Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

[Upke]

Fox is a ****ing gimmick you don't know what you're talking about

 

[KirbyKaze]

I am genuinely interested in the tier lists that disagree with mine. And would love to discuss a more controversial list.

What do people think of Samus right now? Is bomb-landing a thing? Is it actually any useful?

Of course Fox is a gimmick. But he's not just any gimmick. He is a gimmick so powerful that through sheer determination he dug his claws into the metagame and held on until he was so deeply rooted into the game's strategic canon he actually twisted history until he became a real strategy and the best character (despite not winning any tournaments during most of Melee history and never once addressing his fragility or lack of priority). He literally willed himself into not only existence but legit dominance from nothing. Much like Hungrybox's back air.

 

[Bones0]

here are some reasons why the tier list has not changed much since the MLG days:

- there haven't been many significant changes in character strategies
- people are more likely to play highly ranked characters, advancing their metagame further and keeping them at the top
- characters at the top continue to perform the best at large tournaments
- people understand how complicated this game is and are more likely to defer to others' opinions when they are unsure of a character's ranking

all of these are completely reasonable.



how did you start from "the metagame has changed and we are too stubborn to notice" and draw the conclusion that "characters fall into 3-4 groups and should not be sorted"?

also you conveniently forgot about hungrybox when discussing jiggs' placement.


might be wasting my time here but w/e

No significant development of character strategies? You can't be serious...Take any top 32 player from today and send them back to 2006 and they'd ****ing annihilate everyone, including themselves in the ditto. No matter what character you main, the strategies surrounding the character's metagame have changed drastically over the years. This is easily seen in any Melee video ever.

Saying people are more likely to play highly ranked characters is pretty circular considering we're debating character rankings. Obviously if you base your tier list largely off of character popularity, you will end up with the conclusion that people play characters based on their tier placing (Fox is popular, therefore more Fox players place in high ranks, therefore Fox is top tier). Only problem is I don't agree that Fox is amazing as everyone says, so telling me people are more likely to pick the good characters doesn't make much sense. It's also just sort of BS from the very start of the claim because no one worries about how good their main is when they first pick up the game as long as it's a top 8 character. Spacies are popular because they are really exciting, challenging, and fun characters to use, and they also are capable of winning tournaments. I play Falco and Marth because I was inspired by Bombsoldier and Ken. I didn't think to myself "well I'd like to play Captain Falcon, but his matchups aren't as good as other characters. I know this because a bunch of unskilled players on an internet forum said so."

Characters at the top continue to perform the best? Where are you getting those statistics from? Fox has been almost unanimously #1 on the tier list for years, but it took Mango going tryhard at Evo for Fox to finally take a national. If you're going to say results influence your list, then you should probably make sure results match your list. Armada proved amazing dominance in the past, but I don't think I've ever seen ONE person put Peach at #1. CLEARLY, there is a ton of bias going on.

Deferring to someone else's opinion for real life purposes until you can form your own educated opinion is fine (e.g. it's fine to trust scientists who specialize in a given field), but when a thread asks for YOUR opinion on the ranking of characters, there's no point in posting if you aren't adding anything to the field of opinions. When people do that, you end up with exactly what we got in the 2013 tier list thread where almost everyone seems to be in agreement because the entire community just posted their list as the status quo, plus or minus a few changes based on their personal tastes.

I did not conclude characters fall into 3-4 groups when you divide them by skill. All I was saying is that we need to be less specific with our tier list placements because the more specific you get, the bigger an issue bias becomes. If you ask people to name the top 8 characters in no particular order, a new player can look at that and get some accurate information. It may not tell them as much as a tier list that ranks those top 8 amongst each other, but that extra information is so biased and convoluted that you aren't doing anything to help the player. Our community trying to rank each character individually is an attempt to be as precise as possible, but determining tiers is everything but precise. It is a messy, generalizing process that should be treated as such. I'd much rather have 3-4 broad tiers that are representative of reality than 26 tiers that make huge assumptions based on how popular certain opinions are at the time of the vote.

 

[JazzDynamite!]

I am genuinely interested in the tier lists that disagree with mine. And would love to discuss a more controversial list.

What do people think of Samus right now? Is bomb-landing a thing? Is it actually any useful?

Of course Fox is a gimmick. But he's not just any gimmick. He is a gimmick so powerful that through sheer determination he dug his claws into the metagame and held on until he was so deeply rooted into the game's strategic canon he actually twisted history until he became a real strategy and the best character (despite not winning any tournaments during most of Melee history and never once addressing his fragility or lack of priority). He literally willed himself into not only existence but legit dominance from nothing. Much like Hungrybox's back air.

Hey KirbyKaze, what do you think of the visual tier list format I posted on the last page? Would you be interested in making one?

 

[Ezzee]

People just might not want to post a different tier lsit because most people that stray form the norm are called stupid and wrong. If you guys want a different and "controversial" tier list I have one.

1.) Falco Basically the best character in practice. Great moves that often combo into other great moves very easily and a great finisher in his Dair. Shine is probably the best move in the game and has an unfair amount of utility. Lasers are also an incredible tool that not only messes up approaches but also forces mistakes which Falco can capitalize on and gives him something to harass opponents who are recovering.

2.) Jigglypuff A pretty unexplored metagame that has a lot of potential. She has a rest set up on every character and Bair is an incredible tool that easily chains into itself multiple times. Bar none the best recovery in the game, and when paired with Bair plus her aerial mobility, she is scary to be offstage against. Some good smash attacks such as f-smash (which I belive can be combo'd into with Nair) have great power. She is however, very light and very floaty, making her easy to KO. On the flipside, this also makes her difficult to combo.

3.) Fox The reason Fox is at the top of every tier list is because, in theory, a perfect Fox is unbeatable. However, no one ever has, or probably ever will, play this game perfectly. That being said, he is still an incredible character. Fox's shine has arguably more utility than Falco's being able to chain into itslef and be able to gimp recovery fairly easily. His falling speed is a double edged sword, giving and an amazing combo game while also making him easy to combo. He can also change his game on the fly, going from a combo heavy character to one who can sit back and laser camp. He still has easy recovery to gimp though and can be knocked off stage easily due to his light weight.

4.) Sheik I wanted to put Sheik at 3, but Fox only loses a few match ups by a small margin while Sheik loses 2 MU's by a hefty margin (IC's and Puff). Sheik probably wins every other MU though except maybe Falco, who she goes even against. She has the best offstage game with her Fair being a great, fast semi spike that is easy to combo into and Bair, which has a huge range allowing her to poke at people offtstage, if not out right KO them if sweet spotted. She also has some of the simplest, and best combos in the game. She has a huge amount of set up moves and a great grab game to further enhance her combo ability. She does suffer from poor recovery and being easy to edge guard herself

5.) Peach Peach is a little over looked on the tier list, the only notable one recently being of course Armada. Armada is seemingly the only player to every really explore Peach and push her to the next level. Her offstage game is really solid, with a combination of her float, a great projectile, good, quick aerial moves such as Nair and Bair and a great double jump, Peach can really do well offstage. She also has good smashes and throws, being able to chain grab spacies. Float cancel is also an incredible attribute that gives her combo potential. Even with float cancel though, she still doesn't have a great combo game. She does also suffers from being Easy to KO and average vertical recovery.

6.) Marth I posted a few pages ago Marth was over rated. I still think that, but I don't think I gave Marth quite enough credit. Has the best spacing ability in the game with his disjointed sword and a broken grab range. Fair is a great move that can combo very well, and he has quite a few set ups into Dair. When combined with his tipper system, he has great KO potential. He is also able to juggle many characters very well, especially spacies. Speaking of spacies, his great matchup against them is what lands him in the top 8. However, he still has very linear and predictable, and gets comboed very easily by nearly every character.

7.) Captain Falcon I was tempted to put him at 6, but I just wasn't able to justify it. Very easy to edge guard, comboed by every one, easy to tech chase, just an easy character to kill. However, he also has the ability to combo every character and 0 to death most of the cast. Many of his aerials such as nair and fair, combo into grabs and which sets up into more combos. He does have a somewhat limited approach with no projectile and nair being the move you're going to approach with most of the time. Still, in the hands of a good player, his combos are a force to be reckoned with.

8.) Pikachu This is one of my more out there picks, but I feel like Pikachu has the most undiscovered potential. Axe, and to a certain extent Pikachad, are the only people to explore this character, and they have been doing incredible. He has a good combo game, good speed, great dash dance, and maybe bar Sheik, the best offstage game. His up air when sweet spotted is a very good semi spike, and he always has something to combo people with. Nair is a solid move that can combo into many other moves. He also has good kill power with moves like U-smash and Thunder. He is still easy to KO, despite his great recovery, due to his light weight. He is also, if I'm not mistaken, chain grabbed by quite a few characters, and also suffers from a short wavedash.

9.) Ice Climbers IC's has so many holes, but just as many punish options. I had a debate whether to put Pikachu or IC's at 9, and they are more or less interchangeable, but due to the aforementioned holes, and the fact you have to start to assume whether wobbling is on, I decided to put Pikachu above IC's. IC's have, without a doubt, the greatest grab game. Tons of desync set ups and a great wavedash for moblity, being near them is one of the scariest things in the game, because one grab should mean death. They also have a good defensive game with desync ice blocks and other desync shenanigans. Their recovery is rather poor, and at a high level, you're going to be spending most of your time as SoPo. They also have a rather poor aerial game, with most of the cast being able to beat them in the air.

10.) Doctor Mario Jack of all trades, master of none. Good combo game, good wavedash, good projectile, but no great qualities (except maybe his smashes.) He's an all around solid character, but nothing really distinguishes him. He also suffers from horrible recovery. Doc is one of the harder characters to explain because he is standard. He's solide at everything, but great at nothing

11.) Samus

12.) Luigi

13.) Ganondorf

14.) Young Link

15.) Donkey Kong

16.) Yoshi

17.) Mario

18.) Link

19.) Mewtwo

20.) Zelda

21.) Ness

22.) Game & Watch

23.) Bowser

24.) Roy

25.) Pichu

26.) Kirby

I might expand on the others later, but I think the top 10 were the most important to explain

 

[john!]

No significant development of character strategies? You can't be serious...Take any top 32 player from today and send them back to 2006 and they'd ****ing annihilate everyone, including themselves in the ditto. No matter what character you main, the strategies surrounding the character's metagame have changed drastically over the years. This is easily seen in any Melee video ever.

this is mostly due to an increase in tech skill.

falco and falcon are still rushdown combo-based characters, marth is still amazing at gimps/DD/chaingrabs, puff is still a pokey fragile character that's hard to combo, etc. they still largely rely on the same moves and the same overall approach.

if new strategies are discovered, they likely aren't a huge leap in the metagame, as huge leaps would have been identified and exploited sooner rather than later. this is true for virtually any system.

Saying people are more likely to play highly ranked characters is pretty circular considering we're debating character rankings. Obviously if you base your tier list largely off of character popularity, you will end up with the conclusion that people play characters based on their tier placing (Fox is popular, therefore more Fox players place in high ranks, therefore Fox is top tier). Only problem is I don't agree that Fox is amazing as everyone says, so telling me people are more likely to pick the good characters doesn't make much sense. It's also just sort of BS from the very start of the claim because no one worries about how good their main is when they first pick up the game as long as it's a top 8 character. Spacies are popular because they are really exciting, challenging, and fun characters to use, and they also are capable of winning tournaments. I play Falco and Marth because I was inspired by Bombsoldier and Ken. I didn't think to myself "well I'd like to play Captain Falcon, but his matchups aren't as good as other characters. I know this because a bunch of unskilled players on an internet forum said so."

so are you going to base rankings off of which characters have the most advanced and successful metagames, or characters which you personally think are secretly underrated/overrated? i mean, you can do what you like, but don't be surprised if people disagree with you based on lack of evidence.

Characters at the top continue to perform the best? Where are you getting those statistics from? Fox has been almost unanimously #1 on the tier list for years, but it took Mango going tryhard at Evo for Fox to finally take a national. If you're going to say results influence your list, then you should probably make sure results match your list. Armada proved amazing dominance in the past, but I don't think I've ever seen ONE person put Peach at #1. CLEARLY, there is a ton of bias going on.

results don't just include the champion.

Deferring to someone else's opinion for real life purposes until you can form your own educated opinion is fine (e.g. it's fine to trust scientists who specialize in a given field), but when a thread asks for YOUR opinion on the ranking of characters, there's no point in posting if you aren't adding anything to the field of opinions. When people do that, you end up with exactly what we got in the 2013 tier list thread where almost everyone seems to be in agreement because the entire community just posted their list as the status quo, plus or minus a few changes based on their personal tastes.

maybe these "few changes based on personal tastes" are because those are the only characters that they know a lot about? i don't have to have strong opinions on all 26 to contribute to a tier list. i'll defer to other people's opinion on samus because i don't know the first thing about her.

I did not conclude characters fall into 3-4 groups when you divide them by skill. All I was saying is that we need to be less specific with our tier list placements because the more specific you get, the bigger an issue bias becomes. If you ask people to name the top 8 characters in no particular order, a new player can look at that and get some accurate information. It may not tell them as much as a tier list that ranks those top 8 amongst each other, but that extra information is so biased and convoluted that you aren't doing anything to help the player. Our community trying to rank each character individually is an attempt to be as precise as possible, but determining tiers is everything but precise. It is a messy, generalizing process that should be treated as such. I'd much rather have 3-4 broad tiers that are representative of reality than 26 tiers that make huge assumptions based on how popular certain opinions are at the time of the vote.

we already have sub-tiers for this exact reason. the tier list is supposed to reflect reality. putting ice climbers and spacies in the same category is not reality.

having a few unsorted tiers will probably lead to more controversy due to the fact that characters on the edge could have such high variation. for example, there could be a debate over whether the IC's should be in the top 8 tier (listed with the best characters in the game) or the second-highest tier (listed next to mario or w/e). both of these choices suck and a huge, controversial decision would have to be made despite the fact that almost everyone agrees where the IC's fall on a full 1-26 tier list.

 

[SAUS]

Maybe rather than 3-4 broad, unordered tiers, their could be 6 or 7, less broad, but still unordered tiers. Something like Fox+Falco tier, then marth, jiggs, ICs, Captain Falcon tier, and at the bottom their could be ness, pichu, game&watch tier (these are just theoretical tiers, don't bother with who's in them really).

I can see why just 3 tiers would be bad, somewhere, there would be too large of a gap in power for those characters to be in the same group. However, I do like the idea of a non-ordered tier list.

 

[Xyzz]

If you do that, you just move the problem around... The question no longer is "are ICs in the very best tier, or the one behind that", but rather "are spacies really that much better than Sheik that a tier gap is justified", which I personally would disagree with.

 

[Coastward]

does play count have an effect on the outcome of a tier list? i.e how many people play the character, how much its seen in tournaments, etc.

 

[Papa+Stone]

People just might not want to post a different tier lsit because most people that stray form the norm are called stupid and wrong. If you guys want a different and "controversial" tier list I have one.

1.) Falco Basically the best character in practice. Great moves that often combo into other great moves very easily and a great finisher in his Dair. Shine is probably the best move in the game and has an unfair amount of utility. Lasers are also an incredible tool that not only messes up approaches but also forces mistakes which Falco can capitalize on and gives him something to harass opponents who are recovering.

2.) Jigglypuff A pretty unexplored metagame that has a lot of potential. She has a rest set up on every character and Bair is an incredible tool that easily chains into itself multiple times. Bar none the best recovery in the game, and when paired with Bair plus her aerial mobility, she is scary to be offstage against. Some good smash attacks such as f-smash (which I belive can be combo'd into with Nair) have great power. She is however, very light and very floaty, making her easy to KO. On the flipside, this also makes her difficult to combo.

3.) Fox The reason Fox is at the top of every tier list is because, in theory, a perfect Fox is unbeatable. However, no one ever has, or probably ever will, play this game perfectly. That being said, he is still an incredible character. Fox's shine has arguably more utility than Falco's being able to chain into itslef and be able to gimp recovery fairly easily. His falling speed is a double edged sword, giving and an amazing combo game while also making him easy to combo. He can also change his game on the fly, going from a combo heavy character to one who can sit back and laser camp. He still has easy recovery to gimp though and can be knocked off stage easily due to his light weight.

4.) Sheik I wanted to put Sheik at 3, but Fox only loses a few match ups by a small margin while Sheik loses 2 MU's by a hefty margin (IC's and Puff). Sheik probably wins every other MU though except maybe Falco, who she goes even against. She has the best offstage game with her Fair being a great, fast semi spike that is easy to combo into and Bair, which has a huge range allowing her to poke at people offtstage, if not out right KO them if sweet spotted. She also has some of the simplest, and best combos in the game. She has a huge amount of set up moves and a great grab game to further enhance her combo ability. She does suffer from poor recovery and being easy to edge guard herself

5.) Peach Peach is a little over looked on the tier list, the only notable one recently being of course Armada. Armada is seemingly the only player to every really explore Peach and push her to the next level. Her offstage game is really solid, with a combination of her float, a great projectile, good, quick aerial moves such as Nair and Bair and a great double jump, Peach can really do well offstage. She also has good smashes and throws, being able to chain grab spacies. Float cancel is also an incredible attribute that gives her combo potential. Even with float cancel though, she still doesn't have a great combo game. She does also suffers from being Easy to KO and average vertical recovery.

6.) Marth I posted a few pages ago Marth was over rated. I still think that, but I don't think I gave Marth quite enough credit. Has the best spacing ability in the game with his disjointed sword and a broken grab range. Fair is a great move that can combo very well, and he has quite a few set ups into Dair. When combined with his tipper system, he has great KO potential. He is also able to juggle many characters very well, especially spacies. Speaking of spacies, his great matchup against them is what lands him in the top 8. However, he still has very linear and predictable, and gets comboed very easily by nearly every character.

7.) Captain Falcon I was tempted to put him at 6, but I just wasn't able to justify it. Very easy to edge guard, comboed by every one, easy to tech chase, just an easy character to kill. However, he also has the ability to combo every character and 0 to death most of the cast. Many of his aerials such as nair and fair, combo into grabs and which sets up into more combos. He does have a somewhat limited approach with no projectile and nair being the move you're going to approach with most of the time. Still, in the hands of a good player, his combos are a force to be reckoned with.

8.) Pikachu This is one of my more out there picks, but I feel like Pikachu has the most undiscovered potential. Axe, and to a certain extent Pikachad, are the only people to explore this character, and they have been doing incredible. He has a good combo game, good speed, great dash dance, and maybe bar Sheik, the best offstage game. His up air when sweet spotted is a very good semi spike, and he always has something to combo people with. Nair is a solid move that can combo into many other moves. He also has good kill power with moves like U-smash and Thunder. He is still easy to KO, despite his great recovery, due to his light weight. He is also, if I'm not mistaken, chain grabbed by quite a few characters, and also suffers from a short wavedash.

9.) Ice Climbers IC's has so many holes, but just as many punish options. I had a debate whether to put Pikachu or IC's at 9, and they are more or less interchangeable, but due to the aforementioned holes, and the fact you have to start to assume whether wobbling is on, I decided to put Pikachu above IC's. IC's have, without a doubt, the greatest grab game. Tons of desync set ups and a great wavedash for moblity, being near them is one of the scariest things in the game, because one grab should mean death. They also have a good defensive game with desync ice blocks and other desync shenanigans. Their recovery is rather poor, and at a high level, you're going to be spending most of your time as SoPo. They also have a rather poor aerial game, with most of the cast being able to beat them in the air.

10.) Doctor Mario Jack of all trades, master of none. Good combo game, good wavedash, good projectile, but no great qualities (except maybe his smashes.) He's an all around solid character, but nothing really distinguishes him. He also suffers from horrible recovery. Doc is one of the harder characters to explain because he is standard. He's solide at everything, but great at nothing

11.) Samus

12.) Luigi

13.) Ganondorf

14.) Young Link

15.) Donkey Kong

16.) Yoshi

17.) Mario

18.) Link

19.) Mewtwo

20.) Zelda

21.) Ness

22.) Game & Watch

23.) Bowser

24.) Roy

25.) Pichu

26.) Kirby

I might expand on the others later, but I think the top 10 were the most important to explain

Thats different i guess, but for many of the characters its just plain wrong and many of those reasons have been shot down before. Bomes is just trippy.

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

but for many of the characters its just plain wrong

I agree. Mewtwo isn't even top tier. WTF Ezzee?

 

[N.A.G.A.C.E]

I am genuinely interested in the tier lists that disagree with mine. And would love to discuss a more controversial list.

What do people think of Samus right now? Is bomb-landing a thing? Is it actually any useful?

Of course Fox is a gimmick. But he's not just any gimmick. He is a gimmick so powerful that through sheer determination he dug his claws into the metagame and held on until he was so deeply rooted into the game's strategic canon he actually twisted history until he became a real strategy and the best character (despite not winning any tournaments during most of Melee history and never once addressing his fragility or lack of priority). He literally willed himself into not only existence but legit dominance from nothing. Much like Hungrybox's back air.

what is your tier list?

 

[Papa+Stone]

Proabably bad. Would anyone like to hear my tier list?

Well here it is, in no particular order:
S+ tier fox falco sheik
S tier puff marth peach
S- tier falcon
A+ tier icies
A tier doc samus pikachu
A- tier luigi ganon
B tier mario dk
C+ tier link yink
C tier mew2 zelda roy
C- tier gdubs bowser ness
F tier kirby pichu

While my opinion, my tier list echos the truth near perfectly, with a small margin of error. Also like bones I have implemented very general tiers so that people dont get the wrong idea and see too many divisions between the characters

 

[Bones0]

this is mostly due to an increase in tech skill.

falco and falcon are still rushdown combo-based characters, marth is still amazing at gimps/DD/chaingrabs, puff is still a pokey fragile character that's hard to combo, etc. they still largely rely on the same moves and the same overall approach.

if new strategies are discovered, they likely aren't a huge leap in the metagame, as huge leaps would have been identified and exploited sooner rather than later. this is true for virtually any system.



so are you going to base rankings off of which characters have the most advanced and successful metagames, or characters which you personally think are secretly underrated/overrated? i mean, you can do what you like, but don't be surprised if people disagree with you based on lack of evidence.



results don't just include the champion.



maybe these "few changes based on personal tastes" are because those are the only characters that they know a lot about? i don't have to have strong opinions on all 26 to contribute to a tier list. i'll defer to other people's opinion on samus because i don't know the first thing about her.



we already have sub-tiers for this exact reason. the tier list is supposed to reflect reality. putting ice climbers and spacies in the same category is not reality.

having a few unsorted tiers will probably lead to more controversy due to the fact that characters on the edge could have such high variation. for example, there could be a debate over whether the IC's should be in the top 8 tier (listed with the best characters in the game) or the second-highest tier (listed next to mario or w/e). both of these choices suck and a huge, controversial decision would have to be made despite the fact that almost everyone agrees where the IC's fall on a full 1-26 tier list.

1. I hardly see Falcon as a rushdown character anymore. He seems much more like a "camp until you can get a deathtouch character". I also rarely see Marth getting gimps anymore, but even if top Marths get a couple, it's not really something they rely on anymore. People just aren't gimped as easily these days. Puff had virtually no cohesive counterstrategies back in 2006, and now it's one of the biggest matchups people try to learn because of the random Puff players that have the ability to knock almost anyone out of bracket with a few quick rests (comparable to ICs). Clearly you don't agree these strategies have evolved, but I don't know what else I can do if you think everything is still mostly the same...

2. I base rankings off of what characters I believe would be best suited to winning tournaments. If I thought, for example, that ICs had the best shot at winning tournaments if a player good enough to win tournaments used them, then I would put ICs at #1. That's obviously not based on any evidence of a successful ICs metagame, but if you always wait until after a character demonstrates a capable metagame before ranking them, then you're always just going to be creating a results-based tier list and always going to be behind the curve so the list is fairly useless. I'm sure there were at least a couple of people who put Jiggs really high on their tier list back before Mango. Does that mean they were wrong then, or does it mean they correctly predicted the future trend of Jigglypuff's metagame? To me, the latter is obviously the case, and it's dumb that people trying to make those types of predictions are immediately labeled as idiots or crazy people who are putting stock in characters without good results (yet).

3. The tier list is based on theoretical high level play. Looking at results of anything below high level is of very little consequence. If you saw that Fox was a very successful character at mid-high level of play, all that proves is that Fox is very good at mid-high level metagame. It doesn't mean that tendency will continue onto top level play where perhaps the better punishment games make Fox worse than he is at mid-high levels.

4. Well firstly, I'd disagree that the tier list is supposed to reflect reality because of what I explained above. Secondly, why should ICs NOT be in the same tier as spacies? I only know a handful of IC players, and they all place quite well. I also know a TON of spacie mains, of which only Mango, PP, and Silent Wolf really place well consistently.

 

[john!]

1. I hardly see Falcon as a rushdown character anymore. He seems much more like a "camp until you can get a deathtouch character". I also rarely see Marth getting gimps anymore, but even if top Marths get a couple, it's not really something they rely on anymore. People just aren't gimped as easily these days. Puff had virtually no cohesive counterstrategies back in 2006, and now it's one of the biggest matchups people try to learn because of the random Puff players that have the ability to knock almost anyone out of bracket with a few quick rests (comparable to ICs). Clearly you don't agree these strategies have evolved, but I don't know what else I can do if you think everything is still mostly the same...

i don't think they've evolved enough to warrant huge tier shifts, but i guess it's just a matter of opinion.

for a more objective approach: i bet if you took the top 5 most used moves for each character in 2006, you'd find a LOT of similarities to the top 5 of today.

2. I base rankings off of what characters I believe would be best suited to winning tournaments. If I thought, for example, that ICs had the best shot at winning tournaments if a player good enough to win tournaments used them, then I would put ICs at #1. That's obviously not based on any evidence of a successful ICs metagame, but if you always wait until after a character demonstrates a capable metagame before ranking them, then you're always just going to be creating a results-based tier list and always going to be behind the curve so the list is fairly useless. I'm sure there were at least a couple of people who put Jiggs really high on their tier list back before Mango. Does that mean they were wrong then, or does it mean they correctly predicted the future trend of Jigglypuff's metagame? To me, the latter is obviously the case, and it's dumb that people trying to make those types of predictions are immediately labeled as idiots or crazy people who are putting stock in characters without good results (yet).

those jiggs people must have been perceptive enough to see something that the rest of us didn't... but they were still going off of the results of top level play (e.g. king and killaOR videos). i don't think mango's puff success came from a huge shift in her metagame (actually i think hbox's style was a larger shift in the meta compared to mango's).

keep in mind the definition of a tier list from the OP: it's a prediction of the NEAR FUTURE RESULTS based on RECENT PAST RESULTS.

3. The tier list is based on theoretical high level play. Looking at results of anything below high level is of very little consequence. If you saw that Fox was a very successful character at mid-high level of play, all that proves is that Fox is very good at mid-high level metagame. It doesn't mean that tendency will continue onto top level play where perhaps the better punishment games make Fox worse than he is at mid-high levels.

hmm, well if this was true, then wouldn't fox fall out of favor as the top-level metagame trickled down to mid-levels? that hasn't really happened. he has been a top contender at all levels of play since 2004, even as marth, falco, puff, or peach have held the #1 throne. one of the character's greatest strengths is his consistency and adaptability; he has virtually no glaring weaknesses except maybe his sub-par weight, and arguably has zero bad matchups. i don't think any other character in this game has proven to be such a solid, reliable pick. i don't necessarily think he's better than falco, but to argue that he doesn't belong in the top 3 is a real stretch.

4. Well firstly, I'd disagree that the tier list is supposed to reflect reality because of what I explained above. Secondly, why should ICs NOT be in the same tier as spacies? I only know a handful of IC players, and they all place quite well. I also know a TON of spacie mains, of which only Mango, PP, and Silent Wolf really place well consistently.

IC's might have been a bad example because a lot of people see potential in them, and their high barrier of entry means that the few IC players tend to do really well (i think they had the highest average elo in the SSBPD). it's not crazy to think that the IC's are the jigglypuff of 2013. i think you see my point, though: having a few unordered tiers just makes certain placements matter MORE, not less.

 

[Bones0]

i don't think they've evolved enough to warrant huge tier shifts, but i guess it's just a matter of opinion.

for a more objective approach: i bet if you took the top 5 most used moves for each character in 2006, you'd find a LOT of similarities to the top 5 of today.



those jiggs people must have been perceptive enough to see something that the rest of us didn't... but they were still going off of the results of top level play (e.g. king and killaOR videos). i don't think mango's puff success came from a huge shift in her metagame (actually i think hbox's style was a larger shift in the meta compared to mango's).

keep in mind the definition of a tier list from the OP: it's a prediction of the NEAR FUTURE RESULTS based on RECENT PAST RESULTS.



hmm, well if this was true, then wouldn't fox fall out of favor as the top-level metagame trickled down to mid-levels? that hasn't really happened. he has been a top contender at all levels of play since 2004, even as marth, falco, puff, or peach have held the #1 throne. one of the character's greatest strengths is his consistency and adaptability; he has virtually no glaring weaknesses except maybe his sub-par weight, and arguably has zero bad matchups. i don't think any other character in this game has proven to be such a solid, reliable pick. i don't necessarily think he's better than falco, but to argue that he doesn't belong in the top 3 is a real stretch.



IC's might have been a bad example because a lot of people see potential in them, and their high barrier of entry means that the few IC players tend to do really well (i think they had the highest average elo in the SSBPD). it's not crazy to think that the IC's are the jigglypuff of 2013. i think you see my point, though: having a few unordered tiers just makes certain placements matter MORE, not less.

1. I've decided to do this, so I'll post the results when I'm done. I'm going through a single match from PC Chris (2007), Dr. Peepee, and Mango, all vs. Mew2King and all on BF to make sure I'm taking stats from matches that are as similar as possible. I am counting all attacks whether they hit or not because not all attacks are used mainly for hitting, but that is excluding tech skill shenanigans in between stocks of course. Here's PC Chris's:

Spoiler

PC Chris (Falco) vs. Mew2King (Marth) @ MLG Long Island
May 27, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuREBIwqbu0

Laser - 51
Dair - 22
Bair - 20
Shine - 18
Grab - 6
Firebird - 4
Nair - 4
Dash Attack - 2
Dsmash - 2
Fsmash - 2
Phantasm - 2
Dtilt - 1
Usmash - 1
Utilt - 1

2. How can you say they were going off of the results when their opinion of Jigglypuff directly contradicted the results at the time? That doesn't make any sense. They would have to theorize their own idea of what Puff's metagame in the future would be like in order to contradict the results, which is what everyone should do to the best of their ability when posting a list.

3. That definition is horrible, and it's pretty obvious no one actually goes by it. How do I know? Because if you were making a tier list to predict near future results, then everyone's tier list would have had Peach in the top 3 back when Armada was playing. Anyone can make a tier list based on recent tournaments to predict near future tournaments. All you have to do is copy and paste the results. The tier list should be defined as "a ranking of the characters' abilities to win a tournament at the highest conceivable human level of play". A tier list shouldn't be affected by how popular a character is or how many good players play certain characters. If someone wanted the tier list to reflect the current possible level of play already demonstrated by players and simply fill in the theory gaps by imagining unpopular characters or characters without a top player to base their opinion on, then I could at least be intrigued by that discussion. The reason I prefer to just assume highest possible level of play for humans is there are a lot of tactics that top players don't use even though they clearly impact the metagame and are clearly possible to execute consistently (things like shield dropping, pivoting, etc).

4. I have no idea what sort of "trickling down" you are talking about. All I am saying is that the high and mid level metagames may give you a clue to how good characters are at peak metagame, but it's definitely not a reliable indication. You can't look at two noobs fighting Sheik vs. Fox, decide Sheik is much better because she's easier at that level, and then assume that Sheik beats Fox. If you are looking at any results outside of the top 16, you're going to be looking at results of players with noticeable gaps in their metagames. The players with the most fleshed out games are the top players, so even if Fox or any other character is super effective outside of top 32, it doesn't mean that past the top 32 Fox is still as potent because it's an entirely different metagame environment.

5. Yes, if you have less tiers, there is going to be a bigger gap between the average abilities of each tier, but the alternative is to just make up positions based on biases, tradition, and skewed perceptions of what results mean. If you just look at the last tier list, it's already divided into 4 tiers. The only problem I really have with it is that it attempts to rank characters within each tier even though all of those characters are so closely matched that it leads to a bunch of assumptions that we DON'T HAVE TO MAKE. So really, all I'm trying to do is sacrifice specificity for accuracy. You're more likely to accurately predict what 3 horses out of a 10-horse race will finish top three than you are to predict the ORDER of those top 3. So if someone asks you what are the 3 best horses, attempting to list them in order acting like you have any effective way of making that judgement just makes you look stupid.

Here's the last tier list without all the BS numbers and rankings (characters are ordered alphabetically):

A:
B:
C:
D:

If this was the tier list that was posted, would you really have any problems with it? Even with my opinions being much different from the status quo, the only thing I would change in the first 2 tiers is to add Yoshi to B tier. If virtually everyone can get behind this tier list, then why do we continue to try to rank the characters within the tier when it really is just a matter of how you perceive the game? For every person that insists FFS should be in their own S+++ tier, there's another person that thinks they shouldn't. The only problem is that the 50% that disagree about FFS being top 3 don't all share the same alternative list, so when you vote on the list and half the people agree that FFS are top 3, that's the order of the list despite only about half the community even agrees with that statement.

Publishing a statement that only half the community agrees with as an official determination of character abilities is a horrible idea. I'd rather our community get behind the tier list I just posted without all the individual character rankings so we can all be in general agreement about our game's tier list. If some crazy metagame improvements occur either for a certain character or against a certain character, then we can have that discussion. Until then, I don't see what qualms anyone could have about using that as the tier list.

 

[choknater]

bones that's a good list, i like the way it look and the way it's organized

it still might be a little general though cuz i think there is a clear difference between young link and mewtwo lol

 

[KirbyKaze]

I actually like Bones's list.

 

[Varist]

I think our current concept of a tier list for this game isn't very helpful or worth very much to the average player because it's a confused mix of past results and future expectations. It tries to take into account the capabilities of the lower rung of top players and the absolute best players at the same time. It ranks characters based on general feeling and not likeliness to do well in the current environment.

The tier list doesn't really matter too much to people except when they first start the game and want to pick their "serious" character. Then they scan their eyes across the top of the list. The scene isn't nothing but "the #1 character on the tier list" because people aren't playing solely to win, they're playing a mix of characters they find fit them and their capabilities style-wise but who can also win a match they need to win. The tier list is self-reinforcing in that way but only through popularity. As much as the tier list is influencing popularity it can't influence the actual strength of the characters.

So all this assumed the only way a tier list can be useful is if it is up-to-date every year and describes the scene for that year. 6 months would be better honestly. But to have an accurate tier list you need an accurate, agreed upon match-up consensus.

It comes down to this. It is very hard for the community to look at this amalgamation of 26 characters and feel out who is the best and rank them in a numbered order because perceived ties happen in a lot of places and their are situational powers some possess that others don't that are hard to quantify.

What would be easy for the community, would be to break it down to character vs character scenarios. How is Falcon versus Marth. How is Fox versus Falco. How is Peach versus Peach?

One by one analyze the match ups. Figure out either uphill or even.

Make tier lists that accommodate your average tournament-goer. How many Falcos entered pools at the last matchup, how many Shieks were in pools, how many Jigglypuffs were in pools? Calculate that. Figure out the most popular characters in pools. Then you make a "Pools tier list". If there are a metric **** ton of Fox's, who do you put at the top of the list? Someone who counters Fox. Is there also a **** ton of Falcos? Well then make sure the one at the top also counters Falco. There's gonna be one character who does well against two or three of the most popular characters in pools. Put that guy at the top. Go down the list based on number of good matchups weighted by how frequently the occurence of that matchup would take place if you picked that character.

So if I go through a tournament and I am most likely to be seeded against X and Y character, I want to be playing Z character who counters those two.

You could make a tier list that uses statistics from brackets. You could make a ton of tier lists. What I see on the front page doesn't help me, it barely helps anyone. It's just masturbatory.

 

[Xyzz]

If there are a metric **** ton of Fox's, who do you put at the top of the list? Someone who counters Fox.

Oooohh, so you propose leaving the #1 slot empty? That's certainly a novelty at the very least.

 

[Varist]

Oooohh, so you propose leaving the #1 slot empty? That's certainly a novelty at the very least.

I think you're trying to make a joke here. I want to clarify that anyone who believes Fox doesn't have one match-up that gives him more trouble than any other is wrong.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I think the wording should have been "who fares best vs Fox" rather than "who counters Fox".

 

[Xyzz]

Which wouldn't have allowed for horrible jokes on my part... You're such a spoilsport, KK

 

[dRevan64]

I basically agree with what varist said and really MU charts are infinitely more helpful-but then we get to the idea that they're not really useful for a new player since they don't say *why* an MU is a certain way or what have you, and once we get into that level of detail it's not remotely useful for straight eyeballing.
As far as traditional tier lists go, bones' style is the best even if I don't agree with every single placement. Anything beyond that is asking for explicit detail and you can't do that in something as basic as a tier list.

 

[Synkhronisity]

I personally have found falco more useful than fox. Maybe that's just me, but I see fox as just a bit over rated. I do see his potential, but as KirbyKaze said, it really can be based on gimmicks.

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

I think the wording should have been "who fares best vs Fox" rather than "who counters Fox".

I think the wording should have been "who fairs best vs Fox" so the answer could be Marth. Or Sheik. Or Falcon.

Ok **** it too many characters use Fair a lot this was a terrible post.

 

[Bones0]

Matchup charts are too hard in this game. Idk hardly anything about other games, but from my limited experience, it SEEMS like other fighters have fairly strict matchups. Characters often struggle with the range or speed of a certain move, and there's really no way around it. It sounds like the matchup can improve or become more difficult only through relatively minor optimizations.

Melee is so free form that this doesn't seem to be the case at all. Matchups, even by the status quo's opinion over the years, have varied a lot. There's always so much innovation from the top players that a matchup that looked terrible at one tournament can seem amazing at another. A good example is PP's improvements to the Falco vs. Puff game. Most people, myself and even most Puff mains included, were under the impression that Falco got beat pretty heavily. These days, after watching PP compete so well with Hbox (even having a dominating streak over him for a while), it's hard to say the matchup is much worse than 60-40. The problem with calling all the matchups 60-40 is that it changes any time any top player brings innovations to the matchup. Having a matchup chart updated every 6 months based on which top players happen to be playing which characters is dumb, especially since even the different tiers have plenty of matchups that are 60-40 or closer.

I'd be hard pressed to consider any A tier vs. B tier matchup as worse than 60-40. Sheik's B tier matchups and stuff like Falcon vs. Samus definitely seems bad, but I have a hard time believing that if you put a relatively equally matched Sheik or Falcon vs. a B tier main that they'd actually win more than 60 out of 100 matches. Decision making and general good-player stuff simply matters SO much more in Melee that tiers are rarely the deciding factor. Now once you start talking about C and D tier, I think the gap not only gets worse relative to A, but even C vs. D tier seems generally worse because characters' limitations get compounded on every single interaction. But then, who really cares about C and D tiers when probably less than 5% of the community mains those characters? Out of all of them, I think I've only played 2 Link mains, 1 DK, and 1 Yoshi in tournament my entire life.

tl;dr - Melee is too complicated for a "pools tier list" like Varist suggested to ever be useful. Even if you could get that kind of tier list to somehow make sense, do we really want to be encouraging players to pick characters based on what characters are most popular in pools at the current time? Would anyone listen to that kind of list anyway? I feel bad for anyone who wants to main Falcon but plays someone else because a bunch of people told them POOLS will be a little harder starting out with all the Sheiks and spacies...

 

[1MachGO]

^I think you can make a MU chart, but I definitely don't think it is something that should be quantified with values such as 50:50, 55:45, 60:40, etc. The most objective way to go about it would be to give match ups labels such as even, stage dependent, advantageous/disadvantageous, and counters/countered. Like you said, the intricacies of this game make MUs hard to establish, but as long as the method applied isn't trying to sound more intelligent than it actually is, a MU chart could definitely be made.

 

[Bones0]

^I think you can make a MU chart, but I definitely don't think it is something that should be quantified with values such as 50:50, 55:45, 60:40, etc. The most objective way to go about it would be to give match ups labels such as even, stage dependent, advantageous/disadvantageous, and counters/countered. Like you said, the intricacies of this game make MUs hard to establish, but as long as the method applied isn't trying to sound more intelligent than it actually is, a MU chart could definitely be made.

Yeah, you can make one, but how will it ever be useful? A matchup chart would be based on top level play, but like I said, matchups at top level are almost entirely determined by a couple players at the most. So not only would the chart not help newer players at all because the ratios wouldn't apply to them at all, but it probably wouldn't even reflect the current metagame unless we consistently update it (which won't happen). Idk, just seems pointless to me. *shrug*

 

[1MachGO]

Yeah, you can make one, but how will it ever be useful? A matchup chart would be based on top level play, but like I said, matchups at top level are almost entirely determined by a couple players at the most. So not only would the chart not help newer players at all because the ratios wouldn't apply to them at all, but it probably wouldn't even reflect the current metagame unless we consistently update it (which won't happen). Idk, just seems pointless to me. *shrug*

Well it depends on what the MUs represent. Most people perceive a matchup ratio as the likelihood character x will win if both players are equally matched. However, this is a bad way of perceiving matchups for many reasons. The two biggest ones being: 1. it doesn't acknowledge likelihood at different levels of play, and 2. Suggesting two players are perfectly "matched" is a concept which is difficult to imagine and contradicts itself.

What a matchup should represent is the amount of options a character gains/loses when interacting with another character.

For instance, lets look at an obscure MU: Roy vs. Samus. I would contend that it is an undeniable fact that Samus has more options than Roy.

Consider:
>Roy has low knockback and damage on a lot of his moves/ Samus amplifies the shortcomings of these moves with a great CC game and high weight. This makes many of Roy's aerial approaches very unsafe
>One of Roy's best moves is his down tilt due to having low endlag and being conducive to follow ups/ Samus's floatiness and high weight makes it very difficult for Roy to get follow ups on this attack
>Roy is light and has a bad recovery/ Samus has high weight and a great recovery. If Roy opted to fight with attrition/trades, he would be severely outmatched by Samus

Information like this is helpful because it shows players who partake in this MU what options are safe/punishable and what kind of tactics will work/fail. It should not be a statement about which character is superior, but it should provide facts about which character has more effective options.

 

[john!]

@bones: remember that by "results" i don't just mean "who won the tournament". "results" refers to any information generated from high-level play, whether it's a new strategy, tournament placement, new technique, etc.

for example, the people who saw early potential in puff were likely watching king videos and thinking to themselves "if king did X here and Y there, he would win a lot more and people would see how great puff is. he's not fully exploiting the character"

drop this straw man bull**** about results-based meaning "only the first place character". it means way more than you seem to understand or are willing to admit.

4. I have no idea what sort of "trickling down" you are talking about. All I am saying is that the high and mid level metagames may give you a clue to how good characters are at peak metagame, but it's definitely not a reliable indication. You can't look at two noobs fighting Sheik vs. Fox, decide Sheik is much better because she's easier at that level, and then assume that Sheik beats Fox. If you are looking at any results outside of the top 16, you're going to be looking at results of players with noticeable gaps in their metagames. The players with the most fleshed out games are the top players, so even if Fox or any other character is super effective outside of top 32, it doesn't mean that past the top 32 Fox is still as potent because it's an entirely different metagame environment.

how then can you explain the fact that fox remains such a successful pick yet has never won a national until recently? do you have a theory about why the VERY top players have been beating every fox for years, which everyone else can't seem to replicate? if you don't think "trickle-down" of the metagame exists, then there must be something that top players have had figured out for years that everyone else hasn't.

5. Yes, if you have less tiers, there is going to be a bigger gap between the average abilities of each tier, but the alternative is to just make up positions based on biases, tradition, and skewed perceptions of what results mean.

your list suffers from the same problems. the only list that doesn't is a list that puts all 26 characters into one unsorted tier, which is not really a tier list at all.

If you just look at the last tier list, it's already divided into 4 tiers. The only problem I really have with it is that it attempts to rank characters within each tier even though all of those characters are so closely matched

debatable. in fact, i disagree. just because you want to believe that captain falcon is on the same level as falco doesn't mean everyone has to.

that it leads to a bunch of assumptions that we DON'T HAVE TO MAKE. So really, all I'm trying to do is sacrifice specificity for accuracy. You're more likely to accurately predict what 3 horses out of a 10-horse race will finish top three than you are to predict the ORDER of those top 3. So if someone asks you what are the 3 best horses, attempting to list them in order acting like you have any effective way of making that judgement just makes you look stupid.

again, i can pick the top 10 horses of that race unordered with 100% accuracy, but that would be useless.

If this was the tier list that was posted, would you really have any problems with it? Even with my opinions being much different from the status quo, the only thing I would change in the first 2 tiers is to add Yoshi to B tier. If virtually everyone can get behind this tier list, then why do we continue to try to rank the characters within the tier when it really is just a matter of how you perceive the game? For every person that insists FFS should be in their own S+++ tier, there's another person that thinks they shouldn't. The only problem is that the 50% that disagree about FFS being top 3 don't all share the same alternative list, so when you vote on the list and half the people agree that FFS are top 3, that's the order of the list despite only about half the community even agrees with that statement.

Publishing a statement that only half the community agrees with as an official determination of character abilities is a horrible idea. I'd rather our community get behind the tier list I just posted without all the individual character rankings so we can all be in general agreement about our game's tier list. If some crazy metagame improvements occur either for a certain character or against a certain character, then we can have that discussion. Until then, I don't see what qualms anyone could have about using that as the tier list.

more of the community agrees that fox is better than ice climbers than that mario/luigi are better than ylink/yoshi. why are the extreme majority of fox > IC's people being left out on your tier list? in your efforts to dumb everything down to the least common denominator, you're leaving out information that virtually everyone agrees upon, for the sake of an elegant-looking list. the only difference between your list and the current list is that the current list is more complex and gives more information.

 

[Bones0]

Well it depends on what the MUs represent. Most people perceive a matchup ratio as the likelihood character x will win if both players are equally matched. However, this is a bad way of perceiving matchups for many reasons. The two biggest ones being: 1. it doesn't acknowledge likelihood at different levels of play, and 2. Suggesting two players are perfectly "matched" is a concept which is difficult to imagine and contradicts itself.

What a matchup should represent is the amount of options a character gains/loses when interacting with another character.

For instance, lets look at an obscure MU: Roy vs. Samus. I would contend that it is an undeniable fact that Samus has more options than Roy.

Consider:
>Roy has low knockback and damage on a lot of his moves/ Samus amplifies the shortcomings of these moves with a great CC game and high weight. This makes many of Roy's aerial approaches very unsafe
>One of Roy's best moves is his down tilt due to having low endlag and being conducive to follow ups/ Samus's floatiness and high weight makes it very difficult for Roy to get follow ups on this attack
>Roy is light and has a bad recovery/ Samus has high weight and a great recovery. If Roy opted to fight with attrition/trades, he would be severely outmatched by Samus

Information like this is helpful because it shows players who partake in this MU what options are safe/punishable and what kind of tactics will work/fail. It should not be a statement about which character is superior, but it should provide facts about which character has more effective options.

The amount of options a character has available in any given matchup doesn't necessarily mean the matchup is in their favor. Samus can have a million options, but if Roy's 1 option beats all of those, then it's irrelevant to the matchup ratio.

 

[1MachGO]

The amount of options a character has available in any given matchup doesn't necessarily mean the matchup is in their favor. Samus can have a million options, but if Roy's 1 option beats all of those, then it's irrelevant to the matchup ratio.

If Roy's one option beats all of Samus's, then Roy is clearly the one with more options.

Regardless, if you felt I had oversimplified it, would the statement: "What a matchup should represent is the degree to which a character's options are positively/negatively affected when interacting with another character" meet your approval?

 

[KirbyKaze]

I personally have found falco more useful than fox. Maybe that's just me, but I see fox as just a bit over rated. I do see his potential, but as KirbyKaze said, it really can be based on gimmicks.

Fox isn't pure gimmicks. But much of his power is in implicit space control. And I feel he's been at the top because of this theoretical perfection nobody will ever achieve and I don't think anyone has ever once effectively illustrated how he overcomes hurdles like M2K on Final Destination. Which are real weaknesses that really do matter.

I think the wording should have been "who fairs best vs Fox" so the answer could be Marth. Or Sheik. Or Falcon.

Ok **** it too many characters use Fair a lot this was a terrible post.

Better question. Who is least bairable for Fox?

Nobody. No matter the opponent, a Fox grins and bairs it.

what is your tier list?

My tier list hasn't changed much. Moved Peach back into high tier. Organized the mid tier a bit better IMO. That's about it. Yoshi moved up. I decided Link is better as a standalone character than Link Enfant even if Link Enfant is better as a secondary. I'm obviously therefore rating the characters as standalone characters and not how good they are with a secondary for their 1-x bad matchups.

TOP TIER // Falco, Sheik, Fox, Marth, Puff
HIGH TIER // Peach, Falcon, ICs
UPPER MID // Doctor Mario, Pikachu, Luigi, Yoshi
---------------------------------
---- below is not ordered ----
---------------------------------
MID TIER // Samus, Mario, Ganon, Donkey Kong, Link
LOW TIER // Mewtwo, Link Enfant, Zelda, Roy, Mr. G&W
BOTTOM TIER // Bowser, Ness, Kirby, Pichu

Bottom three groupings are not ordered. Stating this again because someone will miss the big note in the middle. Because the bottom three groups have either very little data or (IMO) not very flattering data.

I think Samus sucks ftr. But I understand they're finding new stuff with her bomb so if that helps her work through what I perceive as horrific weaknesses to Sheik and Puff because of how their risk-reward with shielding and such works vs her then that's fine. But I feel those two exploit her kind of hard as it stands.

Yoshi's uair combo and jank defense setups into it is a better plan than anything Ganon currently has. Ganon's limited by how his only interaction is with his very flawed attacks. I think Yoshi having a projectile plus useful things like a crouch game / decent platform game / light shield escapes / more movement speed and so forth really do make a big difference if only because he doesn't get forced to do risky things as easily as Ganon does.

Ness is atrocious and I honestly think Bowser and Kirby are better characters than him and Pichu. But I know that's radical thinking.

 

[BTmoney]

KK how do you feel Marth fares vs spacies compared to Sheik?
I'm inclined to believe that Marth is better suited and Marth handles Falco better than Sheik does. But I believe you've said before that you believe that Sheik deals with Falco better than any other character.

All that being said though Marth loses to Sheik (side question, do you think it is practical or worthwhile to learn and play that MU from Marth's side?) and Sheik slaughters every low tier so I suppose her MU spread is a hell of a lot better

 

[KirbyKaze]

Marth has Final Destination whereas Sheik doesn't have a strong counter-level like that. For what you're asking, that's basically the difference. On the other levels the MU with either character is about the same (even). I think Sheik is fine vs Falco, her good shield game and really easy sideways combo finisher makes him really easy to kill and to be really efficient against him. I feel her projectile is also good vs him because it can disrupt him from a distance (most characters cannot do this) so you're less forced with how you address his neutral game than most characters in general.

Marth Sheik is sucky at low levels but gets much easier as you get better with Marth. I guess if you want to learn Fox for teams or something then sure playing him vs Sheik might be fun. But I tend to think you get better by learning your weak matchups rather than just CPing. Especially if you're still developing as a played and haven't hit high level yet.

Sheik is amazing. Only character that's better is Falco AFAIK. Falco is seriously a monster. But yeah Sheik is still utterly ridiculous and way too good.

 

[Synkhronisity]

Fox isn't pure gimmicks. But much of his power is in implicit space control. And I feel he's been at the top because of this theoretical perfection nobody will ever achieve and I don't think anyone has ever once effectively illustrated how he overcomes hurdles like M2K on Final Destination. Which are real weaknesses that really do matter.


Better question. Who is least bairable for Fox?

Nobody. No matter the opponent, a Fox grins and bairs it.



My tier list hasn't changed much. Moved Peach back into high tier. Organized the mid tier a bit better IMO. That's about it. Yoshi moved up. I decided Link is better as a standalone character than Link Enfant even if Link Enfant is better as a secondary. I'm obviously therefore rating the characters as standalone characters and not how good they are with a secondary for their 1-x bad matchups.

TOP TIER // Falco, Sheik, Fox, Marth, Puff
HIGH TIER // Peach, Falcon, ICs
UPPER MID // Doctor Mario, Pikachu, Luigi, Yoshi
---------------------------------
---- below is not ordered ----
---------------------------------
MID TIER // Samus, Mario, Ganon, Donkey Kong, Link
LOW TIER // Mewtwo, Link Enfant, Zelda, Roy, Mr. G&W
BOTTOM TIER // Bowser, Ness, Kirby, Pichu

Bottom three groupings are not ordered. Stating this again because someone will miss the big note in the middle. Because the bottom three groups have either very little data or (IMO) not very flattering data.

I think Samus sucks ftr. But I understand they're finding new stuff with her bomb so if that helps her work through what I perceive as horrific weaknesses to Sheik and Puff because of how their risk-reward with shielding and such works vs her then that's fine. But I feel those two exploit her kind of hard as it stands.

Yoshi's uair combo and jank defense setups into it is a better plan than anything Ganon currently has. Ganon's limited by how his only interaction is with his very flawed attacks. I think Yoshi having a projectile plus useful things like a crouch game / decent platform game / light shield escapes / more movement speed and so forth really do make a big difference if only because he doesn't get forced to do risky things as easily as Ganon does.

Ness is atrocious and I honestly think Bowser and Kirby are better characters than him and Pichu. But I know that's radical thinking.

I honestly have to say that your tier list is probably the most accurate to my own. I don't see very much potential at all for Ness.

 

[Varist]

The idea that it's pointless to create match-up evaluations and match-up charts just because match-up disadvantages are inconsequential at high levels of play leads into many other ideas that are wrong.

Let's say I tell you that Marth beats Fox, where I use the word "beats" as shorthand for "this character forces his enemy into an uphill battle and generally has an easier time winning."

But you tell me that Marth doesn't beat Fox because at high levels of play all the Foxes are beating and placing higher than all the Marths.

Then I ask you why that is.

You tell me it's because skill matters more than match-ups and even if we thought Marth beat Fox in the past, the fact that Foxes have gotten better means that they can beat Marths now.

So I ask you if Marth has room to get better and beat Fox again.

You say "I don't know, probably not, we've figured him out."

So then I ask you to stop looking at the top 1% and look at the 99%. Those Foxes have a hard time against Marth.

You say "Yeah, but those matches don't matter, because they're not the best right now, so we shouldn't base things off of them."

I say "That's fair, so then you're trying to create a tier list to do what? Inform the top players of who's better?"

And there's the problem. You make this tier list based on the gameplay of the top 1% but according to you, for the top 1%, skill matters more than match-ups. So you're essentially creating a tier list that applies to the people who care about it least.

You can always just say "Okay, but players of lower calibur have such high skill variance that it doesn't matter if you're a Fox against a Marth, you can still beat him if you're better."

So then I'll ask, what's the point of match-ups then? Do they just not exist? If you assume you can't make a match-up chart for Melee because personal skill overrides and trivializes the inherent disadvantages of your character, then you imply that match-ups are irrelevant. You're implying that every character stands on equal ground with his opponent outside of extreme cases. I have to assume you're telling me these characters are equal.

But I know they are not. So I'm asking two questions; why do we have a masturbatory tier list that fails to help the layman? Why are these rankings based on information like character strengths and match-up knowledge, when posters in this very thread say that they don't even matter in reality?

 

[KirbyKaze]

Matchups definitely matter. Most of the top characters' matches against one another draw closer (and often even out) as you increase the skill level of each character's pilot simply because the top 5-8 characters have the tools to create answers to the other characters and win.

Matchups below the top characters are difficult to distill because few people play those characters. And fewer people play them well. The experience disparity matters. That said, you can usually tell who's doomed to mediocrity if you think about how much a character has to commit to function and whether they have answers to juggling / being offstage.

 

[Varist]

I agree with all of that.

So when I read things like

Decision making and general good-player stuff simply matters SO much more in Melee that tiers are rarely the deciding factor

It makes me want to scratch my head.

Edit - My masturbatory tier list:







Arranged in no horizontal order, considered tied with all the rest among their tier.