Is Brawl more balanced than melee? **Take 2**

[rhan]

No. It's just not. For this one reason:

Melee didn't have to ban a character to make the game just a little more fair.

10Melee>Brawl

 

[Fletch]

NOW what I really want to know, what is Smash's comparison of balance to other competative fighting games?

It's hard to say. I'll use Melee as the comparison here since it's middle of the road in the Smash series (both in time and balance). Comparing it to games like Guilty Gear, it's hard to say Smash is balanced at all, but then comparing it to something like MvC2 (which has a huge roster but they're all destroyed essentially by the top 4), I would say Smash is relatively balanced. I would ask Yuna about it though, he seems to have more knowledge about other competitive fighters than myself.

 

[TK Wolf]

IrArby wins 500 awesome points.

I don't think the number of tourney-level characters is as big of a concern as how the tourney-level characters interact. Brawl has this silly rock-paper-scissors deal going on, where you have characters that are strong vs some and weak vs others. (Of course, some characters are immune to much of that). It really cheapens the competitiveness of the game, IMO. Counterpicking in Melee was never that big of a deal, (correct me if I'm wrong on that) but in Brawl, counterpicking characters and stages makes a HUGE impact.

Furthering the comment about universal ATs, characters need ways to respond to what an opponent can do. This can either be through universal abilities, or things added in by the developers. For example, Potemkin in Guilty Gear is a slow character and is the only character who can't run or aerial-dash. But to help, the developers gave him one move that absorbs hits, and another that charges forward while absorbing up to one hit. Also, every character has one move with upper-body invinsibility, and the ability to (roughly once per fight) break out of any combo. When sirlin re-balanced street fighter 2, he looked at every character's weaknesses and tried to give them something they could use to get around it and deal with other characters. If we look at Ike's jab, we can find one good instance of developers giving a character something to account for their weakness.

But for the most part, Brawl just doesn't have this. Even amongst higher tiers, there are matches which are stacked in favor of one side. I.e. Marth vs G&W. There aren't universal abilities that can be used to deal with certain characters/approaches, nor are there developer-added abilities to surmount weaknesses.

 

[Palpi]

Wouldn't a high / top tier character with some bad match ups be more balances than not?

 

[IrArby]

Yikes... what hardcore Nintendo fanbase? I think the Nintendo fanboys are feeling great about the games they're getting, especially since they're saying that galaxy is better than Mario 64. (lolwut)

Seriously, Nintendo hasn't been hardcore since they made games for Atari.

Uh personally I think Galaxy wasn't to great as it was just too easy. I got bored and stop playing once I got to whatsherfaces bedroom. Theres so many sh*tty games out for the Wii. I don't mean neccesarily sh*tty quality but the games themselves suck. And apparently Wii Sports is the highest selling game of all time. Wii FUN for ALL AGES YAY!

No. It's just not. For this one reason:

Melee didn't have to ban a character to make the game just a little more fair.

10Melee>Brawl

Hey SOVA! You know Toasty and everyone right? I think I've seen you on their thread though I never really post there anymore. I'm about to do my last semester in Lynchburg for school but afterwards we should get together and play some Melee. I got into it late but I'd love to play. The only SOVA guy I really know is Trey (Schoolie Dee) and he plays Brawl + never calls people back so . . . Anyway I agree with you also. No one in the right mind ever talked about banning Fox Marth Shiek Falco etc. because they're all beatable.

Thanks for the points Wolf Pup TK! I'm now up to 501 points. I agree, the testers had no idea what they were doing when the tried to balance the game. They should've spent more times balancing characters than taking out potential competitive elements.

Wouldn't a high / top tier character with some bad match ups be more balances than not?

Uhh . . . what?

 

[gsninja]

True this^^^. Nintendo has been neglecting its hardcore fanbase for some time. In fact they've kinda been insulting us, tempting us with games featuring older characters while not at all delivering in gaming quality which cheapens the old favorites we know and love. I don't know if they're making a Wii Mario Tennis yet but if it sucks, I'm buying a XBox and playing FPSs. To hell with Wii Fit and Mario at the Olympics.[/b]

This is a good post. I'm a "hardcore" gamer myself, and so far, Brawl and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn are the only two games I actually enjoyed on the Wii. What sucks is that Radiant Dawn was the first FE game released in North America to have difficulty and since so many people (Mostly casual) complained about it, FE might never have difficulty in North America again.

Anyways, to be on-topic, I believe Brawl is a bit less balanced than Melee as it currently stands, pretty much because of Snake and MK.

 

[TK Wolf]

Wouldn't a high / top tier character with some bad match ups be more balances than not?

Ideally, all characters wouldn't have any good or bad matchups, but rather, all neutral matchups.

 

[CRASHiC]

I love how you guys are all, I'm hardcore, so if it I don't like it, no hard core person will. I'm going to go play an FPS, a genre which has seen no real innovation since Halo 1 lolololol


Endless Ocean is a great game, and can be played both hard core style and casual style.

 

[DivineBlade]

True this^^^. Nintendo has been neglecting its hardcore fanbase for some time. In fact they've kinda been insulting us, tempting us with games featuring older characters while not at all delivering in gaming quality which cheapens the old favorites we know and love. I don't know if they're making a Wii Mario Tennis yet but if it sucks I'm buying a XBox and playing FPSs. To hell with Wii Fit and Mario at the Olympics.

Haven't you heard? Iwata saysthat will cater to the casual gamer audience. Not only it will affect newer titles but some favorites that have grown us to Nintendo. Zelda's gameplay and storyline was rumored to be toned down to casual gamers. Which obviously sux!!!

 

[Foufy]

I think character wise Brawl is way less balanced, but player skill it is much more balanced.
Way more combos in melee that can make non-experienced players frustrated beyond belief and render them helpless in each and every match.
Although there are certainly many techniques available in Brawl and the more skilled players emerge on top, the lower players certainly stand a better chance.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

I think character wise Brawl is way less balanced, but player skill it is much more balanced.

DK(Bum) vs DDD(somenobody)
infinite is allowed

guess who wins or probably will win?

 

[Conclusively]

I think character wise Brawl is way less balanced, but player skill it is much more balanced.
Way more combos in melee that can make non-experienced players frustrated beyond belief and render them helpless in each and every match.
Although there are certainly many techniques available in Brawl and the more skilled players emerge on top, the lower players certainly stand a better chance.

Lol, that's what makes it unbalanced. A scrub can just take up MK and beat somebody with decent skill that plays a low tier.

 

[CRASHiC]

This is not true. M2K show large turn out in SMALL tournaments, but in area with largely active tournament scene M2K scores much lower as power houses like Chu and Lain easily take out the scub metaknights.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

well MKs so overused everyone should know how to at least deal w/ him now anyway. its only those ***** by MK who really suffer from any ol MK w/o being severly more skilled.

 

[Fletch]

I love how you guys are all, I'm hardcore, so if it I don't like it, no hard core person will. I'm going to go play an FPS, a genre which has seen no real innovation since Half-Life lolololol


Endless Ocean is a great game, and can be played both hard core style and casual style.

Fixed that for ya.

 

[IrArby]

Honestly Endless Ocean looks cool but not "Man that **** looks sweet!" cool Endless Ocean looks cool in the same way that I actually played through like a whole year of one of the PS1 Harvest Moon games. Same concept really: build and maintain your stuff, whether it be your crops and farm animals or your tropical fish.

If Wii Mario Tennis has a bunch of gay powerups I may kill someone.

 

[Endless Nightmares]

Character Balance: Brawl
everything else Balance: Melee

lol

 

[E.G.G.M.A.N.]

I think character wise Brawl is way less balanced, but player skill it is much more balanced.
Way more combos in melee that can make non-experienced players frustrated beyond belief and render them helpless in each and every match.
Although there are certainly many techniques available in Brawl and the more skilled players emerge on top, the lower players certainly stand a better chance.

Player skill isn't actually part of the game itself. That is, it wasn't programmed into the game, it is an outside influence that is completely independent. So this argument is kind of null.

 

[CRASHiC]

Honestly Endless Ocean looks cool but not "Man that **** looks sweet!" cool Endless Ocean looks cool in the same way that I actually played through like a whole year of one of the PS1 Harvest Moon games. Same concept really: build and maintain your stuff, whether it be your crops and farm animals or your tropical fish.

If Wii Mario Tennis has a bunch of gay powerups I may kill someone.

Didn't Mario Tennis for the gamecube suck as well?

And on the endless ocean, my family was all into getting that game, and I was thinking, **** that lame *** ****! but then they get it, and they say things like, "I don't get it!" But I can't put the thing down. SPOILER ALERT I was hooked from the second a blue whale passed over head a hammer heard snuck up from the bottom. And actually Arby, there is no maintaining anything in Endless Ocean. You have the option of doing missions, searching areas, and what not, or you could just swim to your hearts content. SPOILER when I swam to the bottom and found whale bones in ***** black darkness, I thought this is the second greatest video game experience I've had all year. (First is Metal Gear Solid 4, but that's game of the decade in my book)

Its less like Harvest Moon and more like Grand Theift Auto, but with fish.

 

[IrArby]

God D*mnit Half way through my post about Endless Ocean I started thinking about that Wii Aquariam game instead. Endless Ocean nonetheless looks sweet so I may buy it as it coming highly recommended.

Mario Tennis for the gamecube didn't suck but the powerup things for every character were kinda lame. Like, once you advanced pretty far, you could almost never score without one and it became a game of who got a powerup first. Plus, long animation breaks while Mario's racket turns into a hammer are not very entertaining 207 times per match.

I'm pretty sure that the Mario Tennis series will go the same way as the MarioKart series. MarioKart 64 is the best (yes I know theres a SNES version but I can't play that one right now) and you've got more than a few things that add depth to the racing and the items. It really takes skill to be good and control your car. I consistently beat my friends cause I can drive much better (not because I get better items/use a better character). Then, the GC version had wierd controls that were slower/less responsive and the focus became a bit less on racing and more on the tracks and the items. Wii MarioKart is by far the worst. That Bullet BS! 12 Cars and the last 3 always get monster **** items. The levels detract big time from just racing. I hardly see any reason to be a light character as they get the **** knocked out of them (offstage most of the time). And your control over the car is even more unresponsive. The whole thing is slower and idiot proofed for 10 year olds. I hate it.

This concludes IrArby's daily rant.

 

[Akiomaru]

Tbh, I think all you talking about balance in brawl are completely right. Brawl has it where you can potentially be GREAT with characters if you put some time into it. I was in a local tourny against a MK and I was Wario for kicks and giggles and I tore him up. Wasn't some nub/scrub. He won last time and it was my first tourny there. Sucks for them? lol. I'll say this: any char that you want to use and be good with you will.

 

[Phantom7]

In a match between Sheik and Sonic, yes.
In a match between Sheik and Ganondorf, no.

I would say Brawl is less balanced, since matchups like these are so unfair. Melee had its unfair matchups, too, though, so it's pretty close. But Brawl does have chain grabs and tripping, and there are way more disagreements on the teir list.

 

[Phantom7]

Character Balance: Brawl
everything else Balance: Melee

lol

Very true, considering Brawl has smash balls, assist trophies, and a lot of other sh*tty items.

But some of the character matchups are still pretty unbalanced... cough, fox, cough, ganondorf, cough

 

[Yuna]

but player skill it is much more balanced.

This has nothing to do with balance. No one ever argues game balance based on how well players of differing skill levels stack up against each other.

Way more combos in melee that can make non-experienced players frustrated beyond belief and render them helpless in each and every match.
Although there are certainly many techniques available in Brawl and the more skilled players emerge on top, the lower players certainly stand a better chance.

And this is a good thing?

 

[ganonspike]

Yes i see all the counterpicking and stage impact and so. But with the exception of MK i think the game is rather more balanced... of course this is due in large to the game being relatively new, I see people playing with characters from all over the tier list. I think with out the glaring outrage of MK it would be slightly more balanced.

 

[MyCurse4Life]

yes I believe brawl is doing worse than melee.

 

[Teran]

Well there are more viable characters, but that can be attributed to the size of the cast.
There weren't really as many **** matchups in Melee as Brawl, except for something like Mewtwo vs Marth, but that's a match between 2 extremes of the Tier List, and Mewtwo is awful anyway.
Brawl isn't more balanced, it just slashed a large part of the skill gap. It's a shame how hours of practice is practically futile whereas in Melee, every hour of practice bears fruit.

 

[Red Arremer]

I love taking me as an example because I'm an egoistical jerk like that. <3

So, in Melee, I'm far better than in Brawl, although I never played Melee with a real competetive spirit until like, a year ago, and never put so much effort into learning it - differently in Brawl... I was trying to improve vastly and put a lot of training and effort into becoming better in it, but I still suck balls. A lot.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I just remembered an old AlphaZealot post that compiled some major tournament data for melee.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=201196

I'm not going to talk about Marth vs Meta Knight, but rather, just look at all of the characters who appear in those tournaments. These are nine huge tournaments, and the top 8 in all of them only include 9/26 of melee's cast. Not a single low tier character made it into the top 8. The only character Sheik could chainthrow that ever made top 8 was Sheik; not even Ganon (obviously very good in general) made it.

1. Marth = 2140.25
2. Falco = 1138
3. Ice Climbers = 1123.5
4. Fox = 793.125
5. Falcon = 366.625
6. Sheik = 170.875
7. Peach = 132
8. Jigglypuff = 118
9. Samus = 67.75

On the other hand, I'm just going to list the characters who appear in the top 8 for the six tournaments in Ankoku's thread that have 90+ people (let's say that's the cut-off for being a "big" tournament) and that happened in November or later. Lucario, Snake, Meta Knight, Sonic, Toon Link, Wario, Diddy Kong, Zero Suit Samus, Falco, R.O.B., Ice Climbers, King Dedede, Marth, Wolf, Fox, Pit, Mr. Game & Watch, Kirby. That's 18/36 (/37 if you still think Zelda and Sheik are actually different characters). There is no way you can possibly bend this number to be less than the 9 characters from those huge melee events. You even see some use of Sonic and Fox who are generally considered pretty low tier characters. This is only a sample of six tournaments of course; high quality characters like Olimar ended up being excluded by luck of the draw and such. Of course, melee only got a 9 tournament sample size, but that's still bigger than how much I looked at for brawl... If people think I'm being uncharitable to melee and would like to supply different huge tournament data in which a wider array of characters perform well, feel free.

You all can draw your own conclusions, but if we're mostly worried about tournament level, numbers do mean something.

 

[Blackshadow]

*snip*

Right, that data's accurate and all...except the Melee data is after ~7 years of play, while Brawl's data is based on a year's play. Hardly a fair comparison, is it?

 

[Teran]

Right, that data's accurate and all...except the Melee data is after ~7 years of play, while Brawl's data is based on a year's play. Hardly a fair comparison, is it?

True, but the Smash Community as a whole is far more knowledgeable than the beginning of Melee. Hence, 6 months of Brawl data is probably equivalent to 4 years of Melee development. Yeah, I pulled those numbers out my ***, but you get the point.

 

[IrArby]

Honestly, alot of people don't play MK or Snake simply because they find them cheap. Thats why alot of people play half way decent Mid Tierers like Peach, Wolf, Fox, Pit, non of whom have anything on MK or Snake really. People have this character fanboy favoritism thing. Someones even sigged M2K saying that he didn't think Sonic was tournament viable. So why are people using sub par characters? I can't adequately say why but they are for reasons that don't come from a pure play to win mindset. Thats what I see more often than not.

Either way you didn't list which characters won the most tournaments just which ones placed top 8. Its seems thats been the goal of half the players out there to prove they can "place" with Pit or whatever. That doesn't effect the game's balance. Pit still loses to the top 4 or 5.

Regardless of what you think of that argument, thats not how we traditionally measure game balance. Its measured by the distance between the top and the bottom or between each tier. You can even stretch it to say whats the worst matchup in the game and Melee would still win. DK/D3 is still worse than any Melee matchup. In fact no ones been able to decide what Melee's worst matchup is since everytime someone mentions one we say "Well no pichu still had . . . " or "Actually, Mewto had some really good out of throw set ups . . . "

It doesn't help the Melee results that 3 of the best players played Marth most of the time (Azen, Ken, M2K) but what can I say Marth is just that f*cking cool. Actually, its more because though Fox is better on the whole, Marth has more of a margin for error in a match. He doesn't get CG by anyone but Shiek. The fact remains a perfect Fox beats a perfect Marth. Additionally, at that time in the metagame, Marth was ranked 4th on the tier list. He's NOW 2nd (because of the pros who played him) but really should be third as Shiek (currently 3rd) still has the advantage in that matchup.

Anyway I contest that tournament results are not the best indicator for game balance. Tournaments measure a person's skill compared to another not thier characters potential which is the matter at hand.

 

[Yuna]

Blah blah

That argument has already been refuted to hell and back. The only reason why Snake, Meta Knight and Game & Watch aren't being tierwhored more if because of a "honor code" among Brawl players. They are viewed as "too cheap" and people actively avoid them in order to not be branded as "cheap".

Both on paper and in practice, those three are dominating tournaments. Not to mention that Melee Marth only racked up that many wins based on the playing of three Marths. Meta Knight and Snake are dominating tournaments, played by a jillion different players.

So in Melee, we had three specific players dominating (and might I remind you that they were dominating even when they played characters other than Marth?) while in Brawl we have specific characters dominating.

 

[AlphaZealot]

That argument has already been refuted to hell and back. The only reason why Snake, Meta Knight and Game & Watch aren't being tierwhored more if because of a "honor code" among Brawl players. They are viewed as "too cheap" and people actively avoid them in order to not be branded as "cheap".

This cannot be proved-and even if it could you would have to then prove why the same sentiments would not exist in Melee (hint: both games were probably effected by this equally).

Both on paper and in practice, those three are dominating tournaments. Not to mention that Melee Marth only racked up that many wins based on the playing of three Marths. Meta Knight and Snake are dominating tournaments, played by a jillion different players.

Whenever you look at data, especially when comparing characters, you want to look at the height of the metagame-which means evaluating upper echelon players. Maybe there are a jillion MK's, but guess what? If you look at the data from the largest tournaments in Brawl it is basically the same 2-3 MK's dominating (DSF/M2K...and thats it pretty much-all the rest lose constantly-there was a Texas tournament last weekend where a Sonic player got 4th while Dojo (MK) got 7th or 9th-Texas, the state where the "lets ban MK!" sentiment basically began because of Dojo). Essentially, it is the same thing as Melee Marth. Marth in Melee, by the way, won tons of local tournaments too (just like Meta Knight)-we simply don't care about those small local tournaments with few (or even none) of the top talent because they aren't relevant to showing how the cast is balanced or not.

So in Melee, we had three specific players dominating (and might I remind you that they were dominating even when they played characters other than Marth?) while in Brawl we have specific characters dominating.

Really? M2K's best finish at a national tournament was 3rd with Fox. He switched to Marth and the difference was like night and day-he went from being really good to being the contender for best in the world. Ken rarely, if ever, used other characters, and he never had the same success with any of his secondaries that he did with Marth. That isn't to say he couldn't win with his secondaries, it is just saying with Marth he was the best, with other characters he was probably top 10ish. Same thing is true of Azen-he never had the level of success using other characters as he did when he used Marth. True, he could play any character and probably compete with that character against the top 20-10 players in the country, but when it came down to winning against the best he used Marth.

---

I'm not saying Brawl is more balanced than Melee or vise versa. I think it is to early to really judge these types of things. However, ignoring Marth's dominance in Melee and attributing it to, simply, player skill, is absurd. That argument was used when just Ken was dominating in 2005, but then two other elite players switched to Marth/started using Marth as their main and suddenly they achieved a level of success they never had before. This doesn't touch on the other Marth players who did well (Neo, KM, Cactuar, Husband-and that is just EC players who were all top 25 or so in the country in 2007).

---

Anyway I contest that tournament results are not the best indicator for game balance. Tournaments measure a person's skill compared to another not thier characters potential which is the matter at hand.

It is the best measure, and I will show you why:

The fact remains a perfect Fox beats a perfect Marth

On paper maybe-the reality is there has never been a perfect Marth or Fox-and when it came down to the top players using those two characters imperfectly Marth always came out on top. You are arguing in theory, but what happens in theory doesn't mean it will happen in practice. You can say some character has the advantage over another all you want but if those advantages aren't capable of being accessed to their full potential in a tournament environment match in and match out then the reality is those advantages are not as strong as people would like to believe.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I'm pretty sure the Sonic mains actually believe Sonic is good... They would probably take issue with the statement that playing to win and picking Sonic are incompatible, and that actually is a proof itself that they are compatible because playing to win only requires you to do what you know best to win, not do what someone else knows best for you to win (sub-optimal strategies are simply defeated by an opponent who also plays to win with a better strategy). Anyway, consider what is being said. It's basically "top 8 at large tournaments doesn't mean anything". If you really think that, why bother having tournaments at all?

Also, the whole "honor" code argument doesn't really hold. This isn't about who entered the tournament at all. It's about who got top 8. If they got top 8 in a major tournament, they had to beat a lot of people. Even if they used their character for a completely illogical reason, that character still put up a good performance. If that character was really incapable of doing well, they wouldn't get top 8. If that character were a major handicap, we'd expect to see them fall to similarly skilled players who used better characters. The only way they could win would be if the entire community were a joke in which case you'd expect randoms to be able to go in, actually play to win, and win. Do they now?

I of course agree that brawl is still young, and things could change in it either way. However, it's simply a true statement if you believe in objective facts at all that the current brawl metagame is more character diverse than the final melee metagame. I do not see how a rational person could support the conclusion of melee being more balanced (as opposed to it either being unknown or in brawl's favor) in the face of that. That's all I would really argue, and it's a new argument since my original post here didn't even contain an argument, simply relevant facts.

 

[IrArby]

OK, so the theory isn't neccessarily the correct measure of character matchups. In practical applications, Marth beat Fox always (or almost always). I don't completely agree here but if you argue that both games have equal levels of character favoritism, then tounament results are not the best indicator of game balance. Simply because tournament results are skewed by players who pick their favorite characters.

I would argue that most Melee character favoritism centered around the Spacies and Marth (top level characters) which makes more sense as they are better characters and give you more chance to win. If thats the case, then we can't compare the two games on tournament results because Brawl has character favoritism towards non-cheap mid tiers. Because Melee has top/high tier favoritism (what we'd expect in most competitive fighters) we can't compare its tournament results to Brawl's with high/mid tier favoritism. Its hard to prove this numerically with hard evidence but we can't ignore the trends which are sort of apparent even if they not easy to document.

Regardless, it would seem to me that both games have skewed tournament results especially if were only looking at characters who place. Tournament results thus become less accurate particularly for Brawl.

Practically speaking, KDJ's Shiek beat M2Ks Marth and Ken's. KDJ also showed up inconsistently in major tournaments I think. Perhaps the results would have differed if he'd been to more of them. In practical appliactions Marth was beatable even the best Marths. This has not been proven for MK.

Lastly @Amazing Ampharos, if a large majority of tournament goers use mid tier characters their top 8 is less relevant as they didn't neccesarily beat the best players with the best characters. Realistically, they could of beaten lots of decent people with similarly ranked characters and a few good people with the better characters. Furthermore, a top 8 place means they didn't beat the best people with the best characters. Sonics who play to win is sort of an oxi moron because playing Sonic is a good way to not win a major tournament before you even play. Your character severly handicaps you a stipulation that most pros would not accept.

 

[Yuna]

Really? M2K's best finish at a national tournament was 3rd with Fox. He switched to Marth and the difference was like night and day-he went from being really good to being the contender for best in the world.

Are you saying Fox is so far below Marth he could never ever come even close to Marth's dominance in tournaments? Because that's pretty much the only conclusion to draw from this "M2K randomly went from just a really good player to contender for best player in the world!"-argument (instead of assuming that, say, he just got better or that Marth just suited him better (or both)).

Ken rarely, if ever, used other characters, and he never had the same success with any of his secondaries that he did with Marth.

Of course not, because he had spent far more time perfecting his Marth. I was merely illustrating that they didn't randomly win so much just because of Marth. They just happened to be some of the world's best players.

However, ignoring Marth's dominance in Melee and attributing it to, simply, player skill, is absurd.

I'm not ignoring Marth's dominance at all. I'm contesting, among others, your own claim that Marth is the only character in Melee who stands a chance at consistently winning major tournaments.

This doesn't touch on the other Marth players who did well (Neo, KM, Cactuar, Husband-and that is just EC players who were all top 25 or so in the country in 2007).[/quote9
As opposed to the other Top and High Tiers, all of which had several players represented in the Top 25?

 

[AlphaZealot]

In practical appliactions Marth was beatable even the best Marths. This has not been proven for MK.

Because M2K hasn't lost to Ninjalink's Diddy Kong on two separate occasions?

Because Melee has top/high tier favoritism (what we'd expect in most competitive fighters) we can't compare its tournament results to Brawl's with high/mid tier favoritism. Its hard to prove this numerically with hard evidence but we can't ignore the trends which are sort of apparent even if they not easy to document.

They aren't easy to document, true, but pretty much everything you just said was based just on your own opinion. Why would people show favoritism to mid-tier characters in Brawl but not Melee?

Regardless, it would seem to me that both games have skewed tournament results especially if were only looking at characters who place. Tournament results thus become less accurate particularly for Brawl.

Why would they be less accurate? How are results skewed?

As opposed to the other Top and High Tiers, all of which had several players represented in the Top 25?

The difference is that the top 3 most dominant people in the country all used the same character. You are arguing it is just coincidence. I don't believe it is.

If there were other characters that could consistently win major tournaments (at least in the US) then please, feel free to point them out and bring up the specific examples where another player/character actually consistently won (I don't think you can find a character that won 3 100+ person tournaments in the same year, much less a 3-6 month period like Marth has left and right).

Are you saying Fox is so far below Marth he could never ever come even close to Marth's dominance in tournaments? Because that's pretty much the only conclusion to draw from this "M2K randomly went from just a really good player to contender for best player in the world!"-argument (instead of assuming that, say, he just got better or that Marth just suited him better (or both)).

I think the reason M2K could dominate with Marth is the same reason that Ken/Azen could. Marth, quite simply, is not as strenuous to play as match in and match out when compared with Fox/Falco (and maybe Sheik but not so much). The result is more consistency over the entire duration of a tournament. Maybe Marth doesn't stack up to Fox or Sheik when both are being played at their absolute peak.

Using (fake) number's I'll try to illustrate what I'm talking about
Ken's Marth's Peak: 9.5
Ken' s Marth's Range: 9.0-9.5
M2K's Fox's Peak: 10
M2K's Fox's Rage: 8.0-10

Essentially if someone could play Sheik or Fox perfectly then maybe those characters could beat out Marth. The problem is that people are imperfect, people don't play flawlessly, people make mistakes, and with Fox you were far more prone to make mistakes or get fatigued then you were if you played as Marth.

 

[Dark Sonic]

This doesn't touch on the other Marth players who did well (Neo, KM, Cactuar, Husband-and that is just EC players who were all top 25 or so in the country in 2007).

Cactuar just got second (behind only M2K) at Event52 with Fox, not Marth. Cactuar is a top level player in his own right, it's not Marth carrying him.

 

[blackfox51]

I think that Brawl has A LOT of time til we can compare it to Melee. SSBM has been around for years, and Brawl is barely reaching a year.

I do like the point though that you have a lot more variation in character maining. Looking at different tourneys, you can see viable contenders in the cast. Beside the obvious top characters: MK, Snake, D3, Falco, and G&W... You can see Diddy, Marth, Lucario, and Wario. Of course most of these are the higher-tier characters, but you can find a few other characters finding their way into top spots around the country. Fox, Kirby, and Sonic have found higher placings recently.

But overall, Brawl is still developing. While it has developed a lot faster than Melee, it will take a while until you can compare the two.