Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

[Juushichi]

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.

I'm really glad you made this post, Bones. This is the same sort of approach I kinda take to this tier list as well as my personal tier lists in Project M (I know, I know). It's so much easier to try and look at it this way rather than ranking all 26 (or 40+ for PM) in some mythical order of 1-XX. A+

 

[Bones0]

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.

Never said that.

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.

Definitely never said that.

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."

For someone who complains about his arguments being "strawmanned", you sure do like to be a giant hypocrite. I never said anything even close to resembling any of this.

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?

A tier list isn't to tell the top players what character is better, it's to provide a visual representation of the general tiers of skill amongst the cast (hence why it's called a tier list). Saying that skill trumps matchups isn't the same as saying tiers and matchups don't matter. Players that aren't at least high level are playing so sub-optimally that you can hardly even consider them to be playing the matchup "properly", so those get thrown out the window as they give us no feedback on the actual limitations of matchups. Then you take the top echelon of players, and we can definitely make matchup chart that reflects the difficulty of the matchups at the current time, but because Melee is so flexible and still evolving, matchups are changing every 6 months to a year in significant ways.

There's only a small group of players maining any one character at a high enough level that they are relevant, so if one or a few of those players starts utilizing a different approach to a matchup, suddenly the entire metagame as we know it is shifted. It's never something earth-shattering of course, but I think even something like Foxes starting to incorporate invul ledgedashes into their game can be a huge factor in determining whether a matchup is perceived as better or worse than 60-40. It seems dumb that a Fox matchup could change because Mango decides to start invul ledgedashing or doing other optimizations that he currently forgoes.

So really, when you take into account how well balanced the top half of the cast is, how poorly represented most of the cast is, and how much more skill matters than matchups, no, I don't really see the point in making a universal matchup chart. It's basicaly exactly what KK said. Matchups tend to even out at top level because players are just adapting their strategies back and forth, and it happens too frequently for any character to get a firm hold over another for very long.

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

Never said that.


Definitely never said that.


For someone who complains about his arguments being "strawmanned", you sure do like to be a giant hypocrite. I never said anything even close to resembling any of this.

I'm fairly certain Varist was talking about a general, hypothetical "you" not you specifically.

 

[Varist]

Never said that.


Definitely never said that.


For someone who complains about his arguments being "strawmanned", you sure do like to be a giant hypocrite. I never said anything even close to resembling any of this.



A tier list isn't to tell the top players what character is better, it's to provide a visual representation of the general tiers of skill amongst the cast (hence why it's called a tier list). Saying that skill trumps matchups isn't the same as saying tiers and matchups don't matter. Players that aren't at least high level are playing so sub-optimally that you can hardly even consider them to be playing the matchup "properly", so those get thrown out the window as they give us no feedback on the actual limitations of matchups. Then you take the top echelon of players, and we can definitely make matchup chart that reflects the difficulty of the matchups at the current time, but because Melee is so flexible and still evolving, matchups are changing every 6 months to a year in significant ways.

There's only a small group of players maining any one character at a high enough level that they are relevant, so if one or a few of those players starts utilizing a different approach to a matchup, suddenly the entire metagame as we know it is shifted. It's never something earth-shattering of course, but I think even something like Foxes starting to incorporate invul ledgedashes into their game can be a huge factor in determining whether a matchup is perceived as better or worse than 60-40. It seems dumb that a Fox matchup could change because Mango decides to start invul ledgedashing or doing other optimizations that he currently forgoes.

So really, when you take into account how well balanced the top half of the cast is, how poorly represented most of the cast is, and how much more skill matters than matchups, no, I don't really see the point in making a universal matchup chart. It's basicaly exactly what KK said. Matchups tend to even out at top level because players are just adapting their strategies back and forth, and it happens too frequently for any character to get a firm hold over another for very long.

Not going to read the rest of this because I don't know why you're trying to argue with someone who wasn't talking to you in the first place.

 

[Bones0]

Not going to read the rest of this because I don't know why you're trying to argue with someone who wasn't talking to you in the first place.

You were clearly referencing my argument since you started discussing the opinion of ignoring the bottom 99% of player, and I was the only one who mentioned that at all.

But that's okay, feel free to back out of another argument.

 

[Varist]

You were clearly referencing my argument since you started discussing the opinion of ignoring the bottom 99% of player, and I was the only one who mentioned that at all.

But that's okay, feel free to back out of another argument.

If you say so.

 

[1MachGO]

You were clearly referencing my argument since you started discussing the opinion of ignoring the bottom 99% of player, and I was the only one who mentioned that at all.

But that's okay, feel free to back out of another argument.

Bones0 with that "I can't be wrong" factor

 

[ManoxMano]

I like the idea of chars simply being grouped in letter tiers as opposed to specific numbers
Reminds me of the MVC2 tier list where Cable, Magneto, Storm, and Sentinel were just so amazing they could not be ranked amongst each other, and so they just stuffed them into one "God tier" at the top.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Wait, do you know for fact that's how the "standardized" (or another word synonymous with "official" or "widely accepted") ranking for MVC2 works? If so, I vote we adopt this policy. Except for the whole list. Group 'em by how competitive they are in the current environment and update it for significant changes every 6 months.

I suggest this because the characters are still constantly developing. And they're doing so at vastly different speeds (which is exacerbated by regional separations and our relatively low player population). An exact, ordered ranking is therefore stupidly difficult in this game. And even if we get it right for the time being, it can never last more than like 4-6 months. Because the second any <character> develops a bunch of stuff because a talented, creative individual decides to play them, we have to revise the list. And this seems really superfluous because... regardless of the fact that <character> hasn't really broken a major threshold of viability (in the vast majority of cases), the list must be revised because we - for some reason - care whether they're better than Ganon or not.

 

[.K1]

the "god tier" characters in MvC2 were pretty undisputed. The big 4 were Cable / Sent / Storm / Mags. Aside from that there were characters that were better than others (ie Iron Man), but yeah. It was basically the big 4, then a a subgroup of the other characters that were viable for assist reasons (capcom, psylocke, etc), then basically everyone else grouped together for the most part.

Essentially its a tier list with 4 tiers:



Viable

Viable in theory (requires tool assisted tech skill / execution IE Dhalsim)

Viable as an assist character

Not Viable

 

[KirbyKaze]

I think that sort of list format is ideal for this game (or at the very least it's much better than what we're currently doing). For the reasons I stated in my last post here. Does anyone disagree?

The major issue I foresee lies with the characters who fluctuate between high and top tier in peoples' list. These are traditionally characters like Jigglypuff, Peach, Ice Climbers, and Captain Falcon. On occasion, Marth and Sheik are in the mix too. I also imagine some of the fringe characters like Mewtwo, Bowser, and Yoshi will likely have a high variance of opinion and likely have a lot of conflict attached to their grouping.

Having said that, I still think the MVC2 style grouping makes way more sense for this game than an exact ordering that has to be changed super duper frequently and potentially go through an extensive overhaul. An overhaul that will demand some manner of an official, agreed-upon process for it to be taken seriously at all or accepted by anyone (which we don't really have right now since there isn't an MBR anymore [though frankly nobody ever listened to us anyway] and MIOM hasn't touched the tier list). I feel that even in the instances where there isn't any sort of dominant or stabilized opinion on where a character should be ranked, it's much easier to move Mewtwo from "Tier Group 4" to "Tier Group 3" than it would be to place him exactly within either.

edit:

Basically, I agree with what Bones0 posted earlier on this one. Which I've put below.

Spoiler

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.

edit 2:

The only other things I feel we might miss out on by doing the list in a grouped but no-order fashion is that we don't state who "The best character" is or who "The worst character is". I actually feel that these are drawbacks because the tier list is (on paper) a resource for newer players and knowing who the best character is has value in theory. But whenever someone asks, we never fucking agree on that anyway. And going forward, I don't think we will agree in the future either. I strongly suspect the people who bemoan the existence of Fox and rue the day someone jumped out of his shine... will continue to rank him on top, regardless of whether or not he's doing well in tournament. The boys who cried, "Jigglypuff!" back in 2010 will likely still jump on whatever the current fad is. I'll still probably say, "IMO Falco."

So ultimately I don't think we lose anything.

As a side note, I think it might be more useful to keep a more formal, official record of how many of each character was in the top 16 of each 100+ entrant tournament in the last 6 months and keep that list on the front page of Melee Discussion in its own thread. This way, we have a record of who's popular and I have this suspicion that when someone asks who the best character is, they're on occasion (but not always) asking who they need to look out for. In which case another list for representation (which does not necessarily have any bearing on the grouping list BTW) would be useful. And even if they're not asking that, it's still a good resource to have.

And for the people asking for who the best character is because they literally want to know who the best character is... well, they're gonna get different answers in this community depending on who they ask because that's how we roll. And it's not our fault. IMO our game literally seems to resist settling down. Which is incidentally a big part of why it's such a good game.

 

[SAUS]

I think knowing who the "best character" and "worst character" are not important. They just feel important and it would be a common thing for someone who's new to the game to ask.

I support the grouping tier list. KirbyKaze's points were all great reasons. On top of this, I think it's actually better at telling you which characters are good and which ones are not. Characters in the top group are all viable, the ones in the bottom group are probably not. Very easy and quick.

 

[Xyzz]

I like how the only adjustment Bones proposes is literally the one thing I'd change myself, before signing that grouping :D

 

[Stevo]

does anyone NOT agree with having 4 tiers?
I feel like this has been suggested and generally agreed upon for 2 years now.

 

[ManoxMano]

I'd really enjoy it if we just made grouped tiers so we can move on to bigger things
Like doubles tier list : )

And I say this because then when we argue about moving characters around it's from group to group rather then single positions on the list...means so much more and there has to be some real advancements on a character to move up into a higher tier group

 

[Bones0]

As a side note, I think it might be more useful to keep a more formal, official record of how many of each character was in the top 16 of each 100+ entrant tournament in the last 6 months and keep that list on the front page of Melee Discussion in its own thread. This way, we have a record of who's popular and I have this suspicion that when someone asks who the best character is, they're on occasion (but not always) asking who they need to look out for. In which case another list for representation (which does not necessarily have any bearing on the grouping list BTW) would be useful. And even if they're not asking that, it's still a good resource to have.

Once the SmashBoards Elo system gets up and running, this can all be automated and players can check how popular characters are, what their win ratios are for each matchup for specific Elo ratings, and tons of other incredible stuff. Until then:

 

[The Depths]

I'd really enjoy it if we just made grouped tiers so we can move on to bigger things
Like doubles tier list : )

0_o Impossible...maybe...maybe not....*brain hurts*

 

[KirbyKaze]

I'll make a new thread if people are basically okay with this idea of groupings for the 2014 tier list. It seems we're doing things rather informally at this point anyway.

 

[john!]

are we really dumbing things down just so people don't argue as much...

 

[Griffard]

are we really dumbing things down just so people don't argue as much...

this hard - I like the stylizing of competitive viability since that's the point anyways, but 4 tiers for all characters is preeeetty broad in my opinion. There are some separations that could be easily made. Everyone doesn't have to agree with it imo, so maybe my philosophy isn't the popular opinion.

 

[The Depths]

The idea is that the metagame constantly evolves, and that the exact order of characters is irrelevant (though it still exists at any given moment). The tier itself is the most relevant for the sake of practicality. Its not so that people don't argue, because that there would likely be even more back and forth if we simply grouped characters into tiers and left it at that.

 

[KirbyKaze]

are we really dumbing things down just so people don't argue as much...

Why don't you explain how you would do the tier list then? And please don't cop-out with a response like, "Oh nobody will take my suggestion seriously because I'm not status quo." This whole grouping thing and the motion towards it is on the suggestion of Bones0. Bones0 is about as far away from status quo as one can possibly get.

 

[The Depths]

I must say I feel 4 tiers is slightly too little, but this is only because I feel there is a tier/viability divide between ICs/Falcon and the other top 8. Personally, I would give ICs/Falcon their own tier in between fox tier/doc tier or A/B tier (whatever we're choosing to call them in theorycrafting).

 

[john!]

Why don't you explain how you would do the tier list then? And please don't cop-out with a response like, "Oh nobody will take my suggestion seriously because I'm not status quo." This whole grouping thing and the motion towards it is on the suggestion of Bones0. Bones0 is about as far away from status quo as one can possibly get.

the same way it's always been done. the status duo doesn't exist to be broken. i guess you have to break it enough times and get burned to realize that.

 

[KirbyKaze]

We haven't had a new list since 2010. The body that created the tier list is largely disbanded and the other major body within the community (MIOM) is doing other projects that it deems to be more meaningful. As far as anyone can tell, they have no interest in this.

If we continue to do things the way "it's always been done" then we're going to wait a few more years for an update. I'm okay with this; I'm less convinced everyone else is.

 

[john!]

well wait a sec... do you mean "who should make the tier list" or "how should the tier list be structured"?

as far as who MAKES the tier list, i think it should be mostly based on the rankings once they're up, and not the MBR

i think the structure of the tier list should be similar to the current one

 

[Varist]

Instead of one "official" tier list, everyone gets a Tier List tab on their smashboards profile and puts their personal tier list in it.

Because no matter what list gets made, the only list people really believe in is their own, right?

 

[Hax]

S Tier

Fox - 20XX

Jigglypuff - Beats every single character on the tier list below her. Close matchups with Marth and Ice Climbers but both are still in her favor. Has an evenish matchup with Falco but takes significantly less skill to play than him. Only Fox beats her.

Marth - Hands down the hardest matchup for Fox in the game and the only character with a potentially winning Fox matchup. Evenish matchup with Falco but once again takes less skill to play than him, but not by as large a margin as Jigglypuff.

Falco - While undoubtedly the second best character in the game in theory, he is also the second most difficult to play of the seven tournament characters. Whereas Fox is good enough to make up for his difficulty, I don't believe that Falco is. Falco loses to Fox by a good margin and too many evenish matchups vs characters who are easier to play as than him (Jigglypuff, Marth, Ice Climbers; even matchup with Peach as well but she rivals his difficulty). He does give Fox the second best run for his money next to Marth, though.

Sheik - Demolishes Marth but loses 60-40 to the rest of the S tier. The only member of the S tier who fares poorly vs both Fox AND Falco, but still too good of a character to move into A tier.

A Tier

Ice Climbers - A better character than Peach, contrary to popular belief. Has either better or the same matchups as Peach vs literally every single character (is slightly harder for Fox than Peach, same Falco matchup, better vs Marth, much better vs Jigglypuff, BEATS Sheik). They just happen to lose horribly to Peach, but this doesn't make them an overall worse character than her.

Peach - Loses to literally every single character above her other than IC's. Her next best matchup is Falco which is 50-50. However, Peach doesn't lose to the rest of the characters badly enough to fall out of viability. A very high-skill character at the top level; undoubtedly the third hardest of the seven to master after Fox and Falco. Difficult to win with.

 

[Deleted member]

We haven't had a new list since 2010. The body that created the tier list is largely disbanded and the other major body within the community (MIOM) is doing other projects that it deems to be more meaningful. As far as anyone can tell, they have no interest in this.

If we continue to do things the way "it's always been done" then we're going to wait a few more years for an update. I'm okay with this; I'm less convinced everyone else is.

frankly i think we should just have 2 tiers: viable and not viable. viable being fox falco sheik marth peach jigglypuff ICs, non-viable being every other character.

 

[Purpletuce]

Oh yeah?!

I say one tier!

Purpletuce's Tier List:
1. Everyone

 

[SAUS]

Oh yeah?!

I say one tier!

Purpletuce's Tier List:
1. Everyone

Seems legit.

Hmmm... Is this the same as saying "there is no tier list"? lol

 

[Bones0]

I'll make a new thread if people are basically okay with this idea of groupings for the 2014 tier list. It seems we're doing things rather informally at this point anyway.

I think you should just harass more top players to give their input on how they would organize a 4-tier list. I think most of players that normally opt out of such lists would probably be more open to giving their opinion since they don't have to agonize over each and every placement. You could also give them the option of constructing a 3 or 5-tier list, but I'm afraid that would just lead to a similar dilemma as we have with the current list where people exaggerate the skill gap between the top 6-7 characters.

At the end of the day though, I wouldn't feel right forcing players to submit 4-tier lists just because I know that would tend to make lists conform to my own opinion. I guess if a player really feels there is substantial difference in potential between a player that mains Fox/Falco/Sheik/Jigglypuff/whoever then they should be able to convey that difference in their list. The only problem is how to combine a bunch of tier lists with different numbers of tiers...

I'd also like to try to come up with a proper definition of tier list so everyone knows what the list actually means. It should obviously have nothing to do with predicting results, being based on past results, or anything else that might be influenced too much by individual players, character popularity, etc. I think we should go with the idea of creating the list based on PEAK human play (i.e. the best any human could ever get at the game within their lifetime), but I might be open to other theoretical limits such as "peak human in 1 year" or "5 years" to prevent people from taking things out of control and theorycrafting ridiculous metagames like Fox ledgestalling with up-B and abusing invul ledgedashes when forced to get off the ledge...

WHATEVER you do, please just label the tiers A, B, C, etc. This "S-tier" nonsense needs to stop.

Falco - While undoubtedly the second best character in the game in theory, he is also the second most difficult to play of the seven tournament characters. Whereas Fox is good enough to make up for his difficulty, I don't believe that Falco is. Falco loses to Fox by a good margin and too many evenish matchups vs characters who are easier to play as than him (Jigglypuff, Marth, Ice Climbers; even matchup with Peach as well but she rivals his difficulty). He does give Fox the second best run for his money next to Marth, though.

Interesting list. Would you care to elaborate on what aspects of the game you feel are difficult for Falco? Most people tend to lump Falco in with Jiggs, Sheik, and to a lesser extent Peach when discussing difficulty to play, but you seem to think he rivals Fox's difficulty (at high level play, I'm assuming).

Seems legit.


Hmmm... Is this the same as saying "there is no tier list"? lol

I wouldn't consider it the same. Most people who say tiers don't exist seem to believe that it actually doesn't matter what character you play, while having all characters in 1 tier list is I guess feasibly possible depending on how broad of a skill range your tier is including. You could also just have a horribly broken game like Rock, Paper, Scissors where each "character" has one 100-0 matchup and one 0-100 matchup. You could really say that RPS has a single tier list with all of the characters in a single tier because they are perfectly balanced.

But then someone would come along and theorycraft about Scissors being picked slightly less often because it is the most difficult for the human hand to make or some ****, so **** that.

 

[Hax]

I'm starting to think IC's are 5th and Sheik is 6th (and in A tier). IC's are slightly better vs Fox, a good amount better vs Falco, and far better vs Jigglypuff than Sheik. They are just far worse vs Marth. But they also beat the **** out of Sheik. This would make my tier list:

S
Fox
Jigglypuff
Marth
Falco

A
Ice Climbers
Sheik
Peach

 

[Divinokage]

ICs also get wrecked by Falcon/Ganon so.. they can't be 5th.

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

Falcon and Ganon aren't viable so ICs probably won't run into either of them in bracket.

 

[1MachGO]

Falcon is definitely viable. He just loses to the three characters that also happen to be the most popular so his usage in the modern meta is an uphill battle. However, the rest of his MUs are really good.

The problem is that Falcon mains are generally too negative about their character and never heard of the concept: "self fulfilling prophecy."

 

[Divinokage]

Since when Falcon, a bounty hunter, about prophecies? lol.

 

[Twinkles]

Kage, you a verb

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

Kage, you a verb

Actually I think he's an adjective.

 

[john!]

nah kage's too down-to-earth and straightforward, probably a noun imo