Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

[Kal]

Wobbling is hilarious. The expression on the face of the player getting Wobbled is amazing.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Wobbling has almost no impact on Ice Climbers metagame. Anyone who wants to ban it is doing so because they don't like the idea of getting ***** while being unable to move. You know. Like when you're being combo'd.

It impacts the Marth match-up a decent amount, I can tell you that much.

 

[Beat!]

omg

he's right

ban wobbling!

banitbanitbanit

 

[Kal]

As a Marth main, I really disagree, Grim. Especially considering that Wobbling is a combo that more-or-less works exactly the same on every character, it would only have a real impact in situations where Ice Climbers are combo deficient. As far as I'm aware, there are no such situations. And I am almost positive Marth is not an exception.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I've always been pro-wobbling, but there is one particular argument I like. In every other combo a player can make better, or at least different, choices when it comes to DI and using a jump. Even in combos that seem guaranteed, there is SDI which can be used to break out of any combo. It is these choices give another "yomi layer" to the combo game of melee. In contrast, wobbling has none of these things; it simply takes rhythm based repetitive tapping by the performer and the defender has no choices to make. Thus my argument is that wobbling is not healthy for the metagame because, unlike every other combo and especially 0-death, there are not options for escape, mix-up or choices.


edit- and yes kal, ICs have plenty of characters where dthrow->dair does not work. Peach, Puff and Marth seem to be part of the list.

 

[Kal]

While my knowledge of Ice Climbers is quite limited, I'm not talking about a particular staple combo. I'm talking about the character's combo potential all together. If Ice Climbers are totally lacking in combos against characters like Marth, then Wobbling would have a more serious impact on that matchup.

However, there are two fundamental problems with trying to ban Wobbling:

1) The issues raised against Wobbling come nowhere close to proving brokenness.
2) There isn't an effective way to police the tactic. Even granting that we have people observing to make sure that the technique isn't being used, how do we define the technique? How many iterations must be run before the player is no longer stringing together a sequence of moves and is now "Wobbling?"

And I don't like this idea that Wobbling would be bad for the metagame. How do you know that the benefits gained from Wobbling (e.g. knowing that your opponent has it available as an option and adjusting your approach accordingly) won't compensate, or even overshadow, the fact that Wobbling removes a yomi layer in the combo game?

 

[Zoler]

Wobbling has almost no impact on Ice Climbers metagame. Anyone who wants to ban it is doing so because they don't like the idea of getting ***** while being unable to move. You know. Like when you're being combo'd.

Eh... what?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Wobbling definition: Alternating linked tilts/jabs and pummels with no gap in hitstun.

"How do you know that the benefits gained from Wobbling (e.g. knowing that your opponent has it available as an option and adjusting your approach accordingly) won't compensate, or even overshadow, the fact that Wobbling removes a yomi layer in the combo game?"

if you're playing against an ICs you are already adjusting for the grab. In some match-ups it does change the match-up (ICs vs Peach) but even in others it is always better than regular grab combos because those can be SDI'd and escaped. ICs have a deep grab mixup game, and wobbling does remove that aspect and diverge their metagame.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

As a Marth main, I really disagree, Grim. Especially considering that Wobbling is a combo that more-or-less works exactly the same on every character, it would only have a real impact in situations where Ice Climbers are combo deficient. As far as I'm aware, there are no such situations. And I am almost positive Marth is not an exception.

And as a former Ice Climbers main, I really, really disagree.

Wobbling changes the Ice Climbers punishment game against Marth immensely. They have no problems landing a grab against Marth, but in many situations only a 50% or lower combo can be scored off of it. If every grab lead to death in the match-up, it'd be much closer to even.

I've always been pro-wobbling, but there is one particular argument I like. In every other combo a player can make better, or at least different, choices when it comes to DI and using a jump. Even in combos that seem guaranteed, there is SDI which can be used to break out of any combo. It is these choices give another "yomi layer" to the combo game of melee. In contrast, wobbling has none of these things; it simply takes rhythm based repetitive tapping by the performer and the defender has no choices to make. Thus my argument is that wobbling is not healthy for the metagame because, unlike every other combo and especially 0-death, there are not options for escape, mix-up or choices.

A metagame without Wobbling is definitely healthier than a metagame with it. The problem is that this can be said for such a huge number of things in the game that banning just Wobbling would be a huge double standard.

Hell, if Fox was forced to approach ICs rather than platform camping by some arbitrary rule (laser limit?) then the metagame would probably be healthier (more technical and mental consistency required of both players in the MU). I'm sure I could come up with a plethora of similar situations.

Wobbling definition: Alternating linked tilts/jabs and pummels with no gap in hitstun.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=299509

As I explain in that thread, Wobbling is a very difficult thing to objectively ban. How many alternated in-grab hits does there need to be before its Wobbling? Your definition implies 2, which makes it waaayyy too easy to accidentally Wobble and get disqualified for it.

 

[Kal]

Again, how many alternating linked attacks do I have to throw out before it's Wobbling and not just a regular combo?

Wobbling can only be done in specific situations (Ice Climbers have to be synced, or desynced, I can never remember which, and the opponent has to be above 20% damage), and while you are already "adjusting for the grab," there's no telling the exact effect Wobbling will have on this. In other words, it's not correct to say that the metagame (as far as approaching goes) adjusted for Ice Climbers grabs will be the same as adjusted for Wobbling.

However, I will concede that, when set up, Wobbling is a universally better combo than any other Ice Climber combo, and so that would reduce the depth of the metagame slightly. I'm just not convinced that the loss in depth you've described warrants a ban, or that it's been shown in any real way that the loss of depth is significant or outweighs the potential increase in depth the approach game would receive from it.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Ninja'd, Kal :3

 

[Kal]

rage

10rages

 

[Kal]

Grim, in the thread you linked someone said "collinary" when they clearly meant "corollary," which even then was used incorrectly. Possibly the greatest fun I've ever had reading a thread on SWF, ever.

Realizing now that the discussion of the ban status of Wobbling, and whether the metagame is worse off (and whether the amount it's made better or worse is even significant) has been beaten to death, I think I will just stop addressing Wobbling-related things altogether. And I will carry a mark of shame for having engaged in the discussion at all.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Wobbling drastically changes the ICs IMHO. Maybe not against, like, Sheik (where ZTD with a synched ICs is a reasonably attainable goal without it because d-throw > 60 > generic throw finish > lol edgeguarding Sheik) but I actually do think it impacts a lot of their MUs against characters they lack set combos against. Samus, for instance. I agree with Grim in that it changes Marth a lot too.

I'm not sure what to do with wobbling.

 

[Kal]

Well, I'll probably change my opinion on the matter, since I'm clearly very Ice Climbers-ignorant.

 

[leffen]

My new tier list:


Fox
Sheik
Marth
Falco

Jigglypuff
Captain Falcon
Peach
Ice Climbers
Doctor Mario

Luigi
Pikachu
Samus
Yoshi

Mario
Ganondorf
Young Link
Donkey Kong

Mewtwo
Link
Zelda
GameNWatch

Roy
Ness
Pichu
Kirby
Bowser

I know what I'm going to get a lot of heat for, so please at least provide a constructive and open minded point of view when you flame me

 

[Kal]

Can I flame you first, then provide a constructive and open minded point of view later?

I think the top four is fine, albeit Marth's presence is debatable given recent results. Peach should be above Falcon. Placing Ganondorf so low seems a little absurd. Not really capable of addressing the rest of it, since I don't keep up with tournament results enough to know if Pikachu usually does better than Luigi, or to know anything about either character's matchups.

 

[leffen]

You assume that I base this list of tournament results, which is just plain wrong.

 

[Kal]

No, I'm not assuming that. Tournament results play a part in every tier list to some degree. My point is that, even if you aren't basing your tier list solely on tournament results, the tournament results speak against Marth being top four, and particularly against Marth being above Jigglypuff.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Fox
Sheik
Marth
Falco

I think I can see why these are ordered the way they are.

Fox certainly has the most combat-relevant options out of the cast and he's good about getting clean hits that he can turn into combos (grab). He's also got a lot of brute force in his gimping potential, which is nice. His speed is always relevant, whereas Falco's lasers and some of the other control tools require a bit of set up. The ability to KO like the opponent has a life bar (vertical KOs) is really valuable in this game, and he has a really good OOS game. He's a really complete character. And he can kind of deny the low tiers the ability to fight him by just exploiting the positional game, which is dandy. I dunno. I don't agree with him being here, but I can see a lot of reasons for why you'd put him here. I just think Falco's combo game, better safety while in control, and superior ability to control significant aspects of the stage (the ground, basically) outweighs Fox's pros.

Sheik has the best punishment in the game on a consistent basis barring chain grabs (which are kind of specific to FD anyway) and arguably Falco. I think Falco should be higher for that reason alone (I think the worst anyone could possibly place Falco is like 3rd).

I don't agree with Marth being there.

Jigglypuff
Captain Falcon
Peach
Ice Climbers
Doctor Mario

I think Puff is top tier just because she invalidates so much because of her design. I also think the OHKO gives her too much potential to get insurmountable leads. Having a few close MUs with some arbitrary characters is balanced by the fact that she's one of two characters that might have an advantage over Sheik (and the other is not a space animal, in my honest opinion).

Captain Falcon vs Peach is a tale as old as time. Peach went ahead for a while because Falcons don't have an "Armada" but yeah I can kind of see why you'd place him ahead. Falcon engages a lot of styles better than Peach does, although I think Peach is kind of weird as a character. I think she changes kind of radically based on whether or not she's ahead and by how much. And, hilariously, whether or not she gets lucky. I am also convinced that Peach Puff is atrocious, which would be a definite strike against her. That's not to imply that Falcon lacks a healthy amount of atrocious MUs; Falco Falcon is also atrocious. However, I think it's more winnable simply because Falco's design is conducive to high variance (dies in one hit sometimes, gimpable, etc) whereas Puff's is not.

Ice Climbers are only this good if Wobbling is on IMHO. I don't agree with Doc being here because his approach tools and meh and his defensive tools are slightly above meh. His best traits are that Fox (and a few others) can't directly throw combo him (or do super heavy combos on him in general) because of his "almost a floaty" status and he has some really solid punishment at times. High potential for low percent KOs. Which, I mean, isn't awful. But I tend to think this game rewards being slanted and Doc's balanced design is a huge drawback. He doesn't excel at enough or in enough situations.

Luigi
Pikachu
Samus
Yoshi

I think Luigi could be that high. I was actually talking about Luigi (kind of) with Dr. Peepee last night. I kind of think that Luigi's crippled kind of heavily by Falco, Sheik, and Fox GGing him so hard because of how they can wail on him without really... worrying about anything. After that I'm not sure. I'm not sure how I feel about Samus (I think she's better than Ganon, after that I don't have a real opinion of her). Ditto for Yoshi (not enough experience to have a real opinion).

I don't care about the rest of the tier list. I agree that Link is utter garbage though. While I'm not sure he should be THAT low, he's pretty bad. And Yoshi is probably better than him at high level. At least Yoshi can combo people and has some kind of movement speed attached to him. Link is too slow to do anything, despite having some decent tools.

 

[Beat!]

leffen's list is good

because Marth is top tier in it

 

[stelzig]

Leffen's list is good.

Because ganon is **** in it.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I refuse to let this become a meme.

 

[Beat!]

Oh come on. You didn't have to ruin it THAT fast.


Seriously though, it's an interesting list, to say the least.

 

[Niko45]

I think that Falco might be pretty good

 

[King5280]

i cant accept falco as the #4 character. easily number two, if not one.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I don't agree with ganon being below mario... Mario has a problem with KOing and his combos are mediocre. Ganon has the best throw in the game with more chaingrabs and guaranteed follow-ups than sheik, as well as some of the strongest aerials and KO moves in the game.

Other than that I can at least see your justification for your list, even if i don't agree with it

 

[leffen]

I at least enjoy how hard the fox mains **** the falco's in results (we always have, outside of PP, but people are dumb)
Apex top 64 had ~27 fox players but only 8 falco players ~_~ (same thing with G2 tbh)


@KK.
I'm gonna go eat dinner but more or less:

-I assumed wobbling was on
-Now that I think about it, Doc should at least be one lower tier (not sure who should go above him.
-I don't think falco ***** luigi at all (and I have A **** TON of exp in this matchup btw). If luigi's started powershield camping falcos (and shield dropping through his platform pressure) then I can't honestly say that the matchup would be far from even.
Fox is kind of bad, but not much worse (if at all) than CF vs Fox tbh, same with Sheik.

-For marth (this includes doc) please consider how he has FD guaranteed in all bo5 sets (which is what should be used for tier lists imo). Except for Sheik he has a great set of match ups.

 

[Merkuri]

I at least enjoy how hard the fox mains **** the falco's in results (we always have, outside of PP, but people are dumb)
Apex top 64 had ~27 fox players but only 8 falco players ~_~ (same thing with G2 tbh)

Having more Fox mains in bracket doesn't mean too much because there are simply more fox players than falco players. Obviously with more players more will make bracket, that isn't ****** anything.

 

[Kal]

More Fox players in a bracket filtered out of a larger set of players via pools is what leffen is pointing out, I'm sure. I.e., that Fox players place better on average than Falco players.

 

[ruhtraeel]

My new tier list:


Fox
Sheik
Marth
Falco

Jigglypuff
Captain Falcon
Peach
Ice Climbers
Doctor Mario

Luigi
Pikachu
Samus
Yoshi

Mario
Ganondorf
Young Link
Donkey Kong

Mewtwo
Link
Zelda
GameNWatch

Roy
Ness
Pichu
Kirby
Bowser

I know what I'm going to get a lot of heat for, so please at least provide a constructive and open minded point of view when you flame me

I agree with a lot of that, except Yoshi and Peach. IMO Yoshi should be lower just cause he can get denied really easily, and I think Peach is better than Falcon because Peach does better against top tiers, since she has stuff like CC d-smash

Ganon > Pikachu IMO

Also G&W should be higher than Link, DK, maybe Mewtwo/Zelda

trollface.jpg


EDIT:

And yeah Falco is rightfully placed at 4th cause he isn't that good and there's so much more stuff to worry about than Sheik/Marth/Fox

 

[KirbyKaze]

@KK.
I'm gonna go eat dinner but more or less:

-I assumed wobbling was on
-Now that I think about it, Doc should at least be one lower tier (not sure who should go above him.
-I don't think falco ***** luigi at all (and I have A **** TON of exp in this matchup btw). If luigi's started powershield camping falcos (and shield dropping through his platform pressure) then I can't honestly say that the matchup would be far from even.
Fox is kind of bad, but not much worse (if at all) than CF vs Fox tbh, same with Sheik.

-For marth (this includes doc) please consider how he has FD guaranteed in all bo5 sets (which is what should be used for tier lists imo). Except for Sheik he has a great set of match ups.

I think Doc's placement is fine. I just don't think he's that class of character.

I disagree with you about Luigi. Until I can see what you're talking about I'm going to reserve judgment.

I think Fox and Sheik are easier than Falco for the Captain because they don't limit his movement game in the same way. Falco starts combos more easily on him too, I think, than Fox does. Fox has way better tech chase, I guess, but there's a percent restriction (you need him at a percent where stuff knocks Falcon over, whereas Falco can start things easily from 0).

I didn't factor in FD being unbannable in bo5.

 

[leffen]

You could also make a point for that Mango uses Fox in the matches invlolving the most money, and that the best fox main (Javi) 2-0'd and outplaced the best Falco main (PP).
Add this to a 27-8 ratio and voila, you have HUGE point in Fox favor when comparing him with Falco.

KK

I was comparing Fox-Falcon and Sheik-Falcon to Fox-Luigi and Sheik-Luigi (falco too, I guess) implying that Luigi does as good if not better against these characters and Cfalcon is a clear high tier for most everybody. Add in decent to good matchups vs Jiggs Peach Ics, Marth and Falcon himself and hes pretty clear in his placing for me.

I agree with you that Falco ***** CF harder than Sheik and Fox do.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

I think the APEX fox/falco results were quite an anomaly tbh. The results were overall still diverse (I believe we had 1 representative from the entire top 14, as usual), but we had many, many more spacies make bracket than usual.

Maybe its a metagame shift but I doubt it. I think it has to do with tournament structure and region. If you've EVER been to tristate you'd know they are easily the most spacie heavy region in the world. All those kids do is play Fox and Falco. Its like the anti-Arizona. So while a lot made bracket, there are many more who didn't; the sample size is just really, really large.

But beyond that, I think having smaller pools helps spacies. Spacies have pretty consistent results against each other, Marth, Falcon, and Sheik but tend to get ***** by everything else. This is not necessarily indicative of how the matchups are actually tilted but that spacies get punished hard, and when you don't know the matchup, that leaves very little room for error and little time to adjust. Put a spacie in a R3 pool where the other players are Fox-Fox-Jiggs-Pikachu-Samus-Sheik? I'd put money on that spacie not making it out. Bigger pools means that players have to know more matchups, and spacie players often fail there. There is also the possibility that having less matches helps keep a spacie main less mentally taxed; overall, the APEX format really helped spacies imo.

Over half of the people making bracket being spacie mains is NOT normal for a melee tournament. Not even close.

 

[Mew2King]

and that fox is what made mango lose 3-0 and 3-1 to armada and hbox this tournament, where falco and puff his tournament record is much better vs almost everybody (5 to 0 in sets vs Hbox with puff, beat armada with puff, beats pp in falco dittos, strongest character vs me).

 

[leffen]

lmao m2k logic.

Mango would not have won vs Hbox and Armada if he played another character lmao.

 

[Mew2King]

mango is 5 sets to 0 vs hbox in puff dittos, and he stands a better chance CPing armada with puff when he has a CP chance than he does with fox

 

[King5280]

if he never quit playing jiggs. nobody had **** on mango's puff but id imagine its pretty rusty now unfortunately.

 

[Mew2King]

javi's best MU is falco dude (by FAR from what I was told), he plays that MU all the time, but mango's falco still 2-0d him (solidly 2nd time) in the friendlies they had. PP is not as good vs fox as Javi is vs falco at all. PP beats mangos fox the majority of their friendlies though, and mangos falco beats every fox the majority.

 

[leffen]

nice job, you used confirmed that you value friendlies over tournament matches


I think we're done here.