uh...this is opinion...in other words, which is to say is how it should be.
Random:
Battlefield, FD, Yoshi's Island, Lylat Cruise, Smashville
Counters:
Delfino, Frigate, Stadium 2, Castle Siege, SkyWorld, Corneria, Brinstar, Stadium 1
i'm rathering brawl as well lately. Brawl is the "3rd Strike" of Melee.
Granted there are some near-impossible matchups (try beating a banana-whoring diddy w/ ganon)...thats not anything new to the smash scene (see bowser vs any high tier).
For the most part, alot of the "better" characters in brawl can be dealt with as long as you know your enemy in and out.
Wolf players spam his forward and down smash. Once you learn to call it, just a simple sidestep is all it takes to punish him however u want. Marth's range is less effective thanks to the new airdodging system, and thanks to the attacks-dramatically-weakening, you cant rely on a few attacks to win.
But with each tool you can use against high tiers, thats another tool they can still use against lower tiers, so in the end the tiers will be defined, but its nice to know this game is more about the player than the character. Its not about who has the better pressure game anymore, its about who can approach and defend the best, because there is no universal, abusable offense (the shuffle).
Dashing is slower, and grab ranges suck...its nearly impossible to tech chase. You have to tech-guess and you still may not be able to reach them in time.
I'm still maining DlckClimbers. yea, their grab is probably the most powerful thing in the game of brawl to our knowledge. (50% on most characters from 0, or sole-popo chainthrow across level) They're still horrible in the air, light, and suck at edgeguarding and recovering. You cant fight them like every other character, in fact...i find you have to fight every character in the game a little different. This game is NOT about using the same wavedash and shuffle approaches against every character. In the end though, this leads to probably stronger counter-characters. Range or shere speed can keep them from getting grabs though. Ice seem to have a noticable advantage on some characters (like most of the presumed high tiers), but i cant see them countering any of the other hightiers themselves, since they have more options in most every situation.
after ice though, my 2nds are DK and Olimar/DDD. DDD, in general, is an overrated heavy weight. Big, slow targets always suck, no johns. Olimar is almost random-tier w/ his varying pikmin attack-effects. Overall, def not top tier. DK is probably the best heavyweight this time. He's got good reach and power, and better recovery than given credit. He just sucks against projectiles like every other big character. Small characters are annoying too, because his b.air goes over their head (so i should work on D.tilting more, i think)
Olimar is pretty stupid, no johns. He's deffinately the n00biest character in brawl. I can't even explain why...he just requires very little thinking. You just play keep away w/ pikmin, and try to attack w/ them right outside their range. No apprent complications to his game outside keeping track of which pikmin is next in line for your attacks. (but not that it mattters, cuz you dont have 5 seconds to mix up the order anyway), you basically use the 'move' you need to do disregarding which pikmin it is.
Lee's sonic...Seems like he's using him correctly and to a great deal of his potential. Sonic seems to be the only character who can effectively tech chase, and he might have the closest thing to a 'pressure game' in brawl, since he can literally overwhelm a character; virtually all his attacks he turns into a ball anyway, and he's extremely hard to intercept. Looks better of a character the more i see.