So, what is a "good" player of a bad character?

[Deleted member 189823]

What do I mean with this question? Let me expand on it...

When a good player of a bad character tends to get good results, is it him actually being a good player or his opponents' fault for not tackling on the bad character's weaknesses and losing?

This is an issue I came across a few times, when it came to posting videos about a bad character going up to a good character and either winning or going up against, solidly. Someone would sometimes complain about how the player with the good character didn't capitalize on the bad character's weaknesses, and thereby take the credit away from the player who uses a bad character.

So to those people I ask, how can you determine if the player who plays a bad character, is a good player?

I apologize I couldn't explain this more briefly.

 

[LancerStaff]

Consistency. That's the only thing we rate everything on, why not also use it to identify good players of ''bad'' characters?

 

[Grim Tuesday]

You can look at any game from either player's perspective at any time and say "if they did this instead, they would've won x exchange"

When you're actually in the thick of things, though, you obviously can't always make the best decision, and making the best decision also factors in that your opponent isn't making the best decision; only one player can make the right decision in any given exchange.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if someone loses, it's always their "fault" in a sense, even if they are losing to a high tier instead of a low tier, because it means they were making the wrong decisions

 

[TheBrill]

I feel as though this is a trick question. For example, you could have a really really good ganon player, who puts in hours of his time into the game and understands just how to beat each of his match ups. In retrospect, each player that lost had to have fallen victim to this ganon player's game and therefore lost, failing to tackle his weaknesses and win.

 

[BioZelink]

Will, he uses DK.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Tough question to think about.

 

[TL?]

In brawl it's hard to win with a bad character against a truly good one. What makes characters bad in this game is typically not subtle such as link having a poor recovery, or samus lacking KO power. You really don't have to be very familiar with characters like ness, link, mario, or ganon, to have a significant edge over them with a character like metaknight. If someone is winning with a bad character through matchup ignorance, it just means the person they beat is worse (or just got outplayed in that single instance). If you actually beat good players with a bad character, then I would argue that you are good.

 

[Osennecho]

Take brawl. You can be the best Ganon in the world and still not actually place anything near what best of a character should place if things were fair. This means you are the best with that character, but it doesn't mean you are a good player. Results make a good player. If that "best Ganon" in the world can place better than their Ganon and relatively well overall with say MK and still not be one of the best MKs, they are still in fact a good player. It's a stupid concept, but it makes sense.
Note: If you are the amazing with a horrible character you most likely have POTENTIAL to be a good/amazing player, but that doesn't mean you currently are. You'd need to pick a different viable character to do so.
That's how I view ti anyways.

 

[infiniteV115]

With some characters it's easy to tell and with others it isn't.

eg Take Will. He plays Donkey Kong, who I think we all agree is a bad character. However, DK has some even and even-ish MUs amongst the better characters. So, if he does well against a lot of good players of these characters, then it's fair to say that it's because of his skill level. Or, even better, if he does well against good (not necessarily top-level players, but good nonetheless) players of characters that wreck DK, then it's because of his skill level.
We can also use placings but those aren't as reliable imo

Now let's just look at his results
Beat Mr.R at SKTAR 2: top level Marth, but Marth goes even with DK so Will must be good
Beat Salem at SKTAR 2: top level ZSS and ZSS beats DK solidly so holy crap Will is good
Beat Coney's DDD back in like 2010 or w/e....
Beat MVD's Snake at Apex 2014 (slight advantage to Snake imo)...
Beat MikeHaze (Marth) and DRN (ZSS) at Apex 2012...

...etc. I don't know all of his results.

Anyway you get the point. It gets trickier as you go lower down the tier list because these characters' MUs get progressively worse (so fewer even(ish) MUs and the bad MUs become terrible and more numerous) so a significant skill gap is required for victories like these but here are some examples I guess.

- Raptor beating Orion (MK) and Atomsk (...DDD? MK?) with Yoshi
- Shaky beating MVD (Snake), Abadango (Wario), Nick Riddle (ZSS), Trela (Lucario), placing 25th at Apex 2013 (ie outplacing numerous good players of better characters) with Ness
- Quik beating Bizkit (Snake) and taking a game off of Glutonny (Wario) with Samus

 

[LancerStaff]

With some characters it's easy to tell and with others it isn't.

eg Take Will. He plays Donkey Kong, who I think we all agree is a bad character. However, DK has some even and even-ish MUs amongst the better characters. So, if he does well against a lot of good players of these characters, then it's fair to say that it's because of his skill level. Or, even better, if he does well against good (not necessarily top-level players, but good nonetheless) players of characters that wreck DK, then it's because of his skill level.
We can also use placings but those aren't as reliable imo

Now let's just look at his results
Beat Mr.R at SKTAR 2: top level Marth, but Marth goes even with DK so Will must be good
Beat Salem at SKTAR 2: top level ZSS and ZSS beats DK solidly so holy crap Will is good
Beat Coney's DDD back in like 2010 or w/e....
Beat MVD's Snake at Apex 2014 (slight advantage to Snake imo)...
Beat MikeHaze (Marth) and DRN (ZSS) at Apex 2012...

...etc. I don't know all of his results.

Anyway you get the point. It gets trickier as you go lower down the tier list because these characters' MUs get progressively worse (so fewer even(ish) MUs and the bad MUs become terrible and more numerous) so a significant skill gap is required for victories like these but here are some examples I guess.

- Raptor beating Orion (MK) and Atomsk (...DDD? MK?) with Yoshi
- Shaky beating MVD (Snake), Abadango (Wario), Nick Riddle (ZSS), Trela (Lucario), placing 25th at Apex 2013 (ie outplacing numerous good players of better characters) with Ness
- Quik beating Bizkit (Snake) and taking a game off of Glutonny (Wario) with Samus

Springboarding off of this, we shouldn't be looking at tournaments, just individual matches. DK is fairly even with Marth, so it could go either way. But DK beating even a decent ZSS would be pretty impressive. Once we work out a skill tier list of sorts, we can truly say who's a good player of a bad character. Not that it'll ever happen.

 

[FujintalksboutDin'sFire]

Me.

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