Official BBR Tier List v5

[Tmacc]

This is a great tier list, I agree completely with almost all of it. I am also of the opinion that D3 is now exactly where he should be, great job.

 

[Vlade]

That 70:30 Pika vs Falco matchup ratio is quite stale. Excuse the falco boards for not being up to date >_>

Falco vs Diddy is close to, if not even. It could be 55:45 in either character's favour.

 

[moomoomamoo]

This is just arguing at this point. I'm done.

Nice tier list. Seems pretty on it. Like the changes for the most part.

 

[Vlade]

There are good arguments from both sides of the matchup to suggest either one

 

[T-block]

55:45 for Falco over Diddy is what I'd put it at.

 

[Vlade]

It's such a little margin that I don't care enough to have a definite opinion on the matter, but if I had to state a ratio for the matchup I'd go with 55:45 Falco's favour.

Anyway enough about matchup ratios, we should be discussing the tier list. Next tier list I would actually like to see a three-way tie between Snake, Diddy and Falco ^_^

@ the whole DDD thing: Yeah DDD is a solid character but I don't think he could win a major tournament by himself, he'd need the assistance of one or more secondary characters to cover the matchups he does badly in (MK, Falco and Pika). He's a fairly one-dimensional character but that doesn't mean he's lacking in strengths like his great grab game and bair which is why I agree with him being mid B-tier. 18% for an easy grab (it is not easy to grab with ICs) is quite devastating.

 

[~Pink Fresh~]

You didn't think he'd move out, did you PF?

Pf just wants the free money from low tier tounrneys lol

Shhh.

That's not why. Lucas is bad and him raising would be unjust. :3

 

[The_Altrox]

poor Bowser

 

[*_Echo_*]

woo! olimar is on his way to top tier

 

[Cynan Machae]

:o new tier list!

And ZSS +2, yay I guess

 

[Poltergust]

Yoshi is still in low-tier...

*uses Brick Break*

He has to make it to mid-tier next time. In fact, I guarantee it. Also, why was the vote between Yoshi and Lucas so close? That should not have happened at all...

 

[IYM!]

i am happy for link

now he isnt the second worst


go Link!!! GO!!

 

[Browny]

Ive got so few ideas on what to draw an mspaint pic about my thoughts on this list Its just all so predictable with the exception of fox :/

 

[noobpota2]

Ganon in his own tier?

I really don't think the gap between him the other F tier characters is really that big. And as much as i don't like the bowser drop i kind of saw it happening.

 

[Thebest1pj]

Meanwhile metaknight mains sit comfortably in their chairs laughing at this thread.

 

[JOE!]

****it, just put yoshi in mid tier allready XD

each list he creeps closer to it....

 

[Jenkins]

Lol @ fox's placement. Good stuff fox mains. *pats back*

and smh at zelda's placement. There's just not that many good players who know how to use zelda correctly.

 

[Orion*]

But does that mean that Snake is a worse character than before? Or does that mean that people got smarter?[/qoute]

yes *****, if he gets hit once hes taking like 50% instead of playing a guessing game.

People could find ways around that if Diddy was as common as Snake has been for the past 2 years. As far as I know, M2K hasn't been having Diddy problems as of late for example, and he's the one guy who gets the most MU experience in total out of everyone in SWF.

yes. m2k playing this game like a job, and the only other diddy being able to stand up to him decides to just stop practicing, and play oboe LMAO.

Diddy's shield might be the best out there... But it doesn't win matches.

i have no interest in ANYTHING you have to say anymore, LMAO. if you even say that to my face i might vomit ROFLMAO

 

[Laem]

what happened to the times where kewkky was usually right?

 

[King Funk]

Falco should be 3rd. =(

Good **** Fox mains. Oh and I'll have to get myself a new low tier character now that Ike can't be picked.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

In terms of procedure, it was more or less "just vote". The only thing that mattered when you voted was the rank of the character, and the final placements were just rankings of average votes. Different people used really different standards to judge tiers. Some people leaned heavily on tournament results, others relied more on theory. Some people seemed to assume the list represented potential result with no secondaries; others looked at overall viability. There was little to no consensus on what rules should be assumed, and many people assumed different things with LGLs and stage list being the two biggest sticking points. The end result is that the list is a rough averaging of different rulesets and tier list building philosophies on top of averaged subjective judgments of character quality. Depending on your perspective, this could be a good thing or a bad thing. No one can deny this tier list represents the melding of a great number of opinions and perspectives; that's for sure.

Personally, I didn't get too involved in the discussions. In the weekly character discussions, I mostly went on to explain my strong disagreement with a lot of the common ranking of the lower tiered characters, and I reflected that in my vote. I did get kinda disgruntled at some people voting Fox above G&W and the lower end of G&W votes in general, but it is what it is, and the tier list doesn't change how we can play so it's all okay.

Anyway, I don't really have a better alternate avenue to reveal this, and I want to do my part for transparency. This was what I posted when I voted:

I am making the following assumptions:

-Planking is legal. Everyone is willing to do it if it is to their advantage.
-We are using 9 starters and the 3.0 counterpicks, all of them.

Both of those assumptions have significant effects on my placement of several characters. Falco would be much higher otherwise.

Top Tier

1. Meta Knight
2. Snake
3. Diddy Kong
4. Marth
5. Ice Climbers

High Tier

6. Wario
7. Mr. Game & Watch
8. Falco
9. Pikachu
10. Olimar
11. Toon Link
12. Lucario

That Third Tier

13. King Dedede
14. R.O.B.
15. Kirby
16. Pit
17. Zero Suit Samus
18. Donkey Kong
19. Ness
20. Fox

Middle Tier

21. Peach
22. Zelda & Sheik
23. Ike
24. Pokemon Trainer
25. Luigi
26. Sonic
27. Sheik alone
28. Wolf


Low Tier

29. Jigglypuff
30. Yoshi
31. Link
32. Lucas
33. Mario
34. Samus
35. Zelda alone

Bottom Tier

36. Captain Falcon
37. Bowser
38. Ganondorf

I haven't read this whole thread so I don't know if other BBR members have come out with their votes, but I hope they have and others do. We owe it to the community to be as transparent as possible, and for my part, I have no reason to hide my vote. Enjoy the new tier list everyone.

 

[King Funk]

Wow... Hey Amazing Ampharos, could you PLEASE explain me why you think Mr. Game and Watch is a better character than Falco. o_o

And do tell me more rather than just the planking aspect.

 

[C~Dog]

Interesting how A tier is now counted as 'Top' along with MK, as opposed to 'High' with B tier.

 

[DMG]

The planking aspect would be why. Don't think there would be another reason, at least if I judged it that way.

G&W can plank, Falco is bad against Planking. Now I disagree that G&W would be THAT strong without a LGL, looking at his frame data despite being probably the second best planking character in the game there ARE definite holes to exploit. But that was his opinion.

 

[The Truth!]

Dang, appreciate you actually posting that. Theres a lot I disagree with, but hopefully people wont be mean if bbr members do decide to post their votes and they disagree.

The biggest things that stick out is with your assumptions I doubt marth and especially ics would be top tier (maybe not even high tier) with those rules. GW would recieve a boost, but I doubt that high, although its not unreasonable for a character main to place their character different than others might.

 

[Meru.]

Fox can suck a ****.
Im happy that Zelda/Sheik has been included, and their placing seems to be good.
Im glad Ike is mid tier and ZSS is high tier.
Im disappointed in Zelda's (unexpected) drop, SHE IS NOT THAT BAD.

Im very disappointed Peach didnt move again :l. She's also better than Fox.

 

[Rickerdy-doo-da-day]

Maybe I've got things wrong but I don't have too much of a problem with Fox's placement atm. Its been shown he's had success vs MK (the most popular character played at a high lvl by far) and in tourneys in general

Although the whole Fox/Pit/PT thing is quite ironic lol

I guess my opinion will probably change over time, I'm a bit disapointed to hear that TKD uses other characters for Fox's counters (although I hardly blame him)

Also, I've solved the Zelda/Shiek smiley issue

We can either call them Zhiek or Shelda
If we choose the latter


Sorted

 

[Flayl]

AmazingAmpharos: Why the complete 180º on Bowser? I remember saying way back when you were starting the BBrawl project that your changes didn't really help Bowser at all, while you were saying he was apppropriately balanced to be on diddy's level (!).

Now you're saying he's the second worst character in the game.

What decent Bowsers have you played, and where are the videos of you running away from him?

 

[Juushichi]

Also, why do you think Mario is so bad? Zero Suit being as low as 17 is interesting as well. Care to explain?

 

[DMG]

MK


Snake
Diddy
Falco
Wario
Marth
IC's


Pika
Olimar
Dedede
G&W
Lucario


ZSS
TL
Pit
Fox
Kirby
ROB


Peach
DK
Shiek + Zelda
Shiek
Wolf


Ike
Luigi
PT
Sonic
Ness


Lucas
Bowser
CF
Yoshi
Mario
Samus
Jiggs
Link
Zelda


Ganon


That was my list. The groupings I had were not final for tiers: if it were I would have changes more along the lines of what the current tier list looks like.

For Shiek: Her placement that high certainly is not justified by sheer tournament results. However, her matchup spread is surprisingly solid IMO. I personally think she has a better realistic matchup spread than the characters I placed below her, despite her lackluster tournament results (Yoshi probably has more placements than her, at least recently lol)

For Fox: Again, tournament results aren't stellar, and I've not been fond of him. I basically said "You know what, suppose I'm wrong about my feeling on Fox. Say he's better than I give him credit for. What's the highest I could place him without absolutely cringing?". So I though about it, and thought about how some of the characters above him had horrendous MK + other counter problems, and I decided that I could see Fox right above Kirby/ROB mostly because of his better MK matchup. I gave him "some" credit for having fairly uncommon counters in the metagame compared to "LOL MK DEDEDE MARTH" etc, and that lead me to place him squarely there.

Fox being that high on my list was the absolute highest I saw him being period. The lowest I saw him was under Wolf or even Ike. That seemed a bit harsh, so I decided I was either gonna keep him in that same spot or give him some credit and move him up. I decided the latter.

Everything else just ask me. Luigi I think is pretty bad, range issues mobility issues doesn't sound all that good. PT I debated whether to put him under Sonic or not, result wise Sonic is more solid. I even thought about putting Luigi under Sonic, but that seemed a bit off to me after a bit more consideration so I decided against that. That grouping IMO was the most interchangeable of them all: I could see everyone but Ness being the top of that group.

But yeah, that was my list. Top 10 was accurate if you swap Pika with Oli, top 20 was off by just a tad too. Was surprised how close to the finalized one my list was.

 

[gallax]

I will post mine in a couple of pages. That way everyone can ask dmg and AA about their lists and when i post mine i can answer question as to why i had it the way i did.

 

[etecoon]

snake is better than falco because he can deal with planking better, what the F?

1. just because the BBR joke rules don't have an LGL is irrelevant, nearly all tournies use it. likewise I'd hope no one seriously took distant planet into account when considering how good characters do on CP's

2. what the **** is snake going to do about it either lmao, throw nades and hope you can't dodge/time your invincibility against an attack that takes 4 seconds to do anything? run off bair? totally not risky or anything, snake can't get gimped like falc-oh wait

if snake or falco lose a lead and get planked and it's legal, they're ****ed, snake is NOT good vs planking and falco is less likely to give up a serious lead to begin with

 

[Arikags]

Ganon tier?! D:

 

[Dinos]

amazing job ike!

Pit dropped so far, feel sorry for him.

THANK GOD MR. GAME AND WATCH IS ABOVE LUCARIO NOW!

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Wow... Hey Amazing Ampharos, could you PLEASE explain me why you think Mr. Game and Watch is a better character than Falco. o_o

And do tell me more rather than just the planking aspect.

Planking is a big factor that has a very real impact as many characters really can just play determined ledge games to really hurt Falco's potential moreso than most other high tier characters are hurt, but there are a few others that are very significant as well.

-Falco's match-up with Pikachu is worse than any of G&W's match-ups with any characters. Pikachu has really long, nasty, guaranteed cgs on Falco that are radically underexploited in the current metagame. As Pikachu use rises, Falco can expect to take hits. Some other characters, such as Sheik, also have really underexploited abuses that work against Falco. More so than any other high tier character, if you have personal problems beating Falco, it's very realistic to pick up another character as a secondary and gain a really big match-up advantage. For my list, I considered that people might do things like this in an eventual and fully mature metagame, and I held it against Falco to a very large extent.

-I'm assuming a liberal stage list. Falco is honestly probably about as easy as ICs to stage screw if you are smart with strikes, bans, and counterpicks, but he doesn't have a 0-death or a crazy fusion glitch or basically infinite potential with growing tech skill like ICs have. On that note, G&W is so ridiculously "improved" by such a stage list that it's not even funny. Just think of the result in the heads-up match-up, and then think about how this might expand to many other match-ups. As G&W I strike FD, BF, SV, and YI and use my personal ban on Final Destination. I'm counterpicking Norfair unless you ban it in which case I'm counterpicking Rainbow Cruise. Good luck Falco? If you think Japes helps you more than FD (it doesn't), imagine I ban Japes instead.

-IMO timing people out is still an underrated tactic, and Falco is one of the easier high tiers to run the clock against not even just planking since his "jumping around trying to catch you with an aerial" game is pretty much completely horrible. It's completely possible to dodge his lasers forever just by jumping around and airdodging at smart times as well so, if you have a lead and just stay in the air and on platforms, I think you can gain a real advantage over Falco with a lot of characters, especially characters who naturally excel at this such as Wario. Most players don't have the determination to do this, but in the long run, I think Falco takes some knocks here.

I still think Falco is pretty good. I ranked him at #8 which is above a fantastic character such as Pikachu (I actually struggled a lot with whether to put Falco or Pikachu #8; it's close), and I have a very high opinion of every character I put in my first two tiers anyway. It's just that he has a lot of problems that are underexploited, and he's a massive benefactor of stacked rulesets in many tournaments that I specifically was not considering. I felt as though these problems held Falco out of the top tier placement many others put him in, and combined with many opposite factors that I felt warranted G&W being placed highly, it resulted in me voting for G&W to be ranked above Falco not that a single place represents much of a difference. As you can see in the final tier list, the majority of the SBR did not agree with me on these issues, but I stand by my individual vote regardless.

---

The computer just ate the rest of what I posted which is super annoying... I'll repeat myself but more briefly.

I knew I'd get trouble for my Bowser vote, oh well. I'm not going to provide videos of me playing since arguments from credibility are totally bogus, and the fact that you'd request something like that makes me not want to take the inquiry seriously. It's doubly bad because you know as well as anyone how seldom played Bowser is and how anyone providing videos of Bowser play outside of the handful of dedicated Bowser players who can easily cherry pick is going to be completely unreasonable. However, I'll give a response. Bowser is really, really easy to abuse (I could list off all the cgs that work on him and the varying degrees of devastating they all are, but I won't). Bowser has other really major weaknesses as well that lead to him having a variety of hard counters. So already when comparing him to someone like Samus, it's looking bad for Bowser since as least Samus can do about equally badly against everyone whereas Bowser gets to do especially badly against a few characters. Then I look at his match-ups with other low tiers, and I don't have confidence in him. The only character I'm sure he beats is Ganondorf, and he is maybe evenish to slightly advantaged against Lucas or Mario but then again maybe not (there's room for debate). That's just less impressive than even the other low tiers, though pretty close to what Captain Falcon is (to me, Captain Falcon vs Bowser is a toss-up in terms of who ranks higher).

Also, some of your remarks about what I've said previously involve my work on Balanced Brawl which is a very different environment. If you ever thought I said that environment didn't help Bowser in many large and powerful ways, I'm sorry for miscommunicating. It does, though even there, most people seem to regard Bowser as low. In any case, I don't think anything I've said has been particularly inconsistent, though my opinion of Bowser has indeed slightly fallen with time. This isn't a topic about Balanced Brawl though so that's all I'll say.

---

As per Mario, I don't think I ranked him particularly lowly. The final list put him at 31, and I put him at 33. That's pretty close, and the two characters I put above him that the final list did not are Jigglypuff and Link, both of which I simply feel are underrated. I will say that I consider Lucas, Mario, and Samus really close in overall quality so I could have easily put Mario at 32nd or 34th as opposed to the 33rd I ultimately put him at. If you mean to ask why Mario is low tier in general, which an overwhelming number of BBR members agreed to, that's a bigger question than I'm prepared to get into with this post, though I can go into it more later if necessary.

As per Zero Suit Samus, I didn't realize I'd created a 4 placement gap with her; it wasn't really intentional. I definitely feel far better about Toon Link than the average person which indirectly put her down one place, and to me, Kirby/Pit/Zero Suit Samus is a really tight group in which I happened to place ZSS in the lowest place. I do note I also seem to put more faith in R.O.B. than the average SBR member as well, and of course that indirectly hurts ZSS on my individual list. I do think her grab is very limiting, but I don't have anything against her and think she's pretty decent. She just kinda feel a few places for me by virtue of my support for other characters. It's nothing aimed at her.

I should also say that I have generally more confidence in the balance of the game than average. To me, any character I put in the top two tiers (among the 12 best characters) is "excellent", the third tier (top 20) is "good", fourth tier is "pushing it but passable" (top 27/28), fifth tier is "limited but not without virtue" (top 33/35), and bottom tier is "definitely not viable though a lot better than the bottom tier in some other games". If you wonder about those numbers, what I originally put together privately before posting in the BBR didn't have individual placements for Zelda or Sheik so I shoe-horned those in. They weren't considered for any other placements; I only considered optimal use of the combined character.

---

etecoon, your position is somewhat self-contradictory and unnecessarily hostile. I certainly don't consider the BBR ruleset "joke rules" and see no problem with Distant Planet which is definitely a real stage that does matter. I also think you are overlooking the fact that Snake can, between his explosives and super powerful aerials, kill you if you make a single planking mistake and force your planking into less optimal patterns, and when you consider that maybe we might be planking with a character other than Meta Knight and are in the realm of having open frame windows on every ledge regrab, that's way scarier than planking against Falco is. It's also not just about planking; that's merely one factor (albeit a significant one!). I could say more, but I don't really want to reward hostility.

This post took me quite a while, but I hope I addressed everyone's questions about my own list.

 

[A user name]

I don't understand why some people are mad about fox. If some characters can't be raised on potential, wouldn't the character rankings be just as good as a tier list?

 

[Mariofan12]

There are a lot of things to say, and I will start with the bad.

I think Mario should be in at least middle, and I think he should be higher than Lucas, Yoshi, Pokemon Trainer, and Ness because they all have a high learning curve and Mario's movement and attacks are much easier to control. Also, Zelda being 2nd from bottom is not what I had in mind. She can be good if you control her magic attacks well. Also, Fox being a lot higher is not what I had in mind. He is hard to control because of his speed. I think he should be lower than Luigi but better than Wolf.

Now time for the good.

YES! Mario is finally higher than Bowser. Mario is much faster and does not have as steep of a learning curve, so I'm happy about that. I also think the mix of Zelda/Sheik is cool. Ganondorf being in his own tier is accurate. He has far worse matchups than the rest of the cast, so it makes sense. Meta Knight in his own tier is also accurate, because his matchups are way better than the rest of the cast (No disadvantages) Also, Sonic moved up a bit, so I'm happy about that.


That completes my analysis.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

There are a lot of things to say, and I will start with the bad.

I think Mario should be in at least middle, and I think he should be higher than Lucas, Yoshi, Pokemon Trainer, and Ness because they all have a high learning curve and Mario's movement and attacks are much easier to control. Also, Zelda being 2nd from bottom is not what I had in mind. She can be good if you control her magic attacks well. Also, Fox being a lot higher is not what I had in mind. He is hard to control because of his speed. I think he should be lower than Luigi but better than Wolf.

Now time for the good.

YES! Mario is finally higher than Bowser. Mario is much faster and does not have as steep of a learning curve, so I'm happy about that. I also think the mix of Zelda/Sheik is cool. Ganondorf being in his own tier is accurate. He has far worse matchups than the rest of the cast, so it makes sense. Meta Knight in his own tier is also accurate, because his matchups are way better than the rest of the cast (No disadvantages) Also, Sonic moved up 1, so I'm happy about that.


That completes my analysis.

We don't typically rank characters based on their learning curves. Different people have different ideas about what exactly a tier list means, but a nearly universal thought is that characters should be ranked based on a high level of play at which the early learning curves that are so different between characters are no longer relevant. All serious Fox mains can control his speed just like all serious Ness mains do not struggle with controlling his recovery. What is more important is how well the mains of these characters can do against a field of people using other characters that are also being used by dedicated players who are highly competent at using their characters to their fullest. At this level of play, the majority of us feel that Mario is one of the weaker characters, and that is why we placed him where we did. I don't mean to discourage you as you are obviously a Mario fan, but I hope this helps you understand some of the rationale that went into making the list.

 

[Shy Guy 86]

This Tier list looks really nice and probably is the best one so far imo, although I think some character placings are slightly off, it was nice to see Fox raise and Wolf stay the same(Better than dropping) However I do think the D Tier is a bit too big, but then again it IS in the Mid Tier and it should be right that its the biggest Tier.

 

[vVv Rapture]

Also, I've solved the Zelda/Shiek smiley issue

We can either call them Zhiek or Shelda
If we choose the latter


Sorted

Genius.

I'll actually be making a good, contributing post in a bit, but I figured I'd make note of this. Too good to pass up.