Teams Tier List: version 1

[sanchaz]

Mango, Hbox, Darc, and The King have throughout the history of smash, placed EXCEPTIONALLY well in teams.

If you actually looked at tournament results, you wouldn't be trying to argue this since the results support Puff being the #2 teams character.

"If you actually looked at tournament results"- are you poking fun at me, lmao. I"VE LOOKED at that.

okay how about silentspectre, darkrain, hax, and scar...my arguement revolves more about the characrter, rather then player.

Just a little side note, I've always wonder why there wouldn't be more puff main in teams then, lol. at least in the midwest region, theirs only like 3. I'm not sure what other regions.

 

[stelzig]

Well yeah i'm not disagreeing with jigglypuff being good in teams. I just don't think she deserves to be rated as the second best teams character... On a lot of areas she's quite amazing, but I find being slow and floaty to be the biggest flaws you can have in this mode. Not to mention having trouble approaching (at least most puffs appear to like just camping/spacing Bairs), giving her even more trouble breaking in and helping out your teammate.

 

[sanchaz]

Well yeah i'm not disagreeing with jigglypuff being good in teams. I just don't think she deserves to be rated as the second best teams character... On a lot of areas she's quite amazing, but I find being slow and floaty to be the biggest flaws you can have in this mode. Not to mention having trouble approaching (at least most puffs appear to like just camping/spacing Bairs), giving her even more trouble breaking in and helping out your teammate.

I respect your point 100%

Axe: Its just that my personal experiance with teams in midwest, when I see a jiggly puff player, I go fox and tell me teamate to go for the oher character, and I have never lost a set. and most teams usually have a fox, which means...does jigglypuff go down on the tier list????? I have no idea on what I exactly mean here

I'll watch the vids later, urrrgghhh, stupid paper!!!

Pikachu is awesome

 

[Deleted member]

So where did we go horribly wrong? Who's better than who we have ranked above them and why?

You forgot to factor in team "weight" I think. That is, teams can be broken down into either 2 1 vs 1s, an actual 2 vs 2, or the superior strategy of 2 vs 1 vs 1. That is, 2 players on a team make 1 player helpless to help their teammate, then simply 2 vs 1 that teammate since 2 vs 1 is, or at least should be, impossible.

Example, you have Zelda way too high. I play Zelda and I have an attractive win record simply because my opponent usually do not exploit her slow speed. That is, should my opponents choose to 2 vs 1 my teammate, Zelda has very few practical tools to stop them. In the words of my longest and best teammate Mew2King, "Don't let them use teamwork!".

That said, Fox should be in his own tier for teams since Fox is the only character capable of instantly changing the momentum of a match by being nearly immune to the outlined strategy above. You should also have Peach higher, since she's the most effective character against Fox in a format where any one player cannot control a match in a complete way. Yes, I think Peach should be higher solely for being effective against Fox. In this way, I think Fox, Jigglypuff, and Peach are the best characters for teams. Every team should have a Fox. For similar reasons, you have Ice Climbers way too low, and Sheik slightly too high. Sheik is well known for having poor approaches, and is particularly helpless to save a teammate despite her amazing ability otherwise.

The opposite holds true in that a character can weigh the team down. For example, I think Young Link is abysmal garbage in teams for all of the good attributes listed above that he lacks, but also that the opposing team should have Fox. It's okay to have a "favorable" match against Peach should the match devolve to a 1 vs 1 (lol) but I think it should be fairly obvious that his general lack of potency elsewhere still makes him dead weight and leaves his teammate subject to an impossible 2 vs 1 from the opposing team.

 

[JPOBS]

Jigglypuff is one of the strongest team characters. She is easily number 2. Her rest can single handedly change games.
- Team combos lead to rests. Team Grabs lead to rests. Plus her own variety of landing rests herself.
-there is relatively little risk in going for a rest in teams because your teamate can/will save you.

Sanchez or whatever talking about how results don't show puff being good in teams is a ******.

Surprised at how high Captain Falcon is. Every Falcon I've ever seen in teams tends to be the weak link. He can get the occasional random knee, but it seems like most of the game he spends hopelessly recovering as he tries to not get gimped.

I disagree. As far as I can tell, the good falcon's never tend to be the "weak link" of their teams.

And you severely underrate falcon's usefulness in teams if you think it boils down to him getting "the occasional random knee"

-He lives FOREVER. even if he's being edgeguarded, by the nature of his recovery his teammate has ample ways to save him and distract the opponents. His biggest weakness in singles becomes his biggest strength in teams. The predictability of his recovery and length of it means that rarely does the opponent team get a successful edgeguard if the falcon's teammate is around. Seriously, watch Hax and S2J play, they live to 150% almost every stock and thats not an exaggeration.

- He has one of the lowest percent kill moves and best team grab punishes.

- his speed allows him to interrupt opponent combo's edgeguards on his teammate.

His main weakness is that he can't save his teammate as easily as some others. He works best with chars like puff, Peach, fox and double falcons who he doesn't have to outright save most of the time.

 

[Dorsey]

There's a few that I'm like 'well he's better than everyone in his group, but it's just as questionable if he's placed in the group above' ... so it's a double edged sword, which makes me think that slightly re-categorizing these, like more evenly distributed group amounts so there's not a bunch of high/low, would prob. help.

 

[Divinokage]

Wow. Call me crazy but I think Pikachu should be at least 2 places higher. With that current list I personally think he should be right under Sheik. He's very quick and very good at saving your partner with that amazing recovery, has moves like Fair Uair Dsmash and thunderjolt to get your opponent out of a combo, very good at gimping, and has a very fast vertical KO move.

In 2v1's, he can rapid jab while your teammate is grabbing for an easy infinite, and finish with Usmash. Or just straight up Usmash which is both a KO move and a combo starter.

He's not too bad in 1v2's with his edge game. Ledge hop Uair is very good for sending opponents off stage, where he can go for a reverse tailspike.

I think that Pikachu is one of the best teams characters. Just my opinion.

I'll keep that in my mind, =)

 

[huMps]

Link is upper mid. With out a doubt better in doubles than singles.

 

[Codi]

sheik should be at least 3rd

 

[TheDekuNut]

I'd like to see a tier list of actual teams. The are of course way too many combinations but I'd like to see people's opinion on double fox, fox falcon, falcon puff, basically every combination with fox cause well he is so common in teams. maybe just like a top 5 or 10 for this kind of thing. My point is that certain characters compliment each other and their use usefulness can depend of their partner so no matter what the list in the op, its gonna get argued with left and right.

 

[Mew2King]

God:
Jiggs, Fox

Top:
Sheik, Peach, CFalcon/Falco

armada thinks sheik is only 5th after jiggs fox peach falco but I think sheik can be better than that but jiggs and fox are by far a tier in their own (even though i main sheik in teams when I really need to i use fox and do better as long as im warmed up)

 

[KishPrime]

Puff has some legit struggles in some team scenarios. I'm not even going to say she should be outside the 2/3/4 position, but here are just a few ways:

-Can die way too often below 80% against any team with a low% killer on them, often as many times or more than she can land kill rests
-Mobility is terrible on the stage, very easy when you knock Puff away to double-team her partner when she gets over 100%; you're literally out of the action for 2-4 seconds. It's also hard to quickly support a teammate or help them recover - just because Puff can go anywhere on the stage doesn't mean she can make it there fast enough
-Damage output is very low compared to a lot of other top characters; if you don't land rests or land some low% kills through edgeguards, it's a tough road.

We did quite well with Jigglypuff/Fox back in the day before Jigglypuff was really even respected as a teams character, and our run at MLG Finals 06 was one of the first times that it was obvious how good she could be. Still, it's a glass cannon team. We had terrible struggles with any character that was good at living in teams, especially Falcon and Ganon since they could also kill at low% and could survive rests more than others. Sheik could be tough as well. If we didn't land rests and shines repeatedly throughout those matches, it'd be tough to win.

Some of the teams that seemed to really hard-counter us were:
Falco/Falcon (Dope/Darkrain) - Way too much damage output to keep up with, Falco could help Falcon keep stocks, and both could land enough mid% kills to keep up with our rests/shines/edgeguards, even when plentiful.
Sheik/Ganon (Drephen/Joe Bushman) - Both were hard enough to kill, and even with rests, it's hard to kill Ganon. These matches were always really close every round.

Any team who led with a well-supported Ganon was hard for us to handle, really. As long as he's the damage soak, it really negates a lot of what Fox and Jigglypuff can do.

 

[Divinokage]

Synergy makes so much difference, I personally think Ganon/Jiggs or Peach is super amazing. I always win or get Top 3 with that team... even in US.

 

[sanchaz]

Jigglypuff is one of the strongest team characters. She is easily number 2. Her rest can single handedly change games.
- Team combos lead to rests. Team Grabs lead to rests. Plus her own variety of landing rests herself.
-there is relatively little risk in going for a rest in teams because your teamate can/will save you.

Sanchez or whatever talking about how results don't show puff being good in teams is a ******.

I disagree. As far as I can tell, the good falcon's never tend to be the "weak link" of their teams.

And you severely underrate falcon's usefulness in teams if you think it boils down to him getting "the occasional random knee"

-He lives FOREVER. even if he's being edgeguarded, by the nature of his recovery his teammate has ample ways to save him and distract the opponents. His biggest weakness in singles becomes his biggest strength in teams. The predictability of his recovery and length of it means that rarely does the opponent team get a successful edgeguard if the falcon's teammate is around. Seriously, watch Hax and S2J play, they live to 150% almost every stock and thats not an exaggeration.

- He has one of the lowest percent kill moves and best team grab punishes.

- his speed allows him to interrupt opponent combo's edgeguards on his teammate.

His main weakness is that he can't save his teammate as easily as some others. He works best with chars like puff, Peach, fox and double falcons who he doesn't have to outright save most of the time.

where do you live, I'm willing to travel most of west coast. play jigglypuff against me, if jigglypuff is your main. $100-250 dollar mm match. I'm not joking, I'm free over the summer.

or team money match. Pick a "good" jigglypuff player to be on your team, hell pick hungybox for I care.

MM match me with a puff or stfu. yea I'm calling your but out. PROVE IT! oh, and good luck resting me. call me a ****** in real life btw. I'm located in madison/milwaukee wisconsin. lol United States

 

[Divinokage]

Double Falcon/Ganons.. is pretty terrible, lol.. It's either both get faceroll edgeguarded at the same time or you completely destroy the other team. Those team combinations are probably the most random out of any team.

Edit: You really can't just rank 1 character above the other, it's really the combination + synergy you have in between the 2. If you know team strategy like flanking, or gang banging the one team member or even know how to do team combos effectively then you'll go very far, learning to save your partner before killing the opponent. Though ya Jiggs is definitely a beast in teams with Fox-Falcon. Ganon is pretty good too somehow.

Edit 2: I think it would help getting some teams results from locals, regionals and worldwide tournaments.

 

[EPsilon933]

Zelda is on the same tier as Marth?

 

[sanchaz]

God:
Jiggs, Fox

Top:
Sheik, Peach, CFalcon/Falco

armada thinks sheik is only 5th after jiggs fox peach falco but I think sheik can be better than that but jiggs and fox are by far a tier in their own (even though i main sheik in teams when I really need to i use fox and do better as long as im warmed up)

I don't want to argue with your team tier list, but why is sheik a good teams character??? I never understood if sheik can be a good teams character as her edgeguarding against spacies can take some time, and her downthrow tech chases is pretty much useless in teams, unless the teamate is covering an option.

Anyone else can answer as well, please do, don't really care.

In general I really like where this discussion is going as I feel I both strongly agree and strongly disagree with most of the smashers here.

 

[Mew2King]

I dunno I'm biased cuz I **** with sheik in teams. I really feel like she can do almost anything. Maybe she's not 3rd, but I make her at least 3rd I think.

edge guarding spacies doesn't take that much time, you just Bair/Fair their up B (if that's what you think they are going to do), or Nair their double jump or illusion. She also zones really well and is great at saving teammates. She can play a great opportunist game and hit opponents back and forth easily. Her only downfall is not being able to be super aggressive, which is why she may not be 3rd. Falco Peach Falcon might be better, but they are surely in the same tier together.

 

[OmniOstrich]

I dunno I'm biased cuz I **** with sheik in teams. I really feel like she can do almost anything. Maybe she's not 3rd, but I make her at least 3rd I think.

It is also arguable that no one else plays her to the same potential as you do, and that if more players were to try and mimic your style that we would all see why you consider her to be so strong in teams, but for the purposes of this discussion it is hard to see your performance as anything more than an outlier.

 

[Divinokage]

I dunno I'm biased cuz I **** with sheik in teams. I really feel like she can do almost anything. Maybe she's not 3rd, but I make her at least 3rd I think.

edge guarding spacies doesn't take that much time, you just Bair/Fair their up B (if that's what you think they are going to do), or Nair their double jump or illusion. She also zones really well and is great at saving teammates. She can play a great opportunist game and hit opponents back and forth easily. Her only downfall is not being able to be super aggressive, which is why she may not be 3rd. Falco Peach Falcon might be better, but they are surely in the same tier together.

You saying she zones really well makes me remember you and Ka-master together.. omg that was hell. lol.

 

[Niko45]

Sheik is amazing in teams. The only character I'd say is in contention for the 3rd spot is peach, but even then, I think sheik is way more well-rounded, where as peach seems to excel mostly teaming with other godly teams characters (including sheik). Her edgeguards are great and are not that easy to punish, plus she has 2 aerials (uair and fair) which kill randomly popped up characters at very reasonable %. She's also really hard to edgeguard if you don't have a whole lot of time to do it, plus like mentioned she zones extremely well and really dominates a certain amount of space at all times which is huge in teams.

Falco has some cool stuff he can do in teams like laser/shine saves but ultimately take a team of Falco+Peach or Falco+Falcon and replace with Sheik = better team.

Falcon is a bit hampered by not having a full stage-worth of room to move around and is largely momentum based. It's either going great or going horribly for him.

All great characters but Sheik works with everything and is just better imo.

 

[KishPrime]

I'd argue Sheik for 2nd, 3rd, or 4th in teams. She basically has no bad stages, no horrible counters, does above average damage/killing/survival, and her priority (something which is huge in teams) is really underrated. The thing is, she'll never do anything dramatic, so you don't notice her, but she really has almost no flaws. I hated any team with Sheik on it, but fortunately very few people played her that well during the 2005-2007 time period.

If consistency is your thing, go Sheik. Jigglypuff and her rest dependency in teams just makes her inconsistent.

 

[Deleted member]

sheik isn't 4th. she has issues with approaching and fox. i'd put her at 5th probably. my list is like

fox
jigglypuff
peach
falcon
sheik

 

[Divinokage]

I'd put Ganon over Marth for sure. Marth in teams is pretty meh, his main strength with grabs is a lot ****tier and he can get interrupted pretty easily too. He doesn't have the power Ganon has to do bull****.

 

[KishPrime]

sheik isn't 4th. she has issues with approaching and fox. i'd put her at 5th probably. my list is like

fox
jigglypuff
peach
falcon
sheik

While I can't really argue with your list (because it's hard to argue characters against each other without knowing their teammate), I respectfully disagree on your criteria. I think that the ability to approach in teams is not terribly valuable as long as you have a partner that can take point with priority and initiate. Sheik is also more flexible than many in using the geography of whatever stage you are on to harass, charge, and retreat.

I'm not really arguing on the Fox point, since she's lower than Fox anyway. I would not play Sheik against double-Fox. However, part of teams is making sure that your partner isn't taking on a bad matchup 1v1...if most of your teams match is your Sheik fighting 1v1 with their Fox, then you're not doing it right.

 

[Deleted member]

While I can't really argue with your list (because it's hard to argue characters against each other without knowing their teammate), I respectfully disagree on your criteria. I think that the ability to approach in teams is not terribly valuable as long as you have a partner that can take point with priority and initiate. Sheik is also more flexible than many in using the geography of whatever stage you are on to harass, charge, and retreat.

I'm not really arguing on the Fox point, since she's lower than Fox anyway. I would not play Sheik against double-Fox. However, part of teams is making sure that your partner isn't taking on a bad matchup 1v1...if most of your teams match is your Sheik fighting 1v1 with their Fox, then you're not doing it right.

the ability to approach is invaluable in teams, one of the best attributes to have to prevent the 2 vs 1 vs 1 scenario I outlined previously. At any point, if you are unable to assist your partner, that partner should be dead.

no one should be using double fox teams.

 

[KishPrime]

Eh. Yeah, that's really the best I've got. I think all of her other characteristics make her well worth that deficiency, but I'm slicing hairs. My list is basically the same for the top 7 as the OP, in that all the characters on a tier are basically even, and I think that the gap between listed top and high tiers is very narrow, if it is there at all. So hard to judge without team combos, and even stages, being considered.

What I used to do was rate the characters on a 1-10 scale for damage output, survival, and kill ability. Adding them together usually gave me a good idea where the strengths and weaknesses of the teams were, and where to counter them. After I got old, I didn't really need the numerical scale anymore.

Anyone else rock the Falco/Falcon team now? I seriously think that's an amazing combo, no matter how you slice it.

 

[Divinokage]

I don't know if they do in US but I do it with Bam every once in a while when I play with him. It's really good. So much crowd control ability with Falcon's Speed and Falco's lasers and then a lot of unexpected things can happen during combos. Like shine into easy knees.

 

[KishPrime]

Is Bam the Falco that perfected my Falco in FCD pools (3-stock) on Corneria? Man, I still have fond memories of that.

 

[Divinokage]

Is Bam the Falco that perfected my Falco in FCD pools (3-stock) on Corneria? Man, I still have fond memories of that.

I'm not sure but I know he beat Darkrain at that time.

 

[KishPrime]

I think so because he was saying it was revenge for me 10-stocking the International Crew at FC6 (in a lighthearted way). I may still be the only person to get perfected in a tournament, but my fault for playing Falco.

 

[sanchaz]

Can we give the characters a point scale? I know it sounds pretty early, but the difference between fox and any other character is significantly large, hell, he may be in his own tier.

 

[AXE 09]

I'll keep that in my mind, =)

Hype!!!!!!

 

[Lovage]

i think u guys are all overrating falcon in teams haha

 

[AXE 09]

i think u guys are all overrating falcon in teams haha

I agree with Lovage

 

[Mew2King]

This outlier thing is kinda stupid. I know sheik's top level play and I've seen other characters at top level play, and based off the top level play I know of each I think sheik is probably 3rd, but clearly not 1 or 2. Just because most other sheiks suck (and most other sheiks seem to just suck in teams or something compared to singles) doesn't mean sheik doesn't **** in teams. I really think she is pretty good. She may not be 3rd but she is definitely EXTREMELY good.

 

[KishPrime]

I still say tied for third...with everyone else in that tier.

 

[Veetaak]

I don't think that CF is all that good in teams. His tech-chasing game is pretty much removed and he is easy to combo. I suck in teams though ^.^

 

[Divinokage]

Ya but you can definitely help your Falcon techchase with him as well, cover 1 or 2 more options which can lead to hasty deaths... But ya wtv.

 

[Mundungu]

Awesome to see this finally on the boards!

@ Jamin' Jobus; I think the biggest gap on the whole list (other than maybe jiggs to falcon) is Ganon to Marth. Ganon >>>>>>>> Marth in teams, it's not even close imo. A lot of Marth's singles shinanigans don't work in teams, namely his downthrow gimps and chaingrabbing. Ganon can kill a character with two quick hits with an edgeguard, where it takes Marth a long time to kill someone with decent DI. Plus ganon has amazing recovery in teams, since his teammate can just cover him as he returns to the stage.

The only minor problem I still have is zelda > doc. Zelda is pretty beastly in teams, Cosmo has proven that. She does suffer from the lack of approaching options, but so does everyone else around that level (except for marth). She can take stocks quicker than almost anyone out of nowhere, similar to falcon, where doc struggles with any offense other than edgeguarding, which is where he shines.

The high tier seems pretty interchangeable at this point, minus ganon seeming to stay at the bottom of high tier. I almost feel like ganon should be in a tier on his own below high, and marth in a tier on his own below ganon tier, but that would just be awkward.