Thing is, we should imho mostly base on the top tier (ICs cutoff) matchups. Nobody else below this has a winning matchup against anybody of the top tiers (even is quite possible, but they don't win. Nope, YL does not beat puff, I think he is fairly even with her). While it is most certainly helpful to have better matchups against the lower echelons of the cast, it is not necessary, since we expect the best player to win, and therefore he should be able to win the even matchups with his superior playerskill.
I can't really get behind the "best chance to win tournaments" in regards to other stuff. If we did value results that much, we would have to move puff into mid-low tiers the very instant HungryBox decides to quit the game, and currently have Peach above spacies since Armada wins pretty much everything he attends (altough PP made it really close last time, I'm still most impressed by him ... he's playing so smart <3). Mind you, I totally agree that a tier list IS defining which characters are most likely to do well in tourney. I just don't see anything other than matchup - considerations to define this doing-well somewhat objectively.
I do think that it's ok to weight matchups between the top tiers differently (good ICs matchup is far less important than doing well against spacies), based on popularity, if it comes down to that.
So I pretty much agree with the current tier list (didn't include ICs in the following thoughts about matchups, because I don't know **** about them, apart from their losing matchup to Peach)
Fox, Falco, puff, sheik, marth, peach, falcon
Fox > beats: Puff, Peach, Falcon. Even: Falco (if one of those beats the other it is so close that I don't care). IDK: Sheik, Marth. Might have a slight advantage over Sheik, but it's really close. Might have a slight disadvantage to Marth if FD isn't avoidable for the Fox).
No losing matchups and wins quite a few. He would clearly be #1, if he didn't lack something (consistency probably) to win in the end. Therefore think he is pretty much tied with the bird. Maybe if somebody explored a smarter and less technical playstyle he'd do really well. I think the best idea fox can have is to play careful, but not too campy (shooting lasers nonstop is having a too bad risk/reward quotient
). Lots of dash dances, waiting for the safe approach option (really similar to Peepees playstyle, just with more speed and less laser control, because duh :D)
Falco > beats: Falcon. Even: Fox, Puff, Sheik, Marth, Peach (might have some slight (dis- or ) advantage in some of these, but it's really close either way).
So no matches that he loses count for really much in my book, if he isn't #1, he is at least #2.
Puff > beats: Sheik, Peach. Even: Falco, Marth. Loses to: Fox. IDK about the Puff Falcon matchup, rarely seen this happen, and never between equal players. If I had to guess, I'd say she wins due to edgeguarding abilities / really long bair combos that lead to edgeguards.
Sheik > beats: Marth, Peach, Falcon. Even: Fox (?), Falco. Loses to: Puff.
If Puff doesn't win the Falcon matchup, and Sheik really is even against Fox, I still wouldn't put Sheik at #3, despite having one more winning matchup, and not losing more. I feel Puff being better in the direct Matchup is fairly important here and they don't do that different in the Fox matchup (I think Fox doesn't have that big of an advantage over Puff, and if he beats Sheik it's not by much).
Marth > beats: nobody. Even: Fox (?), Falco, Puff, Peach, Falcon. Loses to: Sheik.
Even though he beats nobody, and Peach handily demolishes ICs, I feel that Marths even spacie matchups and less losing matchups are preferable here.
Peach > beats: [ICs]. Even: Falco, Marth. Loses to: Fox, Puff, Sheik, Falcon.
While Peach loses the direct matchup against Falcon and her winning matchup is pretty irrelevant most of the time, she has the advantage of a better Falco matchup, which in todays metagame seems highly preferable to me.
Falcon > beats: Peach. Even: Marth. Loses to: Fox, Falco, Sheik. Puff?
Tier separation would pretty much be the Shining Guys + maaaybe Puff and Sheik (if puff makes it, I think Sheik should be up there as well, since she beats pretty much everyone below her (with the exception of an even ICs matchup I hear)). I feel ICs themselves are clearly #8, but I think they are so close in terms of viablity that there doesn't have to be a tier just for them, even if there is a huge gap in avg. voting places between them and the next best character, who I can't see any higher than #7 as well anyways :D (even though I find that pretty sad, CF is probably the coolest character in the game... too bad I care too much about winning to play him :x Go away with your "says the peach main who puts her at #6"-remarks, I started maining her before I had any idea how good she really was, and my Falco is inching towards her level anyways. Plus she is really fun, and so many people fail to adjust their playstyle for her, and in that case she is imho winning some of her matchups that she should actually be losing :D)
Peach>Jiggs>Marth>Falco>IC>Shiek>Doc>Fox>Falcon. Seems legit.
