Supermodel From Paris
Smash Hero
This will be somewhat long, but I'd like to address this in a more in-depth way than I have in the past, because I tend to oversimplify things which upsets people and I'm not really aiming to do that (usually).
People tend to take this sort of thing too personally so I want to say this before I go any further: Peach players are awesome. This is actually a big part of the problem, though. Despite Peach's army of powerful representation, her best large-scale US placing in recent memory was 13th, by you, actually. This is actually pretty good, but san and Polt pull similar results with Ike and Yoshi much more often. It's not just the results, there are factors contributing to the poorer results than one would expect.
Peach has a lot of very profound strengths that seem outrageously overpowering at first, like her recovery which usually gets her back to the stage (although I sustain she will take a few hits if not get gimped by characters who are good at it), top-notch shield pressure, amazing jab which creates a superb mix-up and interrupt game, unique float mechanics which allow her to control a large amount of space at close and mid-range, fast aerials which large hit zones, and a low-percent string and combo game which virtually guarantees anywhere from 50%-70% damage early in an opponent's stock.
But Peach's problems are near damning. First, Peach moves pretty slowly. This isn't actually her biggest problem or even a big one, but it's worth a quick mention. Her ground speed is somewhat abusable for faster characters. Her air speed is good (though float's speed isn't, not as important) and she has a good glide toss, so she has a few options in terms of approach. After anywhere from 70-100% though depending on the opponent's character, Peach loses options. Her strongest spacing attack starts to stale and since it's also her best kill move, stocks tend to stretch out unless her opponents DI poorly. Also, most of her staple moves that are easy to land start to lose follow-up options, thus Peach is forced to chip away at opponents dair, turnips, jab and stale fair unless an opponent hits her shield after 150% or she gets a hard read. She also gets zoned pretty hard from the front by Marth and other characters with fast disjoints, creating problems for her at the neutral position and off-stage.
Throw in a few virtually unwinnable match-ups at the top level like Meta Knight and you just have a mediocrity cocktail. Peach will always be useful as a secondary for weird match-ups but beyond that I don't see a place for her above C tier, ever.
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