us to believe it. But here's the part that really stumps me: You say that you want Mario to be a good character, yet you tell yourself a huge list of why he isn't. I want Jigglypuff in Brawl to be good, but I could give you a whole bunch of sources telling you why she isn't. I wanted Sonic 2006 to be good, but I could give evidence from a thousand and one sources why it isn't. Feel what I'm saying? When you've got a whole thread of people giving you reasons why there's no way in hell Mario is bad, and you respond with, "The matchup says...", you don't exactly seem convincing. If you want him to be good, make him good. In other words: play him well. Mario's gonna continue to be bad in your head if you keep relying on nonexistent matchups to dictate how you play.

 

[HeroMystic]

Custom Mario can be truly disgusting. I think Mario is probably the only character who doesn't have a bad custom. And maybe Lucario. I rock 2323.

Fire Orb is pretty horrid, but otherwise I agree.

 

[MarioMeteor]

Fire Orb is pretty horrid, but otherwise I agree.

I've heard a lot of people say that. Fire Orb is actually a good edgeguarding option and I'm pretty sure you can get a grab off of it. Although you lose one of your best approach options, so to me it's not worth it. But it's something.

 

[UltimateXsniper]

I believe Mario is at least mid high tier in the game. He's a pretty solid character in this game. Definitely not the worse he has ever been. 1 word, Brawl.

 

[MarioMeteor]

I believe Mario is at least mid high tier in the game. He's a pretty solid character in this game. Definitely not the worse he has ever been. 1 word, Brawl.

I'd say he was worse in Melee than in Brawl.

 

[A2ZOMG]

You say you're being realistic then you go on and say that Mario loses to most characters in the game. It sounds like you're arguing with yourself. See, you're reasoning has two big flaws. Number one is most of this is you struggling with the characters you mention, then writing them of as "matchups". The only problem characters Mario truly has are Luma, (not Rosalina, Luma) Sheik, Diddy, and Yoshi. But that's just what I think. Which smoothly transitions into flaw number two: There are no definitive matchups yet. This is essentially you fabricating. I could see if there was a thread or a list or a pro backing you up and saying, "Mario loses 44/55 against (insert character here)". But right now it sounds like your thinking this as you type and expecting us to believe it. But here's the part that really stumps me: You say that you want Mario to be a good character, yet you tell yourself a huge list of why he isn't. I want Jigglypuff in Brawl to be good, but I could give you a whole bunch of sources telling you why she isn't. I wanted Sonic 2006 to be good, but I could give evidence from a thousand and one sources why it isn't. Feel what I'm saying? When you've got a whole thread of people giving you reasons why there's no way in hell Mario is bad, and you respond with, "The matchup says...", you don't exactly seem convincing. If you want him to be good, make him good. In other words: play him well. Mario's gonna continue to be bad in your head if you keep relying on nonexistent matchups to dictate how you play.

I have constantly put work into this character and established tech and knowledge of how to optimize him. Similarly I never feel like I have difficulty playing against Mario.

When I play against Mario, as someone who has mained the character, this is what goes on in my head. I know that in several matchups, I can jump out of Mario's low% strings (or block them in some cases), and in a best case scenario, he often does about 23%. I know also his primary way of getting close is going to be grab, both because it's his most rewarding option damagewise, and because he has almost nothing else that I can't outspace reactively. I also know that when he's looking for kills, he is extremely unlikely to kill me earlier than 150% if I do simply three things. Recover low offstage, block constantly on stage, and reset towards the ledge whenever I'm in the air. Mario's responses to these options typically only deal chip damage, until he eventually manages to get me to a range/position where he can KO with B-throw. This by itself however isn't going to win him games, because the risk/reward to do this against most characters is very unfavorable.

Mario is hurt by the changes to ledge mechanics which give him fewer options in this game to effectively cover low recoveries, and just generally doesn't trade well against most characters. He also is hurt significantly by his SH aerials hitting much higher in this game than they did in Brawl, which especially against short characters is a huge disadvantage.

I mean...I'll take my wins with Mario while I still can. Just the character in general on default settings definitely doesn't impress me when I see him against me. I would basically be only afraid of Mario players that are clearly much better than me and could probably beat me with other characters.

I'd say he was worse in Melee than in Brawl.

Melee Mario was borderline broken if his hardest matchups against space animals didn't exist. The other top characters like Sheik, Peach, Jigglypuff, and Marth were quite winnable for Mario, and then the only two other characters he struggled with were Ganon and Samus. Literally everything else was in his favor, sometimes by at least 65/35 or more. Melee Mario often straight up invalidated characters pretty hard tbh when you realize just how braindead good his chaingrabs, F-smash, and edgeguards are.

Brawl Mario went basically on average even give or take 5 points against all of the mid tiers, won 6/4 could beat the Ice Climbers, Olimar, ZSS, Pikachu, and Snake on a good day, and then his matchups against the other high/top tiers were more or less a joke. Most matchups against the good characters in Brawl were a joke for that matter, but Mario in Brawl overall was a significantly stronger and more versatile character than in Smash 4 that had a greater number of favorable matchups, even factoring the smaller cast.

 

[Smashtistics]

I main Mario, and play a lot of FG, so all of my opinions stem from that. I rarely feel that my character choice is the reason that I lose. I only feel like I'm at a big disadvantage against Lucario & Rosalina. I'm sure top Diddy and Sheik players would trounce me, but I rarely run into them.

I agree you need to work for your smashes, and commit to reads, however, I enjoy playing him that way. I don't really have a kill move I rely on heavily, but rather I try to use all of them when the situation permits. It's not uncommon I win a game against a good player but killing with a back throw and a spike for instance. It can be really frustrating against Lucario for instance, but also great when I hit a f-smash out of an air attack and kill a Jiggly at like 85 percent.

I would have liked to see more Mario at Apex 2015, but I've seen Anti play a hell of a Mario, and overall I really like how balanced he is. He might not end up being top tier, but few will.

 

[MarioMeteor]

I have constantly put work into this character and established tech and knowledge of how to optimize him. Similarly I never feel like I have difficulty playing against Mario.

When I play against Mario, as someone who has mained the character, this is what goes on in my head. I know that in several matchups, I can jump out of Mario's low% strings (or block them in some cases), and in a best case scenario, he often does about 23%. I know also his primary way of getting close is going to be grab, both because it's his most rewarding option damagewise, and because he has almost nothing else that I can't outspace reactively. I also know that when he's looking for kills, he is extremely unlikely to kill me earlier than 150% if I do simply three things. Recover low offstage, block constantly on stage, and reset towards the ledge whenever I'm in the air. Mario's responses to these options typically only deal chip damage, until he eventually manages to get me to a range/position where he can KO with B-throw. This by itself however isn't going to win him games, because the risk/reward to do this against most characters is very unfavorable.

Mario is hurt by the changes to ledge mechanics which give him fewer options in this game to effectively cover low recoveries, and just generally doesn't trade well against most characters. He also is hurt significantly by his SH aerials hitting much higher in this game than they did in Brawl, which especially against short characters is a huge disadvantage.

I mean...I'll take my wins with Mario while I still can. Just the character in general on default settings definitely doesn't impress me when I see him against me. I would basically be only afraid of Mario players that are clearly much better than me and could probably beat me with other characters.
Melee Mario was borderline broken if his hardest matchups against space animals didn't exist. The other top characters like Sheik, Peach, Jigglypuff, and Marth were quite winnable for Mario, and then the only two other characters he struggled with were Ganon and Samus. Literally everything else was in his favor, sometimes by at least 65/35 or more. Melee Mario often straight up invalidated characters pretty hard tbh when you realize just how braindead good his chaingrabs, F-smash, and edgeguards are.

Brawl Mario went basically on average even give or take 5 points against all of the mid tiers, won 6/4 could beat the Ice Climbers, Olimar, ZSS, Pikachu, and Snake on a good day, and then his matchups against the other high/top tiers were more or less a joke. Most matchups against the good characters in Brawl were a joke for that matter, but Mario in Brawl overall was a significantly stronger and more versatile character than in Smash 4 that had a greater number of favorable matchups, even factoring the smaller cast.

So you'd think that with all this knowledge of the character, getting around these issues would be easy as Sunday morning to you right? That's what I think, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Once again, Flaw #2 is showing. You can't judge a character based on how good or bad they're "matchups" are. I mean, you can, but it won't be accurate. If Melee Mario is broken, then Dr. Mario must be ********. Which he was. I think he was the best non-top tier character in the game. As a fighter, I did like Brawl Mario better, not because of matchups, but because of his superior damage output.

 

[A2ZOMG]

So you'd think that with all this knowledge of the character, getting around these issues would be easy as Sunday morning to you right? That's what I think, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Once again, Flaw #2 is showing. You can't judge a character based on how good or bad they're "matchups" are. I mean, you can, but it won't be accurate. If Melee Mario is broken, then Dr. Mario must be ********. Which he was. I think he was the best non-top tier character in the game. As a fighter, I did like Brawl Mario better, not because of matchups, but because of his superior damage output.

Melee Mario is better than Doc. Let's get that out of the way. The only reason Doc even was considered above Mario was strictly because of doing less terrible against space animals. Mario's matchups against almost the entire cast are strictly better than Doc's in Melee except vs basically Fox and Falco, who are considered the top two characters in the game. And then I guess Ganon and Samus, but nobody really cares about them.

Doc unlike Mario actually doesn't really beat anyone really hard for the most part in Melee. He's easier to gimp, and his chaingrabs don't last as long. Plus, he doesn't have Mario's ridiculous F-smash to space people out safely or punish people who DI away from D-throw, and the only time Doc's superior B-air gimps really do anything useful for him are basically against Ganon and Samus, while in most other situations he loses out on having lower damage aerials that have more landing lag. So no, you can't simply tell me that Doc is ridiculous in Melee when Mario does very significantly better in basically all except four specific matchups.

Matchups are probably the most important factor concerning character viability at the end of the day. How do you say with a straight face that you can't judge a character based on their matchups?

Which is where I also fail to see how people come to the conclusion that Mario is good. He was definitely a completely terrible and extremely drastically overrated character during 3DS release when his combo game was even less reliable due to vectoring. Post patch did help him a decent amount, but his reward is still highly percent and character specific. The main times I've seen Mario explicitly perform very well are not unlike the times I've seen almost any other character get surprising tournament results (Charizard, Donkey Kong, Ganondorf, Samus, and Ike, all not considered outstanding characters, have had some great tournament results under specific players). There's some legitimately insane players that aren't even playing the same game as everyone else, and overall character viability can't be conclusively judged on outliers.

 

[MarioMeteor]

Melee Mario is better than Doc. Let's get that out of the way. The only reason Doc even was considered above Mario was strictly because of doing less terrible against space animals. Mario's matchups against almost the entire cast are strictly better than Doc's in Melee except vs basically Fox and Falco, who are considered the top two characters in the game. And then I guess Ganon and Samus, but nobody really cares about them.

Doc unlike Mario actually doesn't really beat anyone really hard for the most part in Melee. He's easier to gimp, and his chaingrabs don't last as long. Plus, he doesn't have Mario's ridiculous F-smash to space people out safely or punish people who DI away from D-throw, and the only time Doc's superior B-air gimps really do anything useful for him are basically against Ganon and Samus, while in most other situations he loses out on having lower damage aerials that have more landing lag. So no, you can't simply tell me that Doc is ridiculous in Melee when Mario does very significantly better in basically all except four specific matchups.

Matchups are probably the most important factor concerning character viability at the end of the day. How do you say with a straight face that you can't judge a character based on their matchups?

Which is where I also fail to see how people come to the conclusion that Mario is good. He was definitely a completely terrible and extremely drastically overrated character during 3DS release when his combo game was even less reliable due to vectoring. Post patch did help him a decent amount, but his reward is still highly percent and character specific. The main times I've seen Mario explicitly perform very well are not unlike the times I've seen almost any other character get surprising tournament results (Charizard, Donkey Kong, Ganondorf, Samus, and Ike, all not considered outstanding characters, have had some great tournament results under specific players). There's some legitimately insane players that aren't even playing the same game as everyone else, and overall character viability can't be conclusively judged on outliers.

But I thought you adored matchups. Those few good matchups should be enough to sway you, seeing as how you put all your faith in matchups. So I'll say it again, and I can guarentee you I'm not smiling (yet): You. Should not. Judge a character based on matchups. Did you get that? Good. Matchups don't take into account many things, specifically, human skill. That is their fatal flaw. That's why I will never say that a character is bad because they have so-called "bad matchups". And they'll never be credible, because there's no possible way to factor in every possible situation in a matchup. Sometimes, it will come down to luck, which is never considered in a matchup. For good reason, but the fact still stands. Sometimes a character does outright bad or unfavorably against certain characters, like Mario against Sheik, in which case I'll switch to Lucario, who does much better against her. But not enough to make matchups a credible source. Especially when (and pay attention to this) there are no definitive matchups for a certain game that has barely been out for a quarter of a year. Now do you understand why matchups are bull****?
Which is why I fail to see how in the name of Denzel Washington you come to conclusion that Mario is bad in any way. I mean, you're pretty much alone on this one. Aside from "he has bad matchups", you really haven't given any reasons.
And the reason why Dr. Mario is better is because he's essentially Mario Lite. I know he's supposed to be slower but they ****ed up big time on that. It's barely noticeable in a fight. Wish I could say the same for him in this game.