Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

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

But both of those

are

ADJECTIVES

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

technically, down to earth is a prepositional phrase

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

technically, down to earth is a prepositional phrase

down-to-earth
adjective

1. 1.​
   with no illusions or pretensions; practical and realistic.
   "a down-to-earth view of marriage"
   synonyms: practical, sensible, realistic, matter-of-fact, responsible, reasonable,rational, logical, balanced, sober, pragmatic, levelheaded,commonsensical, sane More

 

[FourStar]

down-to-earth
adjective

1. 1.
   with no illusions or pretensions; practical and realistic.
   "a down-to-earth view of marriage"
   synonyms: practical, sensible, realistic, matter-of-fact, responsible, reasonable,rational, logical, balanced, sober, pragmatic, levelheaded,commonsensical, sane More

really... you guys are going to argue about adjectives and verbs when Machgo had a legitimate about falcon.......

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

really... you guys are going to argue about adjectives and verbs when Machgo had a legitimate about falcon.......

...yes?

I mean, what else do you expect when KirbyKaze isn't here to regulate the discussion and keep it on topic?

 

[ELStalky]

Falcon is definitely viable. He just loses to the three characters that also happen to be the most popular

Depending on your definition of "viable" and the severity of "loses" a single bad matchup can destroy viability.

 

[1MachGO]

Depending on your definition of "viable" and the severity of "loses" a single bad matchup can destroy viability.

Well, its all about context and the rest of my sentence addresses that.

The problem is that people want to look at viability like its as simple as black and white. Yes, Falcon is at a disadvantage to Fox, Falco, and Sheik, but that doesn't mean he suddenly won't outclass a solid 18 characters alongside Marth, Peach, ICs, and Jiggs. Until the day when Fox, Falco, and Sheik dominate the metagame at 90%+ user-popularity, Falcon has some level usability. If you think he should be lumped in with mid-tier and friends that's absolutely preposterous.

 

[ELStalky]

You can use a definition that works with black and white, in that case you are left with very few viable characters, namely those with exclusively even or winning matchups. Falcon would not be among them. That being said Falcon is still a strong character, albeit one with problems.

Also there are probably quite a few characters that become "viable" if you have a strong secondary that can help you with your main's loosing matchups.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

Oh, shucks. Embarrass




I have a lot to say on this, so I hope you're ready:

First off, let me preface my statements with the warning that I don't actually believe there is much difference between the top 4. Melee is a fantastically balanced game, especially among the top, and it is a blessing that we are able to have active discussion 12 years after release. Subtle metagame shifts, technical discoveries, and new strategies in age-old matchups are the primary motivators for change, and nowhere can we see that more clearly than in the Falco-Marth comparison.

So, despite the near equalness of the characters, I'm going to try to draw distinction between them. I'll do so by highlighting Marth's strengths (and how they affect his tournament viability) and Falco's weaknesses (ditto). This will make my argument seem incredibly one-sided, but rest assured, Falco still has down-air, and Marth still has next to no active frames on all his attacks. They are both incredibly good, though flawed in their own ways. My argument is simply to show that Marth, at the moment, is ever so slightly better.

---

When smashers talk about Melee history, you'll often hear them classify it into eras: periods of time separated by the coronation of a new Champion. There is the Ken era, M2K's reign, Mango's dominance, and more recently, Armada's rise. But, as accurate as that classification is at defining the history of the community, it doesn't tell us much about the history of Melee as a game.

So I have my own set of eras. There is the basic spacing and move selection era where Marth and Sheik were dominant, with Ken, Azen, Captain Jack, and Ek/Amsah winning in their respective regions; the edgeguarding / punishment era where M2K took the game by storm, inventing combo trees never thought possible, and creating mechanical gimp routines unlike ever before; and finally, the shield pressure era where Mango showed us the power of dancing around shields and the tricky timings you can exploit to create openings. There are counter-movements in association with each: for example, people learned to recover better once gimping became common, the out-of-shield game started to get much more thoroughly researched (we're still in the process of this) as people got more aggressive on shield, etc.

But now, I think we're approaching a new era: the movement renaissance. We're seeing the ripple effects already: everyone is zipping around with wavelands, stopping on a dime with shield stops, using their shield as a method of approach, perfecting their dashdance and using pivot aerials to protect it, incorporating running shield drops to enhance their platform game, ledgecancelling aerials to lower their lag, ledgedashing to quicken their escape from the corner, etc. The primary innovations I'm seeing worldwide is in our movement, and while we've progressively been getting faster as a community year-after-year, I think the difference in speed between Westballz, S2J, Axe, etc and their predecessors is starker than ever before. Melee is played at a much, much, much faster pace than it was merely 3 years ago.

So it should come as no surprise that the character which benefits most from this shift is the one with the most robust movement suite: Marth. After all, only a couple months ago we were all in awe as PP nearly dethroned Armada almost entirely with dashdance and dtilt. And then he followed it up with a shocking level of control in the ditto and the Sheik matchup against one of Marth's notorious killers: Mew2King. And on the other side of the continent, PewPewU is employing shield stop late forward-airs with such accuracy that he beat Axe in a matchup he was previously considered invincible in, and took Hungrybox to the brink in the closest 3-0 I've ever seen. Marth's killers are going down, one by one (PewpewU v Fly at KoC 1 is another notable victory), and it finally looks like Marth players are starting to find the answers to the problems that have been haunting them.

Similarly, its understandable that the slowest of the top 4, Falco, would suffer most. Armada has mastered Peach movement to such a degree that he removed conscious decision-making out of PP's hands at APEX WFs, and had PP swinging for the fences like hes Ganon. Indeed, its become more and more common to see Falcos YOLO dair/nair in frustration at their opponents flurry of baits. For a character who gets hit so hard, this is doom, and as good as nair and dair are respectively, in 2013 if you aren't careful about your commitments with Falco, you lose a stock.

Falcos have been gradually losing ground in the patient game, too. Powershielding is becoming a dominant tactic (see: Ice v Mango, BEAST 3), and even without it, the anti-laser metagame at the top has advanced so much. Lasering equals a stock against aggro Foxes like Javi or Mango, who jump on Falcos and never let go. We've seen that matchup in particular completely shift as Foxes have started to exploit Falco's weak reversal options (no, wakeup shine and spotdodge shine aren't good. Its 2013 and people are better than that). Falco loses momentum and footing on stage and never gains it back.

So the matchups have shifted. Marth v spacies still looks as good as ever, meanwhile Sheik, ICs, and Pikachu have shown notable gains (notice: I don't mean this necessarily in terms of results, but insofar as to how the base strategy has evolved, both for me personally, and therefore my opinion of the matchup as a whole, and for Marths around the world). Meanwhile, Falco's hold on the Fox matchup is all but gone, and he faces an utter wall v Peach that no one has come close to cracking.

[there's much, much, much more I'd like to say, in particular Marth's frame advantage on all his aerials, just how amazing fair OOS is, side B's utility, the control dtilt provides and how Marth can bully people in positional disadvantages, etc and how edgecancel DIs have blown open a lot of Falco's combo game, how hard it is to land a clean hit with Falco nowadays, the added tech of jumping into dairs and converting with shines or grabs, the weaknesses in Falco's edgeguards (tech-prone), etc

But I think I gave the basic idea without going into the details too much. Besides, i g2g and no one reads this thread so **** all ya'll]

First of all, I totally loved reading trough this post. I've never though of viewing Falco on such a position and it raised some thoughts, thanks for that.

However, the emphasis on movement further solidifies Fox's position as #1 in the game. Fox's speed and movement and vastly superior to Marth's, not to mention the fact that Marth still loses to Sheik (despite PP being able to beat M2K) while Fox beats Sheik and is even with Marth.

I'd love to read your thoughts of what puts Marth above Fox

 

[Bones0]

As long as it seems possible for a Falcon to get good enough to beat the top players, then idk how you can consider him unviable. Hax took a game off of PP at Evo, and I don't even think he was playing particularly well. Seems absurd to suggest Hax simply cannot get a little better and beat him or Armada/Mango/Hbox next time.

Unviable should be a term that's saved for characters like Pichu who have no chance of winning a tournament because no human can get good enough at the game to beat any top players with him.

 

[Varist]

It's strange to think that the top players from a few years ago would be crushed by the top players of today.

It's not strange to think that the best player in my city could still beat all of his peers with Game and Watch.

It's not strange to think that the top players of 4 years from now, would crush the top players of today.

So is it not possible that if someone got all of that knowledge before the rest of us, by innovating it himself, that he could do the same thing with Game and Watch that the best local player was doing to his buddies, against top players?

I think stating "no human can get good enough at the game to beat any top players with Pichu" is a narrow-minded statement. I don't think it's realistic. But I also know that it isn't impossible.

 

[Bones0]

Of course it's possible, seeing as how anything is possible when you don't place limits on what is considered reasonably likely to occur. The fact of the matter is, someone trying to innovate a low tier not only has to make up for all the years their character's metagame has gone relatively undeveloped compared to top tiers, but they have to overcome their character's traits that are generally accepted as weaknesses. If a G&W main starts innovating tons of crazy new stuff, it will definitely help and they will probably get some wins off of gimmicks and stuff, but it won't take long before people start adapting (for good players, it will only take a game or 2 to figure out why the person is being successful and avoid it). Most low tiers have too many limitations to suddenly become amazing.

The closest thing we've seen to that is Jiggs busting out of mid tier, but that was the result of the perfect storm of factors. She was unpopular (because of her style, appearance, whatever), she has tons of deadly gimmicks (general rest/gimp stuff), her overall character design is a glass cannon (she dies early, but can kill at ridiculously low %s with rest or simple bair chains), and of course, the second major Puff main (after King) happened to be Mango, one of the most revolutionary players of all time who got good in an extremely small time period.

I could see such a thing happening again with Yoshi, but I don't think any other characters in the bottom half of the tier list have any shot of ever winning a relevant tournament, at least not on their own. I do think there is a ton of potential for things like Armada's YL cp in the future. I wouldn't at all debate the possibility of a player with a sick G&W main using him effectively vs. just one or two specific high tiers (though I don't think anyone could really say what those matchups would be until someone really tries to innovate with them in mind).

 

[Xyzz]

After starting to develop a somewhat okay Falco I don't think Yoshi can ever do too well in tourneys on its own either... that matchup is just dumb :D

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

Sheik and Falco poop especially hard on all the low tiers. Yoshi has some really cool combos on fast fallers and the character is still developing so we'll see.

 

[Purpletuce]

Yoshi has some really good combos in combo videos, but against competent opponents, those combos start to seem average.

Luckily for Yoshi, and I'm sure other characters, Falco players still think Falco is 'cool', 'technical', and 'hype'. Once people realize that they can play Falco, and not run into every bait ever, low tiers start to look inviable. For now, most Falco players will happily run into every bait, and for 99% of players, every character is at least semi-viable.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

I'd love to read your thoughts of what puts Marth above Fox

Hereby summoning Crimsonblur

 

[JJTheJetPlane]

Yoshi loses pretty hard to any top tier that has any idea how the matchup works. I don't see him ever winning a tournament ever.

 

[Varist]

Yoshi loses pretty hard to any top tier that has any idea how the matchup works. I don't see him ever winning a tournament ever.

I can see him winning a tournament if Mango, DrPP and M2K got together a month before this tournament in a little house and did nothing but give Mango tons of Yoshi practice against their Falco, Fox, Marth and Sheik

:v

 

[Divinokage]

If he couldn't do it with Mario what makes you think he'll do it with Yoshi? lol. Yoshi might be underrated but it's not a tournament winning character.

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

I can see him winning a tournament if Mango, DrPP and M2K got together a month before this tournament in a little house and did nothing but give Mango tons of Yoshi practice against their Falco, Fox, Marth and Sheik

:v

That wouldn't work, it would give PP and M2K all the MangoYoshi exp in the world and they would be able to beat him in the tournament.

 

[Upke]

That wouldn't work, it would give PP and M2K all the MangoYoshi exp in the world and they would be able to beat him in the tournament.

Naturally, PP and M2K would fall ill the day before the tournament and decide not to enter.

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

Naturally, PP and M2K would fall ill the day before the tournament and decide not to enter.

Ah I see.

Well then, I guess there's nothing stopping Super Mango Yoshi.

 

[Xyzz]

Except Zhu or any other Falco that has a brain and feels like playing ever so slightly "lame".

 

[AP Renekton]

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

A:
B:
C:
D:

Why is Game and Watch ahead of Mewtwo?

EDIT: Mr. Game and Watch.

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

(characters are ordered alphabetically)

 

[AP Renekton]

(characters are ordered alphabetically)

I didn't get why Game and Watch came after Mewtwo. I forgot his name actually started with an "M"

 

[Zoler]

Yoshi not being mid tier.. Kind of invalidates the tier list instantly.

 

[Varist]

You really can't tell me Yoshi isn't better than ****ing Donkey Kong?

donkey kong is pure ass and he's not going anywhere, at least yoshi has that sky is the limit potential. he's the fox of 2014

new tier list thread is nasty because i don't feel welcome to make bold uninformed declarations or get into masturbatory arguments with people who have usually played the game longer than me

Official Community 2014 NTSC Tier List when?

 

[Purpletuce]

I can confirm, Yoshi is Fox.

Seriously though, Yoshi is limited by the combos he can do, although they can be devastating, there are lots more opportunities to escape them.

Also, in many ways Yoshi is harder to play than Fox. I don't just mean because you need to overcome a need for consistent reads on an opponent, either. He doesn't have as many muscle-memory inputs as Fox, but he needs to be way more precise with spacing and timing. Things like having to worry about good spacing when you're covering the ledge from a firefox, or having to cover so little area with your Nair to counter Falcon weaving with his recovery, they make Yoshi a struggle.

As a Yoshi main, if my head is in the right place(strategies reads and mixups), but I'm not playing on point technically, I can usually switch to Fox because he is less demanding. (I can also switch to other characters who are less demanding.)

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

I'll look at a decent yoshi and be like "dayuum definitely an underrated character" and then ill play him and rage cuz i can't wavedash out of shield...

 

[Purpletuce]

Looking at a decent player doing well can make any character look good.

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

Not rly. Ganon always looks bad

 

[Upke]

I don't know, Bizz gets me all hot and bothered sometimes when I watch him.

 

[choknater]

amsa's shield technology is what makes him good, namely parries and shield drops

until this is mastered, i can't see any yoshi player besides him doing well, except for maybe leffen in EU, but yoshi pal is way better

 

[KirbyKaze]

why the fuck would you bump this

 

[choknater]

oh haha i didn't realize the last post was old. i just looked in my watched threads to see what was still unread

 

[Purpletuce]

I think every decent Yoshi main can shield drop and parry. . . aMSa appears to have more developed fundamentals, and a stronger combo game than everyone else.

 

[choknater]

yea just gotta play smart