Official BBR Matchup Chart v1.0

[Grim Tuesday]

I think the Pikachu vs. MK match-up should be revised to a low -2 or a very high -1, even is definitely wrong, lol.

What do you guys think?

 

[KuroganeHammer]

It's probably -1.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I think the Pikachu vs. MK match-up should be revised to a low -2 or a very high -1, even is definitely wrong, lol.

What do you guys think?

A moderate -1 seems good to me, though I could see the case for it being a little worse or better than that.

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

a -1 is a -1 no matter whether you put moderate or high next to it. if it's a -1, no1 really cares what flavor -1 it is.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

a -1 is a -1 no matter whether you put moderate or high next to it. if it's a -1, no1 really cares what flavor -1 it is.

You may not, but most people take it to heart. A lot of people prefer number-based ratios like 40-60 for greater accuracy.

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

i actually also prefer ratios, but -1 is just supposed to cover all options for a set amount of ratios. personally there was nothing wrong with saying for example, "wario has a 60% chance of winning this round, pit has a 40% chance of winning this round, thus wario pit is 60/40." in fact i loved the specification it allowed. however the fact that -1 covers (from my under standing) 51/49-60/40 means a specific difficulty for that -1 is going to have to be understood between the mains because i doubt they will lable the chart saying this is a harder -1, this is a easier -1

 

[Steam]

what used to be 6-4 should now be roughly -2

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

what used to be 6-4 should now be roughly -2

The +/- system works so much better when you don't try to convert it to the old system. The point was that so many people had differing ideas about what a 6/4 even was.

i actually also prefer ratios, but -1 is just supposed to cover all options for a set amount of ratios. personally there was nothing wrong with saying for example, "wario has a 60% chance of winning this round, pit has a 40% chance of winning this round, thus wario pit is 60/40." in fact i loved the specification it allowed. however the fact that -1 covers (from my under standing) 51/49-60/40 means a specific difficulty for that -1 is going to have to be understood between the mains because i doubt they will lable the chart saying this is a harder -1, this is a easier -1

Personally I think the old system was somewhat disingenuous. 60% is too specific. Even if your character is disadvantaged, there's no way you could calculate your chance of winning down to a percentage point like that. It is better to just vaguely generalize what kind of advantage you have or don't have.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

The +/- system works so much better when you don't try to convert it to the old system. The point was that so many people had differing ideas about what a 6/4 even was.

My idea of it is best, though.

 

[Ussi]

At the same time, figuring at an exact ratio is such a pain in the neck. A general number usually just gets the job done.

 

[da K.I.D.]

You may not, but most people take it to heart. A lot of people prefer number-based ratios like 40-60 for greater accuracy.

except matchups in this game are inherently not that accurate

 

[Nidtendofreak]

##-## system > +- system.

+- system just leaves a whole lot of MU that are supposedly "equal difficulty" for a character, but clearly aren't.

 

[Tesh]

50:50 = 0
55:45 = +/- 1
60:40 = +/- 2
65:35 = +/- 3
70:30 = +/- 4

Its not much of a stretch to say 80:20 doesn't exist. That would basically require a character like MK to have an infinite on someone like Ganondorf.

They probably just changed it so they wouldn't have to fit all of that text into those little squares.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

except matchups in this game are inherently not that accurate

Yeah, this is more or less how I feel about it.

Brawl isn't like other fighting games. The game just isn't rigid enough. Characters are too flexible. The only match-ups in the game that can be decided in a single read or even two or three are things like King Dedede vs. DK, whereas in many other fighting games (including melee) this is a pretty frequent occurance.

In Street Fighter 4, early on, people thought the C. Viper vs. Seth match-up was a wash because Seth had low health and Viper dizzies inherently more easily than other characters, thus sometimes in a single combo she could force dizzy at which point he was already dead and even that match-up was only considered 7/3. Brawl only has a few things even remotely similar to that, and it's such a different game that even those situations can be avoided.

That's why the number system doesn't work, and especially not in Brawl. There's no way you can say for instance that 6 out of 10 times, Meta Knight will beat Fox because there are just too many factors involved.

 

[Kewkky]

0 = even
+1 = slight advantage
+2 = advantage
+3 = strong advantage
+4 = unlosable

That's how I see it. Kinda looks the same as:

50:50 = even
55:45 = slight advantage
60:40 = advantage
65:35/75:25 = strong advantage
80:20/100:0 = unlosable

... Except that we only really used like 9 of those ratings anyway. To me, the +/- system is just a cleaner and more organized way of saying the same thing. Just look at it from the word version instead of just the numbers (advantage, slight advantage, even, etc etc etc).

 

[da K.I.D.]

In Street Fighter 4, early on, people thought the C. Viper vs. Seth match-up was a wash because Seth had low health and Viper dizzies inherently more easily than other characters, thus sometimes in a single combo she could force dizzy at which point he was already dead and even that match-up was only considered 7/3. Brawl only has a few things even remotely similar to that, and it's such a different game that even those situations can be avoided.

I love this analogy. In street fighter, matchups are, this is whats going to happen to you and this is whats going to kill you. if you want to win do this first. Where as in brawl is more like, this could end your stock for free, but this is what you do to avoid that and counter.

its the reason ZSS vs fox is mostly an even matchup.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Kewkky's definitions seem the most logical to me.

 

[da K.I.D.]

Kewkky's definitions seem the most logical to me.

Are you serious? See this was the original problem.

How the hell does this:

50:50 = even
55:45 = slight advantage
60:40 = advantage
65:35/75:25 = strong advantage
80:20/100:0 = unlosable

look more logical to you than this:

"wario has a 60% chance of winning this round, pit has a 40% chance of winning this round, thus wario pit is 60/40."

Thats why they went to the plus minus system to begin with. Because people have terrible logic out here.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I was talking about his relation of 55:45 and +1 to being slight advantage match-ups, not the system he was using.

 

[da K.I.D.]

but still, how the hell do you say, this ratio (the actual definition of a ratio is how many times out of a sample size a certain result is expected to happen) doesnt actually mean specific percentages, but instead relates to a vague idea of how the match should play out. and how is that logic at all?

Its far more logical to apply an arbitrary number to relate to a vague definition of a matchup. Since youre dealing with factors that have the potential to be incredibly inexact.

 

[Kewkky]

but still, how the hell do you say, this ratio (the actual definition of a ratio is how many times out of a sample size a certain result is expected to happen) doesnt actually mean specific percentages, but instead relates to a vague idea of how the match should play out. and how is that logic at all?

Its far more logical to apply an arbitrary number to relate to a vague definition of a matchup. Since youre dealing with factors that have the potential to be incredibly inexact.

Well, it could be also said this way then:

~50% chance of winning this MU = even
~55% chance at winning this MU = slight advantage
~60% chance at winning this MU = advantage
~70% chance of winning this MU = strong advantage
~80%+ chance of winning this MU = unlosable

It does demonstrate an advantage over the other. 55% chance of winning means your character does have a slight advantage over the other, which means you'll have a higher chance at winning, just not that much higher. 80%+ chance of winning pretty much says that you can't lose this if you know what you're doing, and the only way you can lose is by getting vastly outplayed by your opponent, which would mean lack of MU knowledge/opponent is a better player/one thousand trips on the dot in that one match/etc...

IMO, the correlation between all of this is simply the wording used for each style of MU rating. Empyrical, win:loss, +/-, it all ends up saying who has an advantage over the other one, and how big of an advantage it is.


And people saying "this ratio doesn't mean a % of matches won vs matches lost" is one of the reasons we decided to simply change the system. There's lots of ideas over what the ratio means, and no one could agree on anything, so we decided on simplifying it into something we can't argue. +1 is the smallest number, hence small advantage. +4 is the largest number, hence the largest advantage possible (unlosable). 0 is the neutral ground of the number scale, hence the MU is even. BlablablaletsjustplayBrawl :d

 

[Grim Tuesday]

The percentage thing is stupid as well.

Match-ups assume two players at the highest level of skill and equal skill, if a character has a 60:40 advantage over another, that doesn't indicate the frequency of winning at all as that is based more on chance than the match-up itself.

 

[da K.I.D.]

~80%+ chance of winning this MU = unlosable

Youre a smart person, so I hope you can see why this statement in particular, greatly angers me

The percentage thing is stupid as well.

Match-ups assume two players at the highest level of skill and equal skill, if a character has a 60:40 advantage over another, that doesn't indicate the frequency of winning at all as that is based more on chance than the match-up itself.

I see what youre trying to say, but 'based on chance' is definitely the wrong choice of words.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

A match in Brawl between two players is basically thousands of weighted rock-paper-scissors games, you can't tell me that doesn't involve some element of chance.

 

[Kewkky]

Youre a smart person, so I hope you can see why this statement in particular, greatly angers me.

It's just semantics. Well, change "unlosable" to "almost unlosable". :\


If 100% was the only way I could say unlosable, then what it would mean is that if player A and player B were of equal skill, then player A would beat player B 100% of the time. But then, if player B is more skilled than player A then now player B has a chance of winning, so it's not really 100% anymore, right?

Or the alternative, 100% means that Player A has no chance of losing this MU even if player B was waaaay more skilled than player A. But then, now we're not simply talking about two players of equal skill, we're talking about player A of certain skill vs player B of every skill in the scale, to define a 100% winning ratio.


If player A was of equal skill to player B, and his character was THAT much better against player B, then wouldn't player A know how to beat player B all the time? The large advantage means that he has tools to beat player B's tools, hence the ratio. If this is true, then player B stands no chance no matter how many games they play, player A will just beat out his tools with his huge advantage as long as they play. However, if player B is of a higher skill level than player A, now player B has a chance of outplaying player A and winning. Since player A has a chance of losing, even though at equal skill levels he doesn't, would it be 100% or 80%? This is partially my reasoning behind defining 80% as "unlosable": player A has the tools to beat player B's tools all the time, but outside factors COULD make it so that player B can win anyway, like grossly outplaying player A due to their difference in skill. 100% would imply that B has no chance in this universe of winning...

... and people had generally agreed to 80:20+ as unlosable before we changed the rating anyway, that's my other reasoning for saying 80% was "unlosable". :\


Which on would you choose for "unlosable"? 80%, 100%, something in between, or nothing at all?

 

[Ishiey]

Yeah, this is more or less how I feel about it.

Brawl isn't like other fighting games. The game just isn't rigid enough. Characters are too flexible. The only match-ups in the game that can be decided in a single read or even two or three are things like King Dedede vs. DK, whereas in many other fighting games (including melee) this is a pretty frequent occurance.

In Street Fighter 4, early on, people thought the C. Viper vs. Seth match-up was a wash because Seth had low health and Viper dizzies inherently more easily than other characters, thus sometimes in a single combo she could force dizzy at which point he was already dead and even that match-up was only considered 7/3. Brawl only has a few things even remotely similar to that, and it's such a different game that even those situations can be avoided.

That's why the number system doesn't work, and especially not in Brawl. There's no way you can say for instance that 6 out of 10 times, Meta Knight will beat Fox because there are just too many factors involved.

I completely agree with this. Like... it's just stupid to put ratios because Brawl is so open-ended, but it's the easiest general consensus we can go with. Actually detailing MUs would be nice though, hopefully the upcoming MU chart has a couple of additional write-ups.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

I completely agree with this. Like... it's just stupid to put ratios because Brawl is so open-ended, but it's the easiest general consensus we can go with. Actually detailing MUs would be nice though, hopefully the upcoming MU chart has a couple of additional write-ups.

I don't think the ratios are the best thing we can come up with. The current +/- system does a great job of detailing what you might expect a match-up to feel like when you play it without conveying any information it doesn't actually have (like with the case of ratios).

What is important to understand about the ratio vs. +/- system is the reason a new system was formed in the first place. It wasn't that the ratios were deficient; it was because the ratio system was so nebulous and was either too specific (percentage interpretation) or too wide. So, a lot of people had varying opinions on what a ratio meant and it was just easier to create something we could define as a community from the beginning. It doesn't actually matter if we use 5:5 or color coding or whatever as long as it says something consistent.

 

[infiniteV115]

Don't know why people keep saying that one system is better than the other. They can easily be translated into each other.

It was already established (in OP) that
+/- 1 = small (dis)advantage
+/- 2 = medium (dis)advantage
+/- 3 = large (dis)advantage
+/- 4 = almost unwinnable/unlosable

All you have to do now is decide which ratios fall under which category. eg 51:49 - 60:40 falls under "small", or just up to 55:45, or up to 58:42 (lol). It's going to vary from person to person on whether a certain xx:yy ratio is small/medium, or medium/large, etc. But that doesn't really matter, because this matchup chart is the BBR's OPINION anyway. And MUs are opinions anyway (to a certain extent).

 

[Orion*]

Yeah, this is more or less how I feel about it.

Brawl isn't like other fighting games. The game just isn't rigid enough. Characters are too flexible. The only match-ups in the game that can be decided in a single read or even two or three are things like King Dedede vs. DK, whereas in many other fighting games (including melee) this is a pretty frequent occurance.

In Street Fighter 4, early on, people thought the C. Viper vs. Seth match-up was a wash because Seth had low health and Viper dizzies inherently more easily than other characters, thus sometimes in a single combo she could force dizzy at which point he was already dead and even that match-up was only considered 7/3. Brawl only has a few things even remotely similar to that, and it's such a different game that even those situations can be avoided.

That's why the number system doesn't work, and especially not in Brawl. There's no way you can say for instance that 6 out of 10 times, Meta Knight will beat Fox because there are just too many factors involved.

-dead-

sfp mad a **** post
good ****
*claps*

/will give some credit when it's due

Don't know why people keep saying that one system is better than the other. They can easily be translated into each other.

this

 

[_Kadaj_]

Pretty sure it's about even

 

[Luigi player]

I really don't like the -4 to +4 system, because even if you can somehow translate the others into it, if you only have 4 different (dis)advantages instead of a bit more it can get really complicated. You have to compress the different MUs all together even though some might be more difficult than others, "but it's more like +1 than +2", etc so it just makes it kinda inaccurate.

Like if I view DK vs D3 as +4, probably only 2-3 other MUs I'd see as +4, and if those MUs are that bad, then +3 probably isn't too far off from +4 since it's just one point less. Thus I feel like really few MUs are even +3/-3. That leaves me only with 0 to +2 to rate almost all MUs.

From Diddys view: for example I see Marth as +1, but others like Toon Link, Mario etc are also +1 (atm they're even o_O), but Marth is imo a much more difficult +1, tho I still think it's a slight advantage for Diddy. But Diddy doesn't beat TL etc hard enough to make it a +2... and since imo Diddy has a small adv on Marth I don't really want to say it's an even MU. You have to squeeze everything together and everything will just be really inaccurate....
I guess you could change it to a range of -8 to +8, but then the ratio system could just be used instead... and people might view everything even more different. Ugh, everything is so flawed! D:

(I still like the ratio system the best, even though I really hate when people say 60:40 is like one wins 6 out of 10 Matches; one ALWAYS has an advantage, so theoretically (if we were "perfect") the one with the advantage should always win, but, since we aren't, the other can still win and with skill-gaps better players/some that know the MU better etc it's definitely possible to overcome (small) disadvantages)

 

[Ghostbone]

(I still like the ratio system the best, even though I really hate when people say 60:40 is like one wins 6 out of 10 Matches; one ALWAYS has an advantage, so theoretically (if we were "perfect") the one with the advantage should always win, but, since we aren't, the other can still win and with skill-gaps better players/some that know the MU better etc it's definitely possible to overcome (small) disadvantages)

But see, that's exactly what ratios are supposed to mean, and when they don't, that's when we get so much confusion and people will argue to the ends of the Earth that a certain match-up is 55:45 not 60:40 when they both probably consider it to be almost exactly the same.

That's why it really shouldn't be used.

 

[Steam]

if it goes by like... win ratios... then a looooot of matchups are 70:30 or worse.

and MK basically 75:25's the roster

 

[-LzR-]

Then how the hell does Ganon beat Falco 5% of the time then?

 

[Ghostbone]

if it goes by like... win ratios... then a looooot of matchups are 70:30 or worse.

and MK basically 75:25's the roster

Yep.


LzR, he could get some lucky gimps I guess

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Ganon vs. Falco is definitely winnable for Ganon if it's a small stage with platforms and the Ganon can power-shiled lasers consistently.

 

[Flayl]

if it goes by like... win ratios... then a looooot of matchups are 70:30 or worse.

and MK basically 75:25's the roster

That's the truth of smash: It's imbalanced. I've been trying to get people to use that kind of ratio since 2009

 

[-LzR-]

Ganon vs. Falco is definitely winnable for Ganon if it's a small stage with platforms and the Ganon can power-shiled lasers consistently.

Powershielding lasers is asking to be frametrapped by Falco. So nope.
And there are worse things in the MU. Falco can jab a lot and Ganon lacks a quick move to punish it at all. He also can't do **** against sideB.

 

[Flayl]

Something people should understand is that ratios account for human error. there is a reason characters with 60:40s in any fighting game don't win the matchup 100% of the time.

Stuff like Fonz's performance shows that Ganon isn't 0-100 against at least some characters lol.

 

[smashkng]

Ganon may have the worst matchups in the game but that doesn't change the fact that he can punish misstakes way harder than a lot of characters thanks to his huge damage input and kill power. I'm pretty sure that his matchups aren't the worst in the game as long as the opponent ends up screws up things.