He didn't really refute that, he just said that there are character non-specific aspects to the game that alter who wins. Someone with a great understanding of their character without knowledge of how to properly space, DI, or whatever probably won't be beating someone who knows how the game works, even if their skill with their character isn't quite as high.
So instead of Lucas just having gimmicks, he's got gimmicks and the basic stuff everyone else has.
Now I like to think he's got more than just gimmicks, but what would really give him any sort of edge would probably be.... the gimmicks. I don't play at a high enough level to know if he's deserving of Mid or if he should stay in Low tier, but I definitely don't think he's good enough to rise above any of that stuff, because he just gets screwed over by game mechanics (10 extra grab release frames) and doesn't have any match ups that matter that are hugely in his favor. Even if we assume his match up spread is currently the most pessimistic it could be, I'm definitely not seeing any +2 or better match up on any viable tournament character, which means if you want to win, you actually have to outplay your opponent completely. That's not impossible, if you're better at reading, punishing, spacing, or whatever, but that's not the skill that Lucas has; that's the skill that you, as the player, has.
Lucas is not a character to play if you want to win a bunch of money. It's not that it's impossible to win tournaments with him, it's just not very likely. But, you know, as far as just enjoying the game goes, you can play whoever the balls you want. I like Lucas. I don't expect him to be a top tier character but when I started playing this game last year, I chose the one I had most fun playing, not the one at the top of the tier list because competition really only matters if you like the game. If you can't at least play a character that lets you enjoy the game, what's the point of competing at high levels? :/
All this arguing over how good Lucas is or isn't seems pretty pointless to me because, at this point in the game, it's pretty obvious that he's not very good. It doesn't matter if he doesn't have any unwinnable match ups or if his current match up spread is too negative and not representative of what they really should be.... he's just not very good by design. Those grab release frames **** him up, and there's very little he can do to approach certain characters safely outside of outplaying your opponent. If your character's strengths are "being played well by players who are really, really good," your character's strengths are pretty terrible. I'm sure there are more things someone better than me at this game can point out, but I dunno, thinking Lucas is any good is kind of silly, imo. Even though it'd be cool if he was super ****ing awesome. .-.
