Marth on the Tier List

[DJ _ICE]

Where do you think he belongs? High tier? Mid Tier? With all the new threats P:M brings (a big one being insanely good recoveries) where does Marth stand?

 

[CyberZixx]

I think Marth is the better half of alright.

 

[UMR | donmk]

These are the questions that keep me up at night...

I think that Marth is a tier or two below top tier characters if he is played to perfection. This means never missing an edge-guard, never screwing up your spacing etc. If you can do this, you can end up basically negating a lot of the new recovery methods, since high recoveries are usually punishable by utilt / uair (or some times f smash) and low recoveries are punishable by dtilt, f smash and sometimes a well timed shffl dair. You wont get the kill, but you send them offstage a little further each time, and if you do it enough, eventually they'll reach the blast zone. Then it is really irrelevant how good their recovery is.

The real issue with 'tiers' is that they become a little too complex in a balanced game. You have characters that have obviously better match up spreads than other characters (e.g. Fox, Falco) but then when you get into the meat of the list, you find its a bit like trying to make a tier list for rock paper scissors. For example, a lot of people think Mario is near top tier in Project M. But Marth has a (supposedly) good match up against Mario. Similarly, not many people put Charizard anywhere near the top, but he is one of the most troublesome characters to face as Marth.

The real issue I have with a lot of tier lists is that not many take mind game potential into consideration. I believe that Marth is one of the best characters in the game if you can read well and pressure your opponent with your spacing. However, if you had two theoretical robots playing each character to theoretical perfection, then I think Marth is around the middle of the tier list. He just relies too much on baiting your opponent into doing something that you can punish.

The other things that not many tier lists take into consideration are stages and how stage selection is done in tournaments. This means that Marth NEVER gets Final Destination against Fox. Suddenly, the Fox matchup is more scary, because the current system (i.e. the one used at APEX) allows three stage bans. Suddenly we don't get Yoshi's ever unless our opponent thinks he can do well there. And it's not like Marth has a whole lot of counter-pick stages to love. I basically always end up banning sky world because you have to stay on the central platforms whereas characters with good recoveries can go the ones on the edge and still survive a hit. I ban sky loft because those steps are stupid, especially against projectile users. So two of my bans are basically gone because I chose to play Marth. So I get one character based ban. Other characters simply ban Yoshi's and a couple other good Marth stages and suddenly we're trying to find a stage that doesn't disadvantage us, instead of one that gives us an advantage. This is the real reason I think Marth is worse in this game than in Melee.

Also, just to see how varied the opinions on this are, go check out the tier list speculation thread. I've seen Marth placed anywhere from 6th to 15th.

 

[Xinc]

These are the questions that keep me up at night...

I think that Marth is a tier or two below top tier characters if he is played to perfection. This means never missing an edge-guard, never screwing up your spacing etc. If you can do this, you can end up basically negating a lot of the new recovery methods, since high recoveries are usually punishable by utilt / uair (or some times f smash) and low recoveries are punishable by dtilt, f smash and sometimes a well timed shffl dair. You wont get the kill, but you send them offstage a little further each time, and if you do it enough, eventually they'll reach the blast zone. Then it is really irrelevant how good their recovery is.

The real issue with 'tiers' is that they become a little too complex in a balanced game. You have characters that have obviously better match up spreads than other characters (e.g. Fox, Falco) but then when you get into the meat of the list, you find its a bit like trying to make a tier list for rock paper scissors. For example, a lot of people think Mario is near top tier in Project M. But Marth has a (supposedly) good match up against Mario. Similarly, not many people put Charizard anywhere near the top, but he is one of the most troublesome characters to face as Marth.

The real issue I have with a lot of tier lists is that not many take mind game potential into consideration. I believe that Marth is one of the best characters in the game if you can read well and pressure your opponent with your spacing. However, if you had two theoretical robots playing each character to theoretical perfection, then I think Marth is around the middle of the tier list. He just relies too much on baiting your opponent into doing something that you can punish.

The other things that not many tier lists take into consideration are stages and how stage selection is done in tournaments. This means that Marth NEVER gets Final Destination against Fox. Suddenly, the Fox matchup is more scary, because the current system (i.e. the one used at APEX) allows three stage bans. Suddenly we don't get Yoshi's ever unless our opponent thinks he can do well there. And it's not like Marth has a whole lot of counter-pick stages to love. I basically always end up banning sky world because you have to stay on the central platforms whereas characters with good recoveries can go the ones on the edge and still survive a hit. I ban sky loft because those steps are stupid, especially against projectile users. So two of my bans are basically gone because I chose to play Marth. So I get one character based ban. Other characters simply ban Yoshi's and a couple other good Marth stages and suddenly we're trying to find a stage that doesn't disadvantage us, instead of one that gives us an advantage. This is the real reason I think Marth is worse in this game than in Melee.

Also, just to see how varied the opinions on this are, go check out the tier list speculation thread. I've seen Marth placed anywhere from 6th to 15th.

You have a good point. When people think of Yoshi's Story against Marth, it's pretty much an autoban because of "Marth Story." I feel Marth does a decent job at keeping his foes out despite the stage, except a few (looking at you, Warioware). He also has a big problem with killing at higher percents, which means nailing a stock early is pretty much mandatory as you don't want a battle of attrition. For Marth, it's all about spacing and it'll just be a bit too difficult to land that tipper at times.

 

[Aidoony]

The tier after top