Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

[Mahone]

Im sure sheik is one, i was just curious about the 2nd one

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I think its even, but those are the only two match-ups I can see Bing thinking are bad for Marth.

Maybe, Fox?

 

[Wake]

Yeah I'm pretty curious about what the second one would be.

 

[Bing]

huh, I swear there was two. Sheik is the only one. I thought Falco had a slight lead lol.Like a 55-45

also in regards to Jiggs, Marth for sure wins that one.

 

[Deleted member]

huh, I swear there was two. Sheik is the only one. I thought Falco had a slight lead lol.Like a 55-45

also in regards to Jiggs, Marth for sure wins that one.

are you sure? my marth narrowly lost to m2k's jigglypuff last weekend.

 

[Bing]

are you sure? my marth narrowly lost to m2k's jigglypuff last weekend.

Get a better Marth? I dunno My only puff experience is Idea, who wins just off the fact he's better then me by quite a bit(We also havent played in awhile either though)

And Eternal in which I win the MU

I shouldnt say Marth def wins, its like 55-45

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

are you sure? my marth narrowly lost to m2k's jigglypuff last weekend.

I ****ing love you Umbreon lol

 

[Deleted member]

Get a better Marth? I dunno My only puff experience is Idea, who wins just off the fact he's better then me by quite a bit(We also havent played in awhile either though)

And Eternal in which I win the MU

I shouldnt say Marth def wins, its like 55-45

and you wonder why older players hate you.

 

[odinNJ]

JigglyPuff is bad for Marth? haha I really don't see how Puff wins that MU.

carefully

 

[Bing]

and you wonder why older players hate you.

Im just messing with you lmfao

I dont care if you guys hate me. You dont actually know me

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

i remember i made a list for this thread once, and i explained my reasoning for each spot (i only did like the top 8)...

I know this comment wasn't necessarily directed at me but it ought to be lol. Sorry for not explaining ****, but I think most of what I have to say is par for the course (Falco dominates the neutral game, Falcon gets wrecked by the top 3, Roy is garbage, etc). I'm open to answering specific questions, but I'm not sure writing out why Fox is good and Bowser is bad serves a purpose.

And so far I haven't seen anyone really critique what I have to say with reasoning (I think a few people had a problem my Luigi placing, but no one told me why); the majority of people seemed to agree with my list (I'm flattered btw )

 

[ViperGold42]

M2K's Marth is incredibly legit(I personally feel he should use it more then his Sheik)

Also as its been said many times, Marth only has 2 bad MUs, so he still deserves to be put up high, now I dont know if 3rd is the right place, but I'd say top 4 for sure.

Its either
Fox/Falco
Fox/Falco
Sheik/Marth
Sheik/Marth as top 4.

IMO of course.

I've seen his Marth in action in-person. very legit and very different style.

 

[Blistering Speed]

Definitely very disappointed with Bones' performance here. I thought there'd be a legitimate cogent defence to those ****ing bizarrely grandiose claims.

And so far I haven't seen anyone really critique what I have to say with reasoning (I think a few people had a problem my Luigi placing, but no one told me why); the majority of people seemed to agree with my list (I'm flattered btw )

Please explain to me why Puff is below Marth, Sheik and Peach. That's the only incongruity between your list and mine at the top echelon, barring some tier break variations.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

namespaces leffen to explain why puff is bad

Again

 

[Jockmaster]

I think Falcon's range is one of his best attributes... Uair is a giant semi-circle. Nair is really long. Dair is... I don't think anyone knows WTF dair's hitbox is, but it's certiainly large. Then you also have to take his speed into consideration because speed (both in terms of startup as well as movement) is just as important as range. Ganon's utilt has good range, but you're never going to get it out in time so what's the point? Fox's nair has pretty much the same range as most aerials, but he's so damn fast that he can make his nairs feel like they are coming from far away. Falco's nair isn't any different from Fox's, but it feels a hell of a lot slower when Falco is SHFFLing at you because he has to be so much closer in order to initiate the SHFFL. Falcon is an absolute beast in this category because he has a beast DD, he can fly through the air further with his SH than most characters can with their FH, and his nair/uair are fast enough that their startup doesn't negate his ability to approach from so far away. I think he is one of the best characters in terms of raw punishment when it comes to opponents messing up their spacing. If a Falco is playing a Marth, Marth can play with his spacing a lot more because Falco can't just leap at him or run at him and grab in a split second if his spacing is off. Falcon can do those things, so it completely changes the entire dynamic of spacing because his range is much more threatening.


I'm curious what you mean by him being one-dimensional. He seems just as intricate as any other character. You can say all he does his grab, tech chase, and SHFFL, but you could say the same thing about pretty much any character...

I think you're mixing up generally good hitboxes for good range. Yeah range is part of the definition of the hitbox, but when you look at the sum total of a character's moves, range is something that can be somewhat quantified. There are long range characters (eg. Marth, Roy, Samus, Ganon, Falco to a certain extent, etc.); I feel that Falcon falls in to the mediocre medium range category. This isn't all that bad, except he has no projectile to compensate for that shortcoming. All he can really do is try to get his opponent in that range of his. Marth has the same projectile-less issue, but as stated before, his range is huuuuggeeee. Basically, yes Falcon has good hitboxes with a variety of spreads, but he has to get real close (no easy task with no way of baiting with projectiles) to use them. This is something that is made slightly easier with his speed, but it's still enough to knock him down past the other high tiers.

Also, by one-dimensional I mean that his game lacks options. There is no "defensive" Falcon, it's all either super aggressive or pseudo-aggressive (aka not mango). He simply has no means of being defensive besides running away or playing footsies (which many top tiers will beat him at). He can't continuously space aerials as Marth, Ganon, or Jiggs will do, and he can't annoy from a distance as any projectile user will. I think Sheik does fall in to the same rut, she is able to pull it off more often because of the absolute speed with which her attacks are released (I also think Sheik is overrated, but that's another topic). For Falcon, it's an unfortunate place he gets stuck in, and it stifles his potential.

Also, my personal tier list

S:
Falco
Puff
Peach
Fox

A:
Marth
Sheik
Falcon/ICs
ICs/Falcon

B:
Doc
Ganon
Samus
Luigi
Pika
Mario

rest is sort of irrelevant lol

 

[Bing]

I think you're mixing up generally good hitboxes for good range. Yeah range is part of the definition of the hitbox, but when you look at the sum total of a character's moves, range is something that can be somewhat quantified. There are long range characters (eg. Marth, Roy, Samus, Ganon, Falco to a certain extent, etc.); I feel that Falcon falls in to the mediocre medium range category. This isn't all that bad, except he has no projectile to compensate for that shortcoming. All he can really do is try to get his opponent in that range of his. Marth has the same projectile-less issue, but as stated before, his range is huuuuggeeee. Basically, yes Falcon has good hitboxes with a variety of spreads, but he has to get real close (no easy task with no way of baiting with projectiles) to use them. This is something that is made slightly easier with his speed, but it's still enough to knock him down past the other high tiers.

Also, by one-dimensional I mean that his game lacks options. There is no "defensive" Falcon, it's all either super aggressive or pseudo-aggressive (aka not mango). He simply has no means of being defensive besides running away or playing footsies (which many top tiers will beat him at). He can't continuously space aerials as Marth, Ganon, or Jiggs will do, and he can't annoy from a distance as any projectile user will. I think Sheik does fall in to the same rut, she is able to pull it off more often because of the absolute speed with which her attacks are released (I also think Sheik is overrated, but that's another topic). For Falcon, it's an unfortunate place he gets stuck in, and it stifles his potential.

umm... Falcon CAN play defensively, people just dont generally use these tactics because of the style of character and person who plays as Falcon. I mean Falcon is known for comboing to death... so why play defensive with things like a retreating bair?

Also, my personal tier list

S:
Falco
Puff
Peach
Fox

A:
Marth
Sheik
Falcon/ICs
ICs/Falcon

B:
Doc
Ganon
Samus
Luigi
Pika
Mario

rest is sort of irrelevant lol

Peach and Puff above Fox?

Both of those characters lose to Fox...

 

[Jockmaster]

umm... Falcon CAN play defensively, people just dont generally use these tactics because of the style of character and person who plays as Falcon. I mean Falcon is known for comboing to death... so why play defensive with things like a retreating bair?

I mean you would think there would be ONE big name Falcon out there that was not aggro if it was doable at a high-level of play. That's because it really isn't. And yes it is the style of the character and a downfall at the same time. Just like how Bowser's style is getting juggled.

umm... Falcon CAN play defensively, people just dont generally use these tactics because of the style of character and person who plays as Falcon. I mean Falcon is known for comboing to death... so why play defensive with things like a retreating bair?


Peach and Puff above Fox?

Both of those characters lose to Fox...

I think for the sake of discussion about this tier list, we aren't going to use the official MBR matchup numbers. If we did that, the tier list would be exactly the same lol. Obviously I have a different view of those matchups.

 

[ShroudedOne]

JigglyPuff is bad for Marth? haha I really don't see how Puff wins that MU.

Funny, I said to you guys (Peach social) once long ago that I thought that Armada should've gone Marth vs Hbox cause back then I thought Marth manhandled Puff, and you guys were like, "Nah dude, not really." Now I think Puff ***** him, and it's like, "Nah, Marth definitely wins."



I've also never heard someone call Sheik overrated. Like, ever. I'm once again curious as to why you think so.

 

[john!]

My tier list is based on my own theories about character potential. I am considering character potential at the current point in time, however, not some 2020 Melee where all characters are being played ideal. You could essentially say that if a position I allotted to a character doesn't seem reflected in results, it's probably because I consider the character to be underplayed (both in quantity and quality). I also took into consideration the opposite effect. Characters that are overplayed are obviously more likely to perform better. If we had 99 players out of a 100 playing Fox, Fox placing top 7 out of 8 (Hbox got 1st) is largely unimpressive.

the problem is that results heavily influence theory. for example, there is almost no chance that anyone would have peach above 5th/6th place if armada had never played the game. same with marth and m2k.

so, although you consider your theoretical tier list to be independent of results, it is actually very dependent on results, whether you realize it or not.

our theories about smash are scientific hypotheses, tournament matches are scientific experiments, and tournament placings are scientific results which support or contradict the hypotheses.

if a mid-level player like you or i claims that a character should be higher than they actually are, and that the lack of results is due to the fact that the character is underplayed...

then we are implying that our theoretical conclusions are more accurate than the "field testing" of all of the top-level players who have tried the "underplayed" character and decided that that character will not be very successful in a top-level tournament environment.

if you regard theory more than results, you are implying that there aren't enough "experiments" taking place, and that if you kept trying again with enough different scientists, you would eventually get the results that you wanted.

the truth is that, in almost all cases, when the results contradict your theory, you go back to the drawing board and figure out which variables you failed to account for.

now the question is: how many people have to use fox for you to raise him above 6th place? or are you really only concerned with the fact that fox hasn't won a national yet? if that's the case, then you should rename you tier list "the armada/hbox/pp tier list" because those are the only players that will ever influence your decision.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

Please explain to me why Puff is below Marth, Sheik and Peach. That's the only incongruity between your list and mine at the top echelon, barring some tier break variations.

I think Puff is a great character.

But I don't find her matchups to be worthy of a higher rank. Her high spot on my list is mostly due to the Peach and Sheik matchups, and she deserves kudos for those, but I think there are too many characters that can compete with her. Doc, Luigi, Ganon, Young Link, Pikachu, ****ing Zelda...damn near the whole mid tier enjoys fighting her (compared to the other top tiers)....let alone the fact that Fox and ICs can give her headaches. Though none of Puff's matchups are particularly lopsided, the cumulative matchup spread isn't all that impressive, especially compared to her peers.

In terms of character flaws...

1) She has a very difficult time grabbing the ledge from below. More and more players are catching on to this and edgeguards are gaining efficacy. Controlling the space directly above the ledge with a walling move (ex: Marth/Fox/Falco's bair) so that she cannot float over you, and then forcing her into a horizontal approach towards the stage severely limits her options. When she does eventually commit to a lateral approach, low crouches (Sheik, Marth) make aerial descent very punishable. Below the stage isn't much better: she has to give up multiple jumps to pound away (toward the magnifying glass). Her recovery is still incredible but the end result is that she is susceptible to long periods where she is stuck in a bad position.

2) Her shield "pressure" lacks fangs. Wavedash away and roll are dominant options, and her answers to them require hard reads/gambles. To protect against jump outs, she often has to waste pressure opportunities, during which time the opponent can freely escape. Because of this weakness, approaching with shield has become a common tactic.

3) She has significantly poor coverage below her, which is compounded by her slow fall speed. She must come in at angles or from the side, limiting her from approaches that many characters have weaknesses to (see: Young Link).

4) Durability. Its important. Dying at 40 sucks. I don't think her combo resistance is all its cracked up to be either; a zero-to-death on Puff is not uncommon anymore, and there are many reliable setups even if they don't lead to the same lengthy strings you see used on fastfallers. A 0-60 combo on Puff (which Falco, Marth, etc can do all day) is the equivalent of a 0-120 on other characters.

5) The height of her initial jump and subsequent jumps allow you to get under her hitboxes. She has to stay level with you at all times to prevent this, but eventually she has to land, and that inevitably leads to some fading aerial followed by a wavedash/repositioning. Most of those are punishable, and even when she is at correct distances, she often has to willingly give up stage position against an aggressive dashdancer

ettccc

Theres a lot more but you get the jist. Shes good. Really good.

But Sheik, Marth, Fox, Falco, and Peach are really good too.

 

[Bing]

Im starting to like your posts more and more TCB....

 

[unknown522]

My last list was biased, heres a legit one.
S:
Falco
Fox
Marth
Sheik

A:
Peach
Puff
Falcon

B:
ICs
Samus
Doc

C:Luigi
Ganon
YLink

D:
Pikachu
Mario
Link
DK

E:
Mewtwo
Yoshi
Roy
G&W
Zelda

F:
Ness
Bowser
Kirby
Pichu

I dont know something like this ish.

pichu on the bottom?

Go to hell

Edit:

Im sure sheik is one, i was just curious about the 2nd one

Me too.

 

[Mahone]

I think Puff is a great character.

But I don't find her matchups to be worthy of a higher rank. Her high spot on my list is mostly due to the Peach and Sheik matchups, and she deserves kudos for those, but I think there are too many characters that can compete with her. Doc, Luigi, Ganon, Young Link, Pikachu, ****ing Zelda...damn near the whole mid tier enjoys fighting her (compared to the other top tiers)....let alone the fact that Fox and ICs can give her headaches. Though none of Puff's matchups are particularly lopsided, the cumulative matchup spread isn't all that impressive, especially compared to her peers.

In terms of character flaws...

1) She has a very difficult time grabbing the ledge from below. More and more players are catching on to this and edgeguards are gaining efficacy. Controlling the space directly above the ledge with a walling move (ex: Marth/Fox/Falco's bair) so that she cannot float over you, and then forcing her into a horizontal approach towards the stage severely limits her options. When she does eventually commit to a lateral approach, low crouches (Sheik, Marth) make aerial descent very punishable. Below the stage isn't much better: she has to give up multiple jumps to pound away (toward the magnifying glass). Her recovery is still incredible but the end result is that she is susceptible to long periods where she is stuck in a bad position.

This is not really true. She has the best recovery in the game. Most puffs don't utilize some techniques but if you do she does fine below the stage. I just sweetspot sing both horizontally and vertically at the same time... just test it, its ridiculous how low and far away you can grab it, and you use the momentum of ur jump into the sweetspot grab so its very quick and will mess up people's timings a lot. Of course this is scary for puff because if she is too far she will just sing and die, but i practice it a lot and don't tend to do full distance and i still grab it and rarely get hit by moves that hit under the stage. Also, the only time i get hit is when i just float down to the ledge cuz im lazy and don't feel like going high (which is all the ****ing time)... but when i really feel like winning, i just di up when i get hit offstage and using rising pounds up really high, out of range of any ****ing moves top tiers have then just move on to the following... which i will address later since its another one of your points.

2) Her shield "pressure" lacks fangs. Wavedash away and roll are dominant options, and her answers to them require hard reads/gambles. To protect against jump outs, she often has to waste pressure opportunities, during which time the opponent can freely escape. Because of this weakness, approaching with shield has become a common tactic.

I think this is pretty true, I have a lot i could say about what puff's shield pressure is like and go on for hours, but i'll just say that her shield pressure is high risk/high reward, so its not that bad, but most top players don't want high risk/high reward, they want consistency... hbox has more consistent shield pressure and does a lot of good stuff, but i play completely different so i don't really wanna talk about whats good and bad about what he does cuz i haven't thought about it much

3) She has significantly poor coverage below her, which is compounded by her slow fall speed. She must come in at angles or from the side, limiting her from approaches that many characters have weaknesses to (see: Young Link).

Ya, she's really bad when above people, but so is everyone in the cast. I actually think she has a better time getting down that a lot of other characters, you just have to be patient. So like i was saying above when i was talking about recovering, what you want to do is use a lot of your jumps and juke people out horizontally... don't be afraid to land quickly on the top platform to regain jumps and continue to "stall" waiting for your opponent to misspace. Your opponent will need to get on the platforms if they want to have any hope of hitting you, and its much harder for them to move about the platforms smoothly while following your di than it is for you to just move in the air horizontally... then the second you catch them misspaced, you can start falling away from them or nair on their head and weave out or something super safe that will get you on the ground. This is actually pretty easy in practice... marth is kinda harder than most characters because of his range, but i am just speaking generallly. Also... if you get hit, OH NO, you take 10% or something and get another chance to juke them, it's really not terribly bad.

Ya, a character like ylink can sorta abuse this pretty badly and i think the fact that jiggs even has to worry about ylink (im not saying ylink wins) is pretty crazy if you think about it. For someone that a lot of people are putting as third best its pretty crazy that she actually has to figure out how to beat a mid/low? tier.

4) Durability. Its important. Dying at 40 sucks. I don't think her combo resistance is all its cracked up to be either; a zero-to-death on Puff is not uncommon anymore, and there are many reliable setups even if they don't lead to the same lengthy strings you see used on fastfallers. A 0-60 combo on Puff (which Falco, Marth, etc can do all day) is the equivalent of a 0-120 on other characters.

The issue here is that only fox can kill her at those ridiculous percents. A 0-death is still very uncommon on her wtf??? Falco and Marth doing 0-60 actually doesn't mean ****... they both are terrible at killing her, if they could kill her at a reasonable percent they would have great matchups vs jiggs (thats why a lot of people suggest marth can win with proper use of pivots to get tipper fsmashes, which i can agree with). Falco can rack up damage easily vs her, but then you're at 10% and they're at 160% and you get pound-jab reset- rested lol.

But this issue is HUGE vs fox as he can get decent combos and rack up damage quick and then kill her early as ****, especially on stages like yoshis and pokemon stadium.

5) The height of her initial jump and subsequent jumps allow you to get under her hitboxes. She has to stay level with you at all times to prevent this, but eventually she has to land, and that inevitably leads to some fading aerial followed by a wavedash/repositioning. Most of those are punishable, and even when she is at correct distances, she often has to willingly give up stage position against an aggressive dashdancer

I don't think enough has been explored in this department although i will kinda agree with this for now. I'm working on a lot of stuff that i don't think people do... well i was working on it, imma have to quit melee soon cuz im moving to the middle of nowhere, but someone will work on it one day i hope ... and also jiggs doesn't suffer as much from losing stage control as most other characters imo... all they are doing is getting u to the ledge which is where she reigns supreme... mirite HAX & M2K... so fake exposed #swag... aiight im getting silly now so i should wrap it up

ettccc

Theres a lot more but you get the jist. Shes good. Really good.

But Sheik, Marth, Fox, Falco, and Peach are really good too.

The weird thing is that i actually agree your placement of her (i would say better than peach but whatevs), but i don't think any of the reasons you provided are very strong cases for why she's not as good as the other characters.

 

[Wake]

Funny, I said to you guys (Peach social) once long ago that I thought that Armada should've gone Marth vs Hbox cause back then I thought Marth manhandled Puff, and you guys were like, "Nah dude, not really." Now I think Puff ***** him, and it's like, "Nah, Marth definitely wins."



I've also never heard someone call Sheik overrated. Like, ever. I'm once again curious as to why you think so.

Well maybe it was like "Does Armada know the MU well enough with Marth to beat Hbox" back then I dunno. I don't remember. Either way, I think Marth wins that MU just fine.

And Sheik overrated? I don't think she's overrated. I think she's top 3 material.

 

[Bing]

Ryan you know I love Pichu but I was trying not to be biased

 

[unknown522]

Lol. I don't really care

 

[ViperGold42]

Ryan you know I love Pichu but I was trying not to be biased

man Pichu was such a weird add in.

 

[Twinkles]

im sorta interested with bones list actually
fox is still top tier imo, but falcon v. marth v. peach is up for grabs imo

falcon's range is tremendous he has so much fking momentum
one jump and he covers 3/4 of fd or some sht

he can space aerials if he wants to, but seriously why would any falcon continuously do it if they can combo something to death after the 1st hit

and i think bad people label offensive and defensive style like morons
there are very few people who actually exemplify offense or defense
all good players require a healthy dose of both

also, im no longer what falcon's matchups are. falcon v. shiek seems tolerable. falcon v. falco is probably the worst, but it's doable. falcon v. fox can be potentially really bad with the right fox. i think falcon v. fox is worse than falcon v. shiek.

aside from those 3, falcon goes even with/beats rest of the cast as far as i know

 

[Rainbow]

I was trying not to be biased

Where is the fun in that?

 

[Bones0]

I know this comment wasn't necessarily directed at me but it ought to be lol. Sorry for not explaining ****, but I think most of what I have to say is par for the course (Falco dominates the neutral game, Falcon gets wrecked by the top 3, Roy is garbage, etc). I'm open to answering specific questions, but I'm not sure writing out why Fox is good and Bowser is bad serves a purpose.

And so far I haven't seen anyone really critique what I have to say with reasoning (I think a few people had a problem my Luigi placing, but no one told me why); the majority of people seemed to agree with my list (I'm flattered btw )

I think Falco dominating neutral is a common misconception. As far as I'm concerned, Falco struggles in neutral more than any of the other top tiers because of his speed. Where he shines (no pun intended) is once he establishes some sort of momentum. Most people feel like he dominates neutral because of lasers, but when you learn to deal with lasers they are mostly non-threatening in neutral. The days where Falco can laser approach into SHFFLs is long gone. His defense is also pretty lackluster because his speed makes it very difficult to back off. If a Fox doesn't like his position vs. Marth, he can just DD back a bit further and work from there. If Falco messes up his spacing, it's too late. If he gets too close without a proper setup, most of the top tiers can pounce quite easily on him before he is able to RSHL. Utilt is often the only saving grace in these instances, but obviously missing that is a free punish.

the problem is that results heavily influence theory. for example, there is almost no chance that anyone would have peach above 5th/6th place if armada had never played the game. same with marth and m2k.

so, although you consider your theoretical tier list to be independent of results, it is actually very dependent on results, whether you realize it or not.

our theories about smash are scientific hypotheses, tournament matches are scientific experiments, and tournament placings are scientific results which support or contradict the hypotheses.

if a mid-level player like you or i claims that a character should be higher than they actually are, and that the lack of results is due to the fact that the character is underplayed...

then we are implying that our theoretical conclusions are more accurate than the "field testing" of all of the top-level players who have tried the "underplayed" character and decided that that character will not be very successful in a top-level tournament environment.

if you regard theory more than results, you are implying that there aren't enough "experiments" taking place, and that if you kept trying again with enough different scientists, you would eventually get the results that you wanted.

the truth is that, in almost all cases, when the results contradict your theory, you go back to the drawing board and figure out which variables you failed to account for.

now the question is: how many people have to use fox for you to raise him above 6th place? or are you really only concerned with the fact that fox hasn't won a national yet? if that's the case, then you should rename you tier list "the armada/hbox/pp tier list" because those are the only players that will ever influence your decision.

I agree with most everything you said, but it seemed like you twisted it to make it sound like I was basing my tiers off of results. Obviously results play a role because the results are directly related to how players use their characters. I didn't put Peach at 2nd because Armada places high. I put Peach at 2nd because of the way Armada uses Peach. There is a difference.

How many people have to use Fox for me to raise him? Not sure I understand the question. I have him so low partly because so many people use him and he still doesn't place high at all. I also take into consideration that his popularity makes it so he has to face people who are experienced in the matchup all tournament. A lot of my reasoning is completely detached from results, however. I just see a lot of aspects of Fox's gameplay that seem weak. He gets punished super hard. He doesn't have reliable combos in a lot of matchups. etc.

im sorta interested with bones list actually
fox is still top tier imo, but falcon v. marth v. peach is up for grabs imo

falcon's range is tremendous he has so much fking momentum
one jump and he covers 3/4 of fd or some sht

he can space aerials if he wants to, but seriously why would any falcon continuously do it if they can combo something to death after the 1st hit

and i think bad people label offensive and defensive style like morons
there are very few people who actually exemplify offense or defense
all good players require a healthy dose of both

also, im no longer what falcon's matchups are. falcon v. shiek seems tolerable. falcon v. falco is probably the worst, but it's doable. falcon v. fox can be potentially really bad with the right fox. i think falcon v. fox is worse than falcon v. shiek.

aside from those 3, falcon goes even with/beats rest of the cast as far as i know

I agree Falcon vs. Falco is his worst matchup, but I have seen some nice stuff from S2J that gives me hope the matchup will only become more even. They both punish each other so hard that it's really about the neutral game, and I think as Falcon players learn to utilize platforms effectively (SHAI DROP UAIR IS BROKEN) and work on not getting pinned in shield, the matchup could very well end up at even. On the flip side, I think Falco could benefit more from a style where he stays on top of him to prevent Falcon from getting aerial momentum or creating space to abuse his longer ranged moves.

 

[Warhawk]

I didn't put Peach at 2nd because Armada places high. I put Peach at 2nd because of the way Armada uses Peach. There is a difference.

But in contrast to that the way Mang0 uses Fox doesn't convince you that Fox at least deserves to stay in the top 4 or 5?

 

[Twinkles]

if bones is in the mood for a long write-up, i'd like to see the reasoning for each character above fox

if he's not, i'd settle for a reasoning for marth & falcon over fox

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Honestly, I don't see a reason for fox dropping out of the top 3.

1) fastest character in the game
2) best match-up spread
3) best at playing keep away
4) best at zoning/poking

His biggest flaws are what? His nair/bair isn't big enough (even though it can outspace marth's grab) and one of his KO moves can be escaped with SDI.

If we are going to get into psychology/theoretics of why solo-fox isn't winning nationals in practice, heres a list of factors:

1) High frequency of precise inputs tends to conflict with patience
2) Nerves and focus can cause a bigger problem for fox players
3) Controllers wear out/hands get tired
4) Playing a less technical character for pools/early matches helps maintain stamina
5) Only ~3 people are actually winning nationals and they choose to play other characters, though i suspect their foxes would do just as well
6) Not everyone is 100% play to win; many people don't choose a top 3 character because they have more fun with a top 8 or top 12
7) going along with #6, many people choose to not play fox specifically because he is the best



sure, having a list that is based on results is cool, but it doesn't take into account the many factors that go into the final product.

 

[choknater]

i like how after 10 years, mastery of fox on a level that can win majors is still beyond human.

it is entirely possible, i'm sure

 

[KirbyKaze]

umm... Falcon CAN play defensively, people just dont generally use these tactics because of the style of character and person who plays as Falcon. I mean Falcon is known for comboing to death... so why play defensive with things like a retreating bair?


Peach and Puff above Fox?

Both of those characters lose to Fox...

stuff

I agree that it sucks that Falco can't be like "peace bro" and run away from his opponent if they screw his footing somehow (whereas Fox, Marth, Falcon, and Sheik can [and the gay floaties have pain resistance]). But everything else in your post is baloney in one way or another.

You overrate Falcon a lot. He's seriously a very linear character with limited options. He doesn't have many ways of hitting the opponent or protecting himself. He's also really bad at surviving hits. His combos are strong, but they're more susceptible to DI and weird interference than most of the other good characters. There's some room for the defending player to be good when being comboed by Falcon that simply isn't there when Falcon is replaced with Marth, Sheik, or Falco. That's not to say Falcon can't dial-a-combo or get really random wins out of nowhere via dial-a-combo (because he can). But the consistency of the other three is a big deal.

 

[Cactuar]

Was it Cort who used to say that winning with Falcon is luck-based?

 

[Jockmaster]

I agree that it sucks that Falco can't be like "peace bro" and run away from his opponent if they screw his footing somehow (whereas Fox, Marth, Falcon, and Sheik can [and the gay floaties have pain resistance]). But everything else in your post is baloney in one way or another.

You overrate Falcon a lot. He's seriously a very linear character with limited options. He doesn't have many ways of hitting the opponent or protecting himself. He's also really bad at surviving hits. His combos are strong, but they're more susceptible to DI and weird interference than most of the other good characters. There's some room for the defending player to be good when being comboed by Falcon that simply isn't there when Falcon is replaced with Marth, Sheik, or Falco. That's not to say Falcon can't dial-a-combo or get really random wins out of nowhere via dial-a-combo (because he can). But the consistency of the other three is a big deal.

Thank you. This is what I was saying. Falcon is a deadly and potent character, but a somewhat predictable one nonetheless.

 

[Bones0]

But in contrast to that the way Mang0 uses Fox doesn't convince you that Fox at least deserves to stay in the top 4 or 5?

Mango vs. Armada probably convinced me more than anything else that Fox is not that good. If you go back and watch the set, it's pretty incredible how difficult it is for Mango to land first hits. It's just absurdly dangerous trying to approach Peach as Fox. He has great KO options, but getting her to that percent is the hard part because he can't combo her as well as Falco or Falcon. I think Peach also has the best edgeguard on both spacies. Armada rarely lets spacies back on stage because she's one of the few characters that can cover side-B so well (just float and either nair if they come at you, or dair if they go at the ledge).

I think people also need to realize that Mango only goes Fox in a few matchups. I'm sure he's great at all of Fox's matchups, but he refuses to go Fox vs. M2K (for good reason). Outside of that, who has he used Fox against? Armada and Hbox? I can hardly count that "set" vs. Taj because in all honesty he was clearly just the better player, and he overwhelmed him. Maybe if I saw Mango or Javi use Fox vs. the rest of the cast I would be more convinced. For now, it just seems like Fox players do really well against the matchups the player is best at. Mango pwns Jiggs, and Javi pwns Falco. I haven't seen much Fox pwnage outside of that.

if bones is in the mood for a long write-up, i'd like to see the reasoning for each character above fox

if he's not, i'd settle for a reasoning for marth & falcon over fox

A long write-up doesn't seem necessary. I'm not even good at this game, so people are greatly overestimating how much weight my opinion carries compared to top players who have demonstrated good knowledge of how the game works.

The general reasons I put Marth/Falcon over Fox:
- Better/more consistent punishes

- Less vulnerable to low % death combos: Marth is too floaty to get hit by a lot of combos that work on other characters. I mostly see people doing pseudo-combos centered around getting rid of his DJ and just staying underneath him in general as he floats down. Falcon is only slightly better because his recovery is certainly worse, but he's fat enough that he won't fly off stage from the same random **** Fox does.

- Range: Marth is slower with a giant sword, and Falcon is faster with giant legs. Marth can tip moves on shields and stay safe just fine. Falcon can tip late uairs, and knee and stomp just have so much shield stun that they are safe. The only way Fox can be safe on shield is to shine, and people have gotten so good at dealing with shield pressure that it's become more and more risky. I think Leffen posted this in the Fox thread, but he basically said that if you aerial a shield as Fox, you've already messed up. It's just not that good of a position. You're at risk of getting grabbed constantly, and if you do manage to hit them with shine, you usually can't follow up. If they don't fall down from shine, they land with no lag and you can't hit confirm every time, and if they do fall down from shine, you have to just work off their tech/missed tech.

- Safety: Fox doesn't have a move he can use safely when he has bad spacing. He sort of has to just run or shield and rely on his OoS options. Marth can fair, utilt, or even counter and it will do a decent job at combating people who try to rush in on his space. Falcon can use things like pivot bair to protect himself, but overall he really just doesn't need a move like this because his DD is so crazy long and he's so fast, you can almost always just dash away and be well out of range of any move in the game (except perhaps another Falcon SHFFLing a nair).

I agree that it sucks that Falco can't be like "peace bro" and run away from his opponent if they screw his footing somehow (whereas Fox, Marth, Falcon, and Sheik can [and the gay floaties have pain resistance]). But everything else in your post is baloney in one way or another.

You overrate Falcon a lot. He's seriously a very linear character with limited options. He doesn't have many ways of hitting the opponent or protecting himself. He's also really bad at surviving hits. His combos are strong, but they're more susceptible to DI and weird interference than most of the other good characters. There's some room for the defending player to be good when being comboed by Falcon that simply isn't there when Falcon is replaced with Marth, Sheik, or Falco. That's not to say Falcon can't dial-a-combo or get really random wins out of nowhere via dial-a-combo (because he can). But the consistency of the other three is a big deal.

OMG KITTIES! :3

I probably just don't fully understand the ways in which Falcon is predictable. I think he has by far the best platform game out of the entire cast. People say Fox is amazing on platforms, but he's only really amazing at running away on them. You never see Foxes running around on platforms as an approach outside of the occasional SHFFL nair to the middle, which has become so predictable no one seems to fall for it any more. Falco is too slow/needs lasers too much. Peach/Puff can barely get on plats in the first place. Marth has some room to evolve more platform oriented gameplay (Taj convinced me of this), but he still can't jump onto platforms quite as fast as Falcon, plus his DDWD grab game is better so he gets more out of using the ground. ICs obviously hate platforms. Sheik is another character I think could benefit from plat games, but she doesn't have the same range/horizontal momentum on her fair as Falcon does on his uair/nair.

 

[unknown522]

Alright. I read that. The only part that I can nitpick is where you said that peach has the best edgeguarding on the spacies. That is not true (well, maybe it can be vs falco). Vs fox she can really struggle just because she has a hard time covering multiple options, unlike the top tiers. This is because her ledge hop sucks, she can't do crap like hog him and force him onto the stage, then hit him. The only reason that mango (and tbh a couple of other foxes) couldn't make it back was because of the dumb recovery choices sometimes. A lot of times he would decide to Firefox/illusion straight at armada when it clearly wasn't a good choice, instead of doing the diagonal sweetspot. For peach to cover high recoveries, she needs to jump preemptively, and it really is possible to react to it and go underneath her because she is too floaty. She also doesn't have a great fast arching move that can force fox to Firefox upwards, then cover with something. A lot of times she's either stuck having to try and cover the diagonal sweetspot, or has to cut him off before he can move.

Both have their risks and counters though, whereas a character like sheik can take the ledge an b-air, then cover up if she misses. Sheik's f-air setting up godlike edgeguard situations for herself is great too.
Also marth can even just stand on the stage and charge 'x' move and either kill them with that, or cover if they try I go over him, since the initial move will cover higher recoveries, and the diagonal sweetspot. Also, because of his absurd range, he can hit them before they get the chance to tech most of the time. Ben if they do, he has counters to that as well.

It's already been established that Firefox/bird low is the worst possible choice because characters can take the ledge and abuse invincibility. It's more of a last-resort thing if anything.

 

[Bing]

hmm, Im just going to shut up now... lmfao