what are your opinions on sleeper characters that will rise in tounrys that are normally put down by MK?
It's basically impossible atm to determine the tier list now without MK imo. Every character can serve a purpose without the blanket statement of "Meta Knight."
Different players have said different characters would rise to fame and be broken, but the fact that people can not agree on it says something.
(I may be off in some of these since I'm not a pro with every character but going by matchup charts, things I've heard from other players, it's close enough basically)
If Falco gets popular, Pikachu and ICs will rise.
If Pikachu gets popular, Marth and Olimar will rise.
If ICs get popular, Snake, Toon Link, and ROB will rise.
If Marth gets popular, DDD and ROB will rise.
If Olimar gets popular, Peach and ICs will rise.
If Snake gets popular, DDD and Marth will rise.
and it keeps going on and on and on in a big loop.
You'll notice when going through this that mid tiers will pop up and can be used for checks to popular characters, and then rise themselves in popularity. If MK is legal, MK can be the answer to anything with no losing matchups (and arguably no even matchups). This is why a lot of placements on the tier list ended up being decided on how good characters can do vs MK.