Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

The list should also have YOLO for increased terribleness (as if ness had to be any more terrible than he already is).

Doctor MarYOLO

 

[Purpletuce]

So. . . we've discussed THAT enough. Lets talk about the value of counterpicks, since the current tier list reflects standalone viability, let us talk a little about complementary characters. . .

For example, Shiek and Fox have a ton of MUs they dominate, so they seem like they would be good at protecting you from low tiers, particularly for a Falco main.

Or, Marth seems like a useful CP to have because of his ability to zone out floaties with his range/movement, and deny them landing. He also dominates on FD, and there are a ton of characters who fear FD, so having a pocket Marth might scare your opponent away from picking FD.

 

[Bones0]

Falco doesn't need protection from low tiers... I like Westballz combination of Falco and Falcon for FFers and floaties respectively. Puff seems to have it the worst overall when it comes to struggling with low tiers. I don't think any combination of two top tiers is really necessary though. I'd find it much more interesting to hear peoples' propositions for which low tiers have legitimate use as a cp (YL vs. Puff being a perfect example).

 

[Jayk]

I think Shiek and Peach is a strong combo, as you basically have even matchups with both of the spacies, which are the most common matchups, can keep your characters safe from their counterpicks (ICs and Puff respectively) and can dominate most of the other characters with one of them (Shiek on Falcon and so on).

Like, no matchup you'd be losing in and basically only even 3-4 even ones.
Almost as good as maining Falco...

 

[Xyzz]

Sheik vs puff is not even. And she is not winning.
It isn't horrible, but puff is definitely winning.

 

[Purpletuce]

Puff definitely beats both of them, and assuming you can play both of thier MUs as well as they are supposed to be able to (able to exploit your advantages over character x), you should only have to deal with evenish MUs against Fox/Falco, slight loss to Puff.

Definitely laughed at the Falco bit. Sad, but true.

 

[FourStar]

Ok i've wanted ask this but how much has the metagame changed in you're guy's opinion. cuz i think a lot has changed since 2010

 

[Bones0]

Ok i've wanted ask this but how much has the metagame changed in you're guy's opinion. cuz i think a lot has changed since 2010

I watched PP vs. Armada from Pound 5 the other day and it seemed a lot slower and less efficient than their more recent sets. Tbh though, I am more surprised by what I don't/rarely see at top level than what I do see.

 

[BTmoney]

I think it's changing rapidly. I get a lot of time to practice by myself and I don't think new players were coming in shield dropping in 2010 and most certainly no new players were doing that in 2009. I spend a lot of time cleaning up my movement when I'm not on here reading up on theory or watching matches but I really wish I had easy access to players like I did before I came back from school because I need to work on implementation, my stage control, and sophisticate my punish tree for Marth (and my 3 other secondaries lul).

 

[Get Low]

So how about in the "post your tier list" thread,
I put Zelda twelfth, but almost every other person put her in their bottom five.
I think she's underrated to an almost disgusting degree.
People think that since she only has two really good moves (Bair and Fair), she's nearly useless.
But first of all, landing those two moves is a lot easier than people think,
especially if you're good at predicting when you're opponent will jump out of shield.
Secondly, she only has to hit the opponent a few times to kill them.
On Yoshi's, it only takes like, three kicks to kill your opponent.
Playing against a Zelda who can space well is an absolute nightmare,
and I think the reason why people think she sucks so badly is either because
no one has a whole of experience using her/playing against her,
or people are still stuck on that mindset where they think, "hurr derr all Zelda does is da kick".
In reality, she has a unique and interesting moveset,
and I think people need to explore it more. (Her Fsmash is Godlike, but no one ever seems to mention it).
I think she's about as good as Ganon, considering she reminds me of a floaty version of him
with relying mainly on strong single hit moves.
I'll end my rant there.

 

[The Hooded Informant]

S: Marth, Falco, Fox, Peach
A: Sheik, Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, Dr. Mario, Pikachu, Ice Climbers
B: Ganondorf, Luigi, Link, Samus
C: Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong
D: Young Link, Roy, Mewtwo, Zelda
E: Mr. Game and Watch, Bowser, Ness, Pichu, Kirby

There is a reason I put this back here. There is actually more to this list than you think. The reason is to tell you that from my statistics, observing professional players, streams, videos, and recording my data, this is what I come up with. This tier list is actually what I coin, a "Statistics Tier List". This isn't a normal tier list at all. This goes by statistics and well-put study rather than voting or needing people. I know what I say before or after, but if we think about this, maybe we can all come to an agreement on two different "official" tier lists. One based on votes of the people, and one based on study.

 

[Sangoku]

^Be careful, you might have been surviving in the 64 section because we don't have mods, but here you could get banned quickly.

 

[Xyzz]

[stuff]

Counter-rant time! :D

Ganon is a lot better than Zelda. Zelda is just too slow / immobile and most of her attacks have like no reach at all (or have other intolerable drawbacks) ... so she can't actually threaten stuff. One of Ganons best movement tricks are his wavelands which can lead to his big and sufficiently fast ground moves (jab / ftilt) which zelda totally lacks. Both the useable waveland, and the good ground moves.
Her f-smash is disgustingly easy to SDI (do I even have to get sdi? I think asdi is actually enough) out of.

She would indeed be pretty scary if she's standing outside your shield spacing aerials and fishing to catch your OOS option. But then again, what the hell is she gonna do to make me shield instead of dash dance camping her till she commits to something and then make her wish she didn't? Or even if she manages to make me shield because I'm dumb, what is she gonna do about me rolling away after the kick hits? Chase me down with her pitiful grab? :D

Being fast imho (lol) is really important for a ssbm character to be able to limit his opponents defensive options. If the character in question isn't, he's going to have to show me some compensation to be accepted as a threat. E.g. Falco has lasers that take care of him not being able to reach everything himself. Peach has a dash attack that slides for miles giving her really good effective range out of her dash dance. Ganon at least has some movement tricks with wavelands. What does Zelda have?

edit: I just realized that I'm praising Ganon in this post. That's gotta be a first :D

 

[FourStar]

Zelda is character i like playing. but she still doesn't compare with other in the mid tier such as pikachu, ganon, and samus. she is just too slow for her to be in the mid tier

 

[The Good Doctor]

S: Falco, Fox, Marth
A: Jigglypuff, Sheik, Peach, Falcon Ice Climbers
B: Ganon, Samus, Luigi, Doc
C: Mario, Yoshi, Zelda, Mewtwo
D:DK, Link, Young Link, Roy
E: Mr. Game and Watch, Bowser, Ness, Pichu, Kirby

If I forgot a character, oh well.

 

[The Irish Mafia]

TCB, I'm curious about your thoughts on the marth peach matchup. I've heard very polarized opinions on the matchup since I joined the community in 08, first that it's heavily in marth's favor, then that it's more even, later that it's in peaches favor (I did subscribe to this belief for a while) and now that it's back in marth's favor.
I see turnip control vs marth as a fullscreen space control mechanism replicated in no other matchup. I've only played a handful (literally maybe only 5) marths that properly deal with turnips and fair. I also feel that dash attack pierces marth's defense in an unusual way: sometimes it feels like he's shielding and it just hits him anyway. It also gets under him in a way that most moves don't. Combined with turnip control I feel like it severly limits marth's defensive options in this matchup.

 

[Purpletuce]

Zelda sucks, she only needs a few hits to get a kill, sure, but she can't get them easily enough and she gets punished too hard. Her F-smash is terrible, slow/DIable/low range. In my home city there is a traditional fighter player who is amazing at zoning, and he likes to play Zelda, unfortunately Zelda sucks so for every time he spaces well with F-air/B-air, somebody can get it on him and just destroy him. If you think Zelda is that viable, try her out.

The Hooded Informant seems to be some idiot who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. People like that are dangerous, I suggest everyone just ignore him, he has no idea at all what he is talking about.

 

[Xyzz]

Why doesn't that zelda-guy play puff then instead? I mean she is a character who a zoning-centered playstyle works well on, and that is actually good? :D

 

[Purpletuce]

I don't know, he just doesn't like her. Lately he has been going all doc, so that works better than zelda. I bet his puff would be good if he tried the character.

 

[kalamazhu]

if you are top level
- fox falco marth sheik
- peach puff falcon IC's

for most of us
- falco fox sheik
- marth puff peach falcon IC's

 

[FourStar]

if you are top level
- fox falco marth sheik
- peach puff falcon IC's

for most of us
- falco fox sheik
- marth puff peach falcon IC's

Yea i agree. marth is a really hard character to master in the current metagame

 

[BTmoney]

stuff

tell Abu his marth sucks and "The Blacktician is coming for his butt"

 

[Strong Badam]

So. . . we've discussed THAT enough. Lets talk about the value of counterpicks, since the current tier list reflects standalone viability, let us talk a little about complementary characters. . .

For example, Shiek and Fox have a ton of MUs they dominate, so they seem like they would be good at protecting you from low tiers, particularly for a Falco main.

i seriously do no understand the concept of a falco/marth requiring a secondary to beat bad characters. are you that much worse than your opponents that you have to go from a 60-40 to a 70-30 to win?

 

[Armada]

It's a myth that spacie players have created/been working on for such a long time now and I will list a few important aspects.

-They are "so hard" to play that is "impossible" to be consistent with them
- Nowadays every single MU (with spacies involved) is not even close to what they were before and of course spacies suffer most from this out of all chars
- That spacies is overrated because they get comboed so hard

Some parts of this is true, that is important to remember, but this only puts the attention to the bad stuff and leave out EVERYTHING that is super amazing with those chars.

-Yes spacies is harder when it comes to pressing more buttons and yeah Fox is harder to play on a consistent level (Falco has always been super overrated when it comes to how hard he is to play consistently). Most spacie player seems to forget how good they are in the neutral game which means they have to work a lot less and doesn't need to be as precise in the entire neutral game compared to the rest of the cast. The fact that they are SUPER good on shield is also something they seems to forget kinda often.

- This is just because they have less experience in the MUs or just are worse players. Spacies doesn't need any secondary at all. It can be better for your personal style to have 2 chars because your personal weaknesses can be easier to cover with another char. That doesn't mean they need a secondary. Characters with so good MUs seriously doesn't need a secondary at all.

- Yeah spacies is easy to combo WHEN you hit them. But important to remember that hitting them in the first place is very hard. Again important to understand how much more freedom spacied have around shields then basically any other char (Peach have great tools here too).

Like I said, just a myth that spacie players have created on their own and this is a result when many people together focus on the bad parts and not the SUPER good parts the chars has to offer. Some people really should open up their eyes.

 

[-LzR-]

Armada pretty much said it how I see things. I just don't really go around saying it because I have no credibility when it comes to Melee.

Oh and may I ask why everyone is putting Marth so high? I know he is good, but on the same tier as spacies? What tools does he have to deserve a spot up there?

 

[Armada]

Marth is having better results lately.
PP doing well vs me at Apex
M2k doing well at Apex
PPU doing much better lately.

It all comes down to results for most people. Over the past 8 years or something the tierlist is very influenced by results. I did a post in the brawl-tierlist thread about what this kind of "thinking" actually leads to. I will send the post right now

"Was reading through the bigger part of this thread and for me it seems like the brawl community have the same "problem" as the melee community has when it comes to tierlists. WHY is everyone putting so much focus on results?

If results is THAT important why is it even necessary to vote in the first place?
Results are fact and personal preference is a opinion. I don't understand why the system should be based on opinons when everyone use results (facts) as the clear argument.

However I have a lot of times said when I have been talking about this topic with melee players that I don't think results are THAT important when it comes to tierlists.

Of course it all comes down to what the community want the tierlist to represant (maybe it excist some generall rule for it I don't know) but I do think some kind of "human level"/potencial should be what the tierlist represent. By putting so much effort into the results you basically just say who the top players are without thinking about how good the chars truley are.

I also think the "lazy" way of thinking that becomes a results of this "results-based" lists is a problem for many players. Because you don't put as much time to understand

- What works in every single situation.
-How to cover options
- How to edgeguard/recover
- Punish game
- deffensive parts
-etc

If you think about that enough you will most likely get a better clue on how good the chars are. You will also UNDERSTAND them much better. So you will also improve more as a player because you now know how to play because you have more knowledge.

I hate to use myself as a example but in this case I do think it is a pretty good one and I don't follow the brawl community so I don't know any really good example (even if it exists a lot of them).

Me vs Hbox in melee is a perfect example (as I think many brawlers at least heard about on Apex 2012). Before I started to use Y link vs Hbox basically every single player thought the MU was not good at all for Y link. Y link has for such a long time been consider a very bad char. He also have NO results that shows he could have any good MUs against the better chars (Would say Y link vs puff is very even)

After I won A LOT of people talked about how Y link CLEARLY won the MU based on 2 ****ing games where Hbox had no experience in the MU at all. I think this set proved a lot when it comes to how people think when it comes to MUs/tierlists.

Instead of trying to really understand why something works/doesn't work they use results instead cause it's easier. But a easier path is many times not the best path and as a RESULT most people do not improve as much as they could do! "


That was the post I made in that thread. People can try to tell me they are not using results that much but the way people vote (for every single time a new tierlist is up for discussusion) indicate they does. Im not saying everyone need to have a tierlist that looks "super weird" to show you can think for yourself cause that's not my point. But true understanding in the game is what takes you further.

 

[MookieRah]

I agree with Armada, except that I think a tier list should actually be a "results" list and not take into account opinion at all. When you try to merge the two you get a really weird thing entirely. The tier list should simply be a snapshot of the current meta. The best way to do that is simply to make an algorithm and display the results. This is how a tier list has always been described to me, and it was how I understand things were done in the other fighting game communities back in the day. It makes sense and is easy to quantify.

Determining the potential of a character and weighing it against others is an entirely different matter, and honestly, should be more up to the people playing the individual characters to facilitate that discussion. I don't know what the other character specific threads are doing (and to be honest I am not super up to date these days), but at the moment the Marth boards are actually discussing the very things Armada is talking about. Discussing topics such as optimal play, delving into what Marth's best options are in specific situations, and discussing how can Marth play in a way to cover more of his opponents options. More people than not in the Marth boards believe that Marth's potential is higher than his current placement shows, and so people are trying to push forward Marth's meta. This is something that is up to the players playing the character to do, and the substantial leaps you see in the tierlists come out of this way of thinking.

All in all, we have a game with 26 characters and trying to figure out and discuss a single characters potential is a huge task, but to attempt to have one discussion in which everyone objectively tries to rank every character according to their potential is impossible and more of a matter of mental masturbation than anything else. What you end up with is exactly what Armada says, a lot of people simply basing their opinions off of current results without much thought into anything aside from perhaps their character of choice, something that would have been a lot more valuable in a character specific setting.

 

[clowsui]

Mookie I don't think you actually read Armada's post lol

it's antithetical to say that you agree with his post but you want a results only tier list

the rest of your post indicates that what you meant to say is that "i think that the way armada describes the tier list is accurate as to what it is now, but i actually think that a results-based list is the way to go"

 

[Anand]

i seriously do no understand the concept of a falco/marth requiring a secondary to beat bad characters. are you that much worse than your opponents that you have to go from a 60-40 to a 70-30 to win?

What's wrong with that? If my opponent plays Doc instead of Falcon, I have no problem switching to Sheik (from Puff) if it'll help me win the set. Sure, my characters are both higher-tier than his, but maybe Sheik vs Doc is a matchup that I'm more comfortable with than Puff vs Doc, especially because of the unfamiliarity of the Doc matchup (rest setups, etc) and the degree to which I'll get punished (4 capes to fsmash on a missed rest). Sheik vs Doc is comparatively simpler for me and allows me to rely on my basic Sheik playstyle.

Also, it's a little concerning that you seem to be implying that barely losing with low tiers makes you a better player than your opponent -- doesn't seem like a great attitude to have.

 

[clowsui]

Comfort is not necessity. Don't distort his argument.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

OMG WILD MOOKIERAH APPEARED

I used to watch this all the time (too bad they cut the music...) :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xqSJm3xasQ

 

[Strong Badam]

What's wrong with that? If my opponent plays Doc instead of Falcon, I have no problem switching to Sheik (from Puff) if it'll help me win the set. Sure, my characters are both higher-tier than his, but maybe Sheik vs Doc is a matchup that I'm more comfortable with than Puff vs Doc, especially because of the unfamiliarity of the Doc matchup (rest setups, etc) and the degree to which I'll get punished (4 capes to fsmash on a missed rest). Sheik vs Doc is comparatively simpler for me and allows me to rely on my basic Sheik playstyle.

Also, it's a little concerning that you seem to be implying that barely losing with low tiers makes you a better player than your opponent -- doesn't seem like a great attitude to have.

it isn't an honor thing, it's a very poor strategic choice in most situations, both at the time and for long-term improvement. switching off of your main in an already advantageous match-up is just a bad idea. i can't count the number of fox mains i've played that switched to sheik (either game 1 or game 2) expecting to have won at the character select screen and then get absolutely demolished in a 70-30 MU. and i'm not even going to get into how split your tournament experience becomes between characters when you start doing this.

and this is unrelated, but yes, it does make you a better player. it makes you a worse competitor, however, which is what we care about, since character choice IS a tested skill and always will be.

 

[-LzR-]

Wall of awesome text

I remember that post from Brawl tierlist discussion. I have to agree, people are way too easy to put into the the hypetrain. Like ZSS winning Brawl in Apex and how she was suddenly somehow better than she used to be.

More about Marth, what tools does he have? What options does he have? Why is he considered so good?
I don't know much about it because I am just a Brawl player who is bad at Melee, but I am damn interested to know why he is so good.

 

[FourStar]

I remember that post from Brawl tierlist discussion. I have to agree, people are way too easy to put into the the hypetrain. Like ZSS winning Brawl in Apex and how she was suddenly somehow better than she used to be.

More about Marth, what tools does he have? What options does he have? Why is he considered so good?
I don't know much about it because I am just a Brawl player who is bad at Melee, but I am damn interested to know why he is so good.

He can chaingrab I think everybody, his aerial game is unbelievable, and smashes are just so damn powerful. plus he's got the Ken combo

 

[MookieRah]

Mookie I don't think you actually read Armada's post lol

it's antithetical to say that you agree with his post but you want a results only tier list

I gathered from Armada's post that a tier list should either be a results driven thing or a potential based assessment. He went with potential, I went with results. That's why I said that I agree, I agree in the sense that you cant have it both ways.

 

[MountainGoat]

The tier list shouldn't be based solely on results but results show us the highest potential of a character. They kind of have to go hand in hand.

 

[MookieRah]

The tier list shouldn't be based solely on results but results show us the highest potential of a character. They kind of have to go hand in hand.

Why? Why can't they be based off of results? What makes results a bad measurement in this case? The goal of a tier list isn't to say "these are the character rankings from top to bottom" it's to simply state "these are the character rankings from top to bottom according to the current metagame".

More about Marth, what tools does he have? What options does he have? Why is he considered so good?
I don't know much about it because I am just a Brawl player who is bad at Melee, but I am damn interested to know why he is so good.

TheCrimsonBlur made a post that I think is quite good detailing why Marth is good. Check it out.

OMG WILD MOOKIERAH APPEARED

I used to watch this all the time (too bad they cut the music...) :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xqSJm3xasQ

Yeah, I really don't understand why that got cut, and it makes me sad : (. I mean it's not like that video has a crapload of views or anything.

 

[Purpletuce]

@SB I was posting about curiosity. I don't need to switch from a 60-40 MU to a 70-30 MU, I'm a Yoshi main who only plays Yoshi in tourney (although I have some secondaries for fun). That being said, there are a ton of bad spacie players who are convinced spacies are underrated, simply because they lose to players who are better than they are.

@ Armada, I agree with most of your post, especially about how easy it is to play Falco. He is actually the easiest character in the game to pick up in my opinion. (Most results compared to time invested.) That being said, I've also invested similar amounts of effort to Marth, Puff, Peach and Shiek. So if anyone reading this thinks Falco is hard to play, you're probably either only using tech skill, or don't play him intelligently.

I've been saying these things for a while, but everyone simply dismisses it because I'm a Yoshi main who is relatively new to the scene.

Marth is not as good as some people are claiming. He is definitely not as good as either spacie.

Fox and Falco are definitely without question the top 2, the order is what is the question.

 

[Max?]

One Marth player standing out, and PP/M2k using him for certain matchups does NOT make Marth the best in the game.

 

[Xyzz]

I think it's ok to make up ones mind about a characters potential after somebody does well. But that only should be based on a better understanding of the character, not because of the results alone.

E.g. I approve of : "oh wow, it's actually humanly possible to consistently do that downair shine stuff on shields with spacies? Holy ****, they're probably better than Sheik", or a bit more recent: "holy crap, jiggs back air can be hella abused, maybe she's actually good?"
I don't approve of "PP shows that Marth handled by a smart player with godlike movement/zoning can win tournaments"... duh, I'm not really surprised here. (The reasoning TCB gives is good, I don't agree entirely (I think Marth is good, but not better than Jiggs/Sheik. Really close though :D). But it's definitely a valid opinion that is backed up by very well formulated arguments and not effectively just "hurdur, PP's good!")).