The tier list V.3 discussion (What next?)

[MrEh]

he retorted "**** I don't know how to play against Sonic

Power through obscurity. We Bowser mains enjoy having the same advantage. Observe.

WHAT THE HELL? BOWSER CAN CHAINGRAB?!?!?!

This is a common reaction to fighting a good Bowser.

BWAHAHAHA!!!

This is my usual response to the aforementioned reaction. And yes, Bowser's chaingrab *****.

 

[da K.I.D.]

also about sonic.
This is NOT SBR bashing, and because I just reallised that this is turning into a huge WoT, im going to try to incorporate every Sonic mains arguement into this one post so that all the sonic mains can stop bothering people, the talk about sonic in this thread can stop and everyone else can see all of our arguments together.

Also please note that this is only reasoning to get sonic out of low tier, I nor any other respectable sonic main believes that he should be any higher than one of the last 2-3 spots in mid tier
That being said:

Everyone just seems to "feel" that hes a bad character.
All the facts state otherwise
he has had consistent mid to high tier tourney placings since the game came out.
his recovery is something like 5th best in the game.
he is 19th/18th in weight out of 39 characters with one of the top 5 momentum cancels in the game.
He has disjoints on almost half of his attacks.
pretty much anything he ever does can be either cancelled into a shield (which makes for some really goofy p-shielding situations) or timing altered, and sometimes both.
hes in the upper half of the game when it comes to tech chasing.
he has mulitple jab lock setups.
And for the record, he has more flat out killing power than Falco.

But still people just "feel" that he is a bad character, the majority of the time with either misinformed, flawed or contradictory reasoning.
Ive seen people in the same post make claims that there is metaphorically a thousand sonics at every tourney and he cant help but place at tourneys, and than say that he places well because people dont use him enough to know the matchup because he is such an odd character. That is just ignorant AFAIC.

the facts are that he is short and he doesnt have a sword so therefore he doesnt have all that much range, and like somebody pointed out before, he really doesnt have anything broken or semi broken to spam like a z air or a pivot grab. But that just means you actually have to use all his moves to win, which is very very odd for a character in brawl, but that still doesnt make him bad

Id like to reemphasise Sonics tourney results for just a moment.

Whenever a SBR or mod talks about somebodys placement in the tier list, they usually say, "If you dont like where your character is, get out to tournaments and get him some placings." At the time when this state was FIRST made, (like 7+ months ago) us sonic mains (along with the peachs and olimars) took that to heart, and decided that we were going to get to work, make our character better, and get some placings in tournaments. Because the way the system works is that we are supposed to get tourney results up so that people out side of our respective boards can see how good our character is, since instead of our opinions and possibilities of what the character is capable of, we will have cold hard facts that prove that whatever character is better than what the people who made the list initially believed.

We accomplished this, and we actually did it better than any other board. If I am correct, Sonics tournament ranking in ankokus thread never got to single digit spots above his tier placement at the time. This means that for a solid 6 MONTHS (the current tourney ranking list is absolutely meaningless in my eyes due to the low amount of data) sonic had tourney rankings that were consistently 10 or more spots above his tier position. That was supposed to be cold hard facts that not only is sonic better than what people thought, he was A LOT better than he was ever given credit for.

Id also like to reference another comment that was made. Somebody said that sonic isnt good because it takes more work to win with him. I dont believe that that determines whether a character can truly be seen as "good" or not. The vast majority of the time, if you saw a top level fox player in melee, he was working harder than the guy who played marth or shiek... hell, M2K switched to marth initially cus his controller was broken...

So just because it takes time to learn the character doesnt really have any bearing on whether the character is good or not. Just because you can learn D3 in a week and MK in a weekend but it takes you 2 months to learn to do everything the right way with sonic, thats not what makes D3 or MK better characters. What matters is the end result because if it takes forever to learn a character but than once you do you beat everybody else out there, than obviously that character that took all the work to learn is a better character.

Now I'm not saying that sonic will beat everybody out there. but you have to put him in this situation, "How does he fair when played at the top of his metagame? (which to an extent includes all the feints, cancels and mindgames he is capable of [which are undoubtably at a higher peak than the vast majority of characters in this game])" and when you think about it like that. sonic really is a better character than a good chunk of the characters above him.

The gist of the justification arguments for his tier placing now and before (which for all intents and purposes is the same) seem to be just well constructed johns. Like how theres a ton of fans him playing him even though theres just as many playing him as any other low tier character. Or how the sonics are just winning on lack of matchup experience since nobody plays him, even though that doesnt help any of the other bad characters get tourney results. Or that Sonic just has better people playing him than other characters, which also isnt true because there is no one nationally known sonic main that everybody knows. Sure there are some names that get thrown around (Malcom, Blue, Mr. 3000) but its mostly just in an "oh I heard that guy actually plays sonic" way as opposed to a "watch out, that guy is really good" kind of way.

There also the case of sonic's hit and run playstyle not being all that fun for the other player, which can lead to the thought that he is a bad character, using his speed and manuverability to cover up the fact that hes bad... I've had this experience many a time, even hearing it from people who truly like sonic as a character dispite the fact that they dispise him in this game. to quote myself from the sonic board thread about this subject,

They really hate sonic's hit and run playstyle. Its like they hate playing againtst me because I dont sit there and get hit like every other character.

but to that I ask, isnt that what good characters do? cover up their flaws and play to their strengths? and if sonic really can do that effectively, doesnt that make him a better character?

So I would like to conclude by saying that I (and many other respected members of the community *points to his own sig*) really do think, and have good reason to think that sonic is a better character than what this tier list reflects.

With all of this said, I am hereby revoking the rights of all sonic mainers to post anything in this topic regarding sonic after this post.

screw you tenki.

 

[Sosuke]

Sonic's tier placement was very "wtf?" worthy.
Sonic doesn't place that bad. <_<
The only argument I could possibly see from the SBR is that the Sonic players are all just really good and place that high regardless of their character.
....
But yeah, Sonic go up now plz. He does sorta deserve it at this point. ._.
But then again, the SBR could just hate Sonic. Don't let it get to ya.

I just wanna throw this out there: Hylian does mess up. It actually lost him a tournament this past weekend. It was against a Sonic too, ironically. XD

Just thought I'd share guys.

 

[JMan8891]

It is a bit disheatning...

Although not big, Gamer's Edge Brawl Weeklies are the only running SC tourney atm, with a lot of NC players too. NC hosts more, but randomly...

Ever since August, i've gone every week save 4 in total (broke and fiancee johns). And all save 3 i have placed top 5 or better. Im playing ppl now who know exactly what im doing and as such, i had a huge playstyle change toward being more methodic/feint/grab oriented. So... when im fighting a few ppl who placed top 15-25 at C3 (We actually have good ppl, but a small community...) im def working for my shiz. But when a newcomer arrives, get'cha A-1 out, its Steakums time, rofl!

I have had 6 2nd places, 1 1st(but it was a Low Tier, so meh), bout 6 3rds, and the rest split between 4th/5th.

Not a one have i got more than the "Nice going"... I completley stopped trying to get Memphis to add even 1 standing, which i pop out every week.

Since i've schooled some Mks, made a guy switch from Snake to C Falc (teh luz, teh lulz),im not saying im the best by any means. But im a dedicated main, who hasn't had the "magic" of being unknown, and quite CONSISTENTLY place, not once, not twice, weekly

 

[da K.I.D.]

and i consistenly get top 8 at my biweeklies...

 

[JMan8891]

and i consistenly get top 8 at my biweeklies...

To which apparently means nothing and the ridiculous amounts of bias and favortism sicken me

Sat im going to an Oos smasfest w/30 ppl.... top5, won't mean anything

31st, bigger Gamer's Edge tourney aimed for more EC competition. GA and FL are representing... top 5? Agsin, won't mean anything

 

[Boxob.]

KID, one of us need to place with Sonic and Battle for WNY.

Although I'll have my emerald on me, which they may consider cheating.

 

[da K.I.D.]

are you actually going to try this time?

I still remember what happened at the last tourney you went to... the one with cat...

 

[DarkISDA]

Before anything, I'd like to state, I'M NOT A SONIC MAIN! But then, I enjoy playing him sometimes and I can easily agree with you guys, that he definitely needs a better placement. The only thing I can see for him being so low is because he gets boring to play quite fast. No I don't say I hate him, but when playing him, everything looks too similar so the matches are like almost telegraphed. Maybe they just took this fact and said: ''Hey, he's boring, thus bad''. How to make quick decisions without regarding real results heh? Sonic for Mid tier

 

[Boxob.]

Lol, that tourney was fail.

But yeah, I'll put forth as much effort as possible. I'm curious to see where I'll place.

 

[ShadowLink84]

I am in agreement with infzy and vyse and lethien.
The SBR won't get things right on the first try though I believe they should give more time before making the tier list just so they have more data to work with from here to now.

Mainly since parts below high tier look so very inconsistent.

When I casted my vote I used the mentality that almost anybody with a projectile should be able to beat Sonic. Despite his speed (you're too slow ) I believe Sonic has a had time approaching as it is without projectiles to deal with. Unfortunately, a lot of the low tiers have projectiles (namely Mario/Ness/Lucas) so I ranked Sonic lower than them.

What else did you want to know?
(The answer to which you'll get in the morning. I'm sick and want to sleep >.<)

That is untrue.
Sonic has little issue dealing with the projectiles.
His ability to cancel his movement instantly allows him to react better than other characters and because of his incredible speed, will not allow characters , not even Olimar, to get off more than one projectile at a time without placing themselves at risk. how many characters can you name can dash in between Olimars grabs?

That incredible speed allows him to take advantage of openings normally unavailable to most characters.

If Sonic performs a side B, he can always either cancel into a shield, or spinshot allowing him to react appropriately to his opponents behavior and punish them for it.

Even Falco cannot use his laser very often in the matchup because Sonic can take advantage.

You can even look at sethlon's falco vs mr 3000's (outdated ) but you notice that the projectile issue wasn't the problem, its that when it comes down to it, Sonic cannot push through defenses very easily.
As in, if Marth is standing there, he can Fair and Ftilt and fan jabs in order to fend off Sonic. Sonic has to take advantage of those small openings because he can't push through like MK or DK. He can but doing so results in a good amount of risk and little reward.

 

[da K.I.D.]

individual matchups also dont (or arent supposed to) affect the tiers too much...

 

[ShadowLink84]

I am using it as an example kid.

 

[JayBee]

A message from Kojin

I went back, after i cooled down, and read some things again. This is what I feel like I have to say.

I'm usually don't get mad about things like tiers, but i did when i saw this list. now i'm wondering what was that point. Guys, SBR's tier list is the second in less than a year, its going to be imperfect just because of that, but i don't think it ws intentional anymore. that idea is stupid, there is nothing they gain by putting sonic in a low tier. lets all get that through first. Also, and this is very important: The fact that they want to have two lists a year, is telling me that they want to be as current as possible, using thier experience to get it as right as possible. (you can say they are trying to put more effort in Brawl then in Melee?) We know they may have messed up a bit, but in all honesty, it doesn't magically make sonic any worse than we know he is right now. We got six months to do something about it. and if he still stays that way, so what? you gonna stop playing Sonic? I didn't think so.

Sonic in low tier does NOT mean that all the cool things we know and seen in tourneys did not count. it most likely means there wasn't enough for them to take notice, OR it happened so late in the season so they didn't notice in time (most likely the true reason). compared to metaknight, who we knew was a good character almost a month into the game, and DDD, whose chain grabs we knew about before the game was released in the US. (btw, looks like D3 went down, people learned not to get grabbed, i guess)

I was bit distressed, but i realized that the source of it was only from these people not knowing sonic to the extent that we do, which makes perfect sence. I dont think we blame anyone at this point, and if u do, its not gonna change anything. its over and done, im moving on.

I'm already planning to go to several tourneys in the next few months and give a real shot at getting sonic attention (actually i have been, but its all been on a smaller scale)I just know that if we can't get Sonic improvement in the publics standing in these next six months it will NOT be because I sat at a computer all day and posted about Sonic and steak instead of trying my best in tourneys. my next tournament is either gonna be at Ashburn or at Philly, you'd better be there.

I guess I'm calling you guys out. Of course, you don't have to do anything. but if youre not just let it go. please. To the ones already getting it done on the tourney scene, good job, but its not over. To the rest Get back to work, Sonic mains, and good luck, we are going to need it.

 

[Chis]

God tier
Meta Knight

Jesus tier
Snake

Top tier
Falco
King Dedede
Mr. Game & Watch
Marth
Diddy Kong
Wario
R.O.B.

High tier
Lucario
Olimar
Pikachu
Kirby
Donkey Kong
Ice Climbers
Zero Suit Samus

Mid tier
Toon Link
Pit
Peach
Wolf
Luigi
Zelda
Bowser

Low tier
Fox
Sheik
Ike
Mario
Lucas
Ness
Samus

Bottom tier
Sonic
Pokémon Trainer
Yoshi
Link
Jigglypuff
Ganondorf
Captain Falcon

 

[Camalange]

Well I placed 9th in my first tournament which I find to be quite an accomplishment and I'm most likely going to another tournament this month in Scranton.

Over time, you guys WILL be seeing me place in more tournaments, I promise. It's just right now I can't drive so I have to depend on others to get me places...but once I start driving...you better bet your *** I'm going to be out there.

I wish I could've helped debate with you guys...you guys did it a million times better though than I probably could of, lol.

 

[ROOOOY!]

Who cares about placings?
We're just scrubs who are playing other scrubs, so our results aren't viable. I can say this false statement without any evidence because I'm in the SBR.

I should be off to a tournament if there's enough people (Smashfest if there's not 13+) mid February. I know it won't count for much as it's small and we're all scrubby, even though like England's best players have said they're going, lol.

 

[Camalange]

Who cares about placings?
We're just scrubs who are playing other scrubs, so our results aren't viable. I can say this false statement without any evidence because I'm in the SBR.

This post is entirely true.

 

[Le_THieN]

Thats what we want the SBR to do. I can guarantee you A LOT less people would have a problem with the list if you explained your reasonings in that format. Instead of sarcastic remarks, insults and blatant lies, what the SBR needs to do is compile thier reasonings against sonic being higher in the exact same way thesage does. Of course this will never happen, but at least be aware that there IS a proper way to go about debating, and the sbr is NOT doing it properly at all.

The only post I ever made in the v2.0 thread in last 24 hours since the tier list update was made was both thought of and written after the thread had exploded. I spent an hour before I threw up the post contemplating what would be a safe, inviting, nonthreatening, and sensitive approach to the situation. There have been other SBR moderators and members who have been equally as careful and cordial, but yet the couple of snarky one-liners made by one or two other members have resulted in seething hostility for the rest of the Smash Back Room.

What incentive is there for us to engage any of you if we only ever draw retorts revolving around played-out commentaries about how much "fail" we are, or that we has a collective are stupid and arrogant? This is precisely the sort of counterproductive commentary that has been personified by other posters every single time a tier list or rule set is revised – since these forums have been open. I've purposely taken a backseat for most of these altercations to see how most of you conducted yourselves in arguments, and the results haven't been favorable for most of you thus far.

Regardless of what you think about me or anyone else back there, most of us still believe in demonstrating basic human decency. Perpetuating a cool little SBR-shredding trend that other little kids started ages ago is more or less devoid of that.

But for as poorly as some of you have maintained your cool, sensible poise in debate, I do acknowledge that some of your other counterpoints have gone unnoticed (most likely because of the sheer speed at which the thread has grown, and not because we are actively ignoring you). In light of this, I will humor you with responses to the best of my ability:

give a reasonable and well thought out explanation as to why tourney results had such large influences for some characters (like falco) while Sonics tourneys counted for nothing.

In this specific example, Falco literally has widespread representation in every single region of the country. This accounts for Smash-fest gatherings; small, local grassroots tournaments and major regional circuits. Falco and a most of the other high-to-top tier characters have such strong and frequent representation at tournaments at all levels and sizes that it statistical deviations such as random sampling and skewed data no longer become that big of an issue. That's not to say that either problem won't exist, but that the sheer number of people who will main these higher-tiered characters at tournaments will always guarantee some sort of consistent representation on a national level.

Sonic, from what I have seen, fares exceptionally well in all of your respective areas, but only on a grassroots level. You can dominate local competition all you want in small tournaments and continue to submit this data to Ankoku's character rankings list, but until Sonic does extraordinarily well in a major regional event (FAST, Critical Hit, HOBO, OH SNAP!, Cataclysm, Genesis, Clash of the Titans, etc.), this data simply isn't going to be the game-breaking evidence that you guys are looking for to make your case. Having the ability to beat MK and Marth mains around your town in local monthlies doesn't tell us anything about how Sonic would fare on a national level. Placing well is a good thing, but placing well in renowned tournaments with other high-level players is what turns heads.

This brings me to two related points:

• I am a Diddy Kong main from Oklahoma. I hover between being the first or second best in the state against Chuck Nasty, a Pokémon Trainer main. Chuck and I constantly trade tournament victories, but neither one of our local tournament first-place finishes (even though it is instrumental in determining things like Power Rankings) has really made any impact on what the popular consensus of either character currently is. The only reason people have started taking into account my own personal tournament results when judging the competitive worth of Diddy Kong on a national level is because I started traveling to other, more competitive regions. Since then, I have beaten many players from Texas, and have placed well and even won their own tournaments.
  
  The last tournament I hosted (OH SNAP! v4.0) featured 112 players, with almost half of the participants coming from out of state (Texas and Utah). I finished third place behind Dojo (MK) and Roy_R (Marth), and beat a slew of marquee Texas players to get to that point. Somehow, my third-place finish at this tournament (and even my tied-for-13th-place finish at HOBO 11) was way more crucial to the elevation of Diddy's national profile than any of my first-place wins at local grassroots monthlies. Chuck, even though he is currently ranked the #1 player in Oklahoma and still continues to trade victories with me, does not travel and therefore his results do not account as a strong enough element to take into consideration in tier list updates. He could very well be included in the ranks of Top 20 Players in the United States someday, but until he decides to go out, travel and vet himself against opponents with any sort of skill and notoriety recognized by the community at large, he will continue to go completely unnoticed.
  
  This the cruel reality of being talented but yet not have the ability, resources or drive to travel. This is the case I imagine most of you Sonic mains to be in.
  
  
• Ankoku's character rankings list is not representative of the entire country at large. The fact that so much weekly data goes unreported is indisputable, either because people don't know about Ankoku's list or they are simply to lazy to submit results. This makes his list abysmally skewed; so much to the point that we didn't even use any of his compiled data as hard evidence while making the tier list. It was just something we looked at, nothing more and nothing less. The actual making of the tier list was completely indepedent of Ankoku's character rankings.
  
  The other thing that makes it so skewed is you guys, the Sonic Boards. You guys are very aggressive about reporting your victories and successes (a great thing!), and I can easily say that out of all the lower-tiered character forums, you all are the most passionate about this. But because of this, it is also easy to envision that Ganondorf and Link and other low-tier mains are simply just not reporting their results (I know for a fact that Chuck Nasty has not and probably never will report any of his first-place finishes). Due to the freeform and voluntary nature of Ankoku's list, it just can't be referred to as an end-all-be-all resource for the successes of low-tier characters, especially Sonic.
  
  If we had some method where all Smash-fest tournaments, local monthlies and major regional circuit events could have their results automatically reported to one person, this would hardly be an issue. Of course, this is impossible (or at least unfeasible), there's so much margin of influence by human error and lack of motivation in the character rankings list because its function is built on a "report your own results" philosophy. You may be able to extract some sort of reliable data for higher-tiered characters by looking at this (only because mains for these characters are so rampant), but the data gets drastically more unreliable the further down the list you move. So...that's that.

At the end of the day, Sonic mains just haven't beaten anybody of any note at any major tournament, despite what Ankoku's character rankings list reflects. These are facts, and I really don't know how to spell it out any clearer for you guys. Until this occurs, Sonic will be doomed to mill around the dredges of the lower tiers.

For the record though, I like Sonic a lot and believe he is solid mid-tier material. I've played two talented Sonics recently, and both sets have made me revaluate how exactly I feel about both Sonic as a viable character and my respective match-up with him. I believe it wouldn't hurt anybody to have him move up a spot or two, either, but the new tier list has been released, and revisions will not be made until summertime. What's done is done.

I hope this has been helpful.

 

[Kinzer]

Well D***, now I has to go win my local tourneys (fat chance, SK92 plays there), start collecting da monayz, and go to more OoS tourneys... that is to say my parents will actually let me >.>

This is an answer I've been looking for, this is all I wanted to read, thank you for taking the time to actually respond to some of our points. Up until now and AFAIKnew, our questions/points/demands (call them whatever you will) were being unaddressed.

All we really wanted for Sonic was just one or two more spots, and to at least get the sense of security that people know why he really is there. Don't get us wrong, we love Sonic, and we just want him to be understood. For the moment, he rose, and that's good, but still a little bit lower than he should be (as far as the metagame has gone for now). Are we not being reasonable by just saying Sonic should be in the upper half of the lower section of the list? We know our character has limitations, but it just gets annoying when people speak of the same stupid things over and over... at least when it isn't correct.

We should know most of the things, like "tires don exists" and how they don't affect how you play, but it's a problem when people make a mockery and don't have any indication of what they're really talking about... but I guess that comes with Sonic being a sucky character (in Brawl).

Still, Steak tier wouldn't be so bad either.

 

[ROOOOY!]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=164129 (admittedly a long time ago)

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=195240

Blue finishes high in tournaments which people like Inui and Atomosk place in.
MalcomM does the same with people like Bum.


I agree with basically everything you say other then the whole "grass roots level" bit. Just check in the stickied results thread, there is proof EVERYWHERE. Just...we feel no one actually bothers looking for it, and just goes off hearsay of what random idiots tell them about Sonic's kind of results, and you know how things spread.

We've also got to look at the other low tiers in these "upper level tournaments" and see that NONE of them, maybe bar PT, is actually coping.

I'll take Samus as an example. Most of us here feel that there is no justification at all as to why she's above Sonic on the tier list. I mean, tournaments, she's no contest to Sonic. Her match-ups are as bad as Sonic's, with some of the more popular characters on the scene (Falco, Dedede, MK) causing her big problems, which I think gives Sonic the edge over her in this department, considering none of his match-ups are higher then 35:65, and only a handful are that.

General character ability is such a vague subjective topic that I don't know why it is used, especially with this new voting system.

The problem is, as you rightly pointed out, Sonic mains seem to be concentrated in particular areas, and be absent from other places. Getting everybody to vote on the general character abilities is a bad call for cases like this, with some members of the SBR I imagine never before seeing an even average Sonic, which is going to pull his score riiiiight down.

Ehh.

 

[Rickerdy-doo-da-day]

My webpage crashed and I lost what I was going to post orginally :/


In a nutshell, thanks to the Back Room members as well as Thien for taking out the time to discuss Sonic's placement with the boards. It's nice to see both sides getting along xD

I pretty much agree with what Thien says and what Kinzer/ROOOOY have posted. I think Sonic mainers need to watch Ankoku's list and how many placements Sonc gets and where he is. I think Sonic's position is pretty accurate atm considering the current state of Brawl/early life and difficulty of placing characters lower down the list

...And I can't remember what else I was supposed to put. Darn it...

Edit: Wait a sec, I remember some of what I was going to say

I honestly am trying to remain as neutral in things as possible. I never try and let myself succumb to bias. As an outsider to these boards (well kind of...don't kill me guys) I can sympathise with where they're coming from which is why I've been helping defend their case. It doesn't help that lots of people I've seen in the thread are jumping on the 'Sonic mainers don't know what they're talking about and are flawed on what they say' bandwagon without a proper understanding of both sides of the arguement

...gaaah what else was I going to say ><

 

[Napilopez]

I greatly appreciate the SBR members taking the time out to give us an intelligent and well thought out response to our arguments.

In response to vyse, projectiles are not a problem for Sonic. They just aren't. It may seem so at first in theory, but I think every competent Sonic main will agree that they are no such issue. ShadowLink pointed out the speed portions of it. Powershielding is also incredibly effective for Sonic because he gets a large, quick slide from it, allowing him to grab. In fact, against most if not all characters, it becomes a disadvantage to use projectiles as anything other than a punisher, in which case its not a significant issue anyways.

One thing SL didn't mention is that against slow shooting projectiles, SideB invincibility frames are a nice mindgamey way to get around such projectiles(Lucario Aurasphere for example).

Either way, projectiles are almost never ever an issue for Sonic, like marth typically doesn't have an issue with projectiles. Sonic just deals with them in another way.

In response to Le_THieN, thanks for that post, it explains alot. Still, some simple counterpoints:

One problem with placing in large multiregional tourneys is that regardless, of how good or not Sonic may be, it is likely the better, more recognized players will win. And we have no such people with the exception of Anther, who I still call a "baby" Sonic. In addition to this, Sonic is easily one of the most technical/difficult/hard to use/whatever you wanna call it characters in the game, and many better players simply won't take the time out to learn him when they can place so much more easily with an "easier" character. Sonic simply isn't a character you can just "pick up and play" well. Add to this the lack of Sonic mains at all, and I think his current placings mean more than what theyve accounted for so far.

I don't see why this would place him below characters like luigi samus ness and lucas, who have gotten even less rep. Sonics also have beaten some people of note.

However, you are right, what's done is done, and it isn't the SBRs fault that Sonic doesn't have better players using him or anything. As larger tournaments come up ths year, hopefully there will be more Sonic mains repping, yo.

I do think the SBR is still missing out a bit on knowledge about some of his abilities, though. Projectiles once more are a non issue, dtilts don't beat out his approaches(joking here, kinda). Sonic's approach with shield, if the Sonic is spacing right, then he should be able to grab before many characters even complete attacks, or punish them easily in ending lag. For example, in the time it takes DK to unleash his fsmash, Sonic can cover a third of final destination, or he can use a dash dance pivot to escape MKs dsmash and come back in for the grab before MK can even react with another move.

So Sonic mains, we just gotta rep mor ein large tourneys, simple as that.

 

[Kinzer]

Napi, it's up to one of us to become the "Sonic player", because nobody else is going to take the time to master a bad character and stay dedicated to him in tourneys...

One thing is for sure though, you'll be hearing my name on the West Coast in the months to come, I'm looking forward to SiN.

Everything else is spot-on though. I know for a fact the SBR will have no answer for something like Samus > Sonic, but as mentioned before, there is nothing we can do except participate and place in moar bigger tourneys... because 13-mans won't count for @#$% anymore.

 

[Browny]

yay for lethien, thanks for renewing faith :>

however your analogy can apply to every mid-tier and lower character. The problem we have (and PT players) is that we can not comprehend what the likes of mario, ike, lucas, ness and samus have done to warrant a position above them in F tier. None of those characters have placed any better (or at all) in large tournaments and their mid-small tourney results are poor while sonic is quite clearly the dominant force in the low tiers when it comes to tournament representation.

How have those 5 character mains stated a case for thier character to be worthy of being above sonic?

We know sonic probably wont place high in large tourneys etc, thats not a problem. but can you honestly say those characters have proved themselves to be more viable in a tourney situation? ATM all I see thier mains doing to support thier case is grossly overestimating their characters ability and throwing matchups no lower than 40:60 despite rarely being able to even place top 4 in anything

 

[Le_THieN]

See? I knew you guys were smart, reasonable folk. =) I'll get to more specific responses in a couple of hours - I'mma go play a few matches with my roommates.

Thanks for understanding, guys.

 

[da K.I.D.]

the only problem I see with malcom placing with bum and blue placing with atomsk, and spam and keitaro and all dem, is that regardless of how many good people are there, its still seen as just a monthly/weekly tourney that doesnt get much clout.

thats the same reason that that chuck nasty guy doesnt get PT more respect because even though thien flat out said that he trades sets and wins with his top level diddy consistently, its still a local tourney that doesnt account for much. and i dont think thats right.

if you have a weekly tourney that only has 16 people in it every week, but those 16 people are
M2K
DSF
Azen
Ninjalink
Inui
Teh Spam
CO18
TKD
Edrees
Ally
Atomsk
Hylian
Malcom
Plank
Bum
and Reflex.

you are basically saying that that tourney still wouldnt count for much because its a weekly tourney and theres only 16 people there. Even if malcom won that, It would mean that he beat the best of the best to do it. but it wouldnt be worth too much. and if thats the way it works, thats kind of upsetting.

btw, a sonic beat hylian and sethlon in tournament.
but there was only like 20 ppl there so meh...

you see what i mean?
thats my only real beef...

 

[JayBee]

this is by far the best discussion between sonic mains ive read in a good while. well done. I even appreciate how SBR members came up and gave thier opinions which are really strong as well. what started out as a "we hate SBR" thread mellowed out very well, and we seem to be nearing conclusion. DJ browny and KID impressed me with the information they needed to express, and im glad that it was heard. good job guys. But like it was said, more national representation wouldn't hurt. I hope the sonic mains can get it together and go to more of these big events get sonic ranked higher, and let the haters hate. it makes the steak sweeter. good read.

 

[AOB]

Kid - We would take the results of that tournament a lot more seriously than one with 16 unknown entrants. There's no magic algorithm to determine whether a tournament is important. Of course, one single tournament doesn't mean a whole lot either way.

 

[Tenki]

this is by far the best discussion between sonic mains ive read in a good while. well done. I even appreciate how SBR members came up and gave thier opinions which are really strong as well.

Well, it's not the same SBR members that did the Sonic Weekly Character Discussion, so it's not like these guys attracted the same animosity.

 

[ROOOOY!]

There are a hell of a lot of examples, like I said, people just need to look for them. Stickied threads are a good start.

We whine and ***** a lot because no one believes what we say, when to be honest we're telling the truth.

One thing I'd like the SBR to understand :

Complaining =/= bias.

I think we're one of the least bias character boards, and in more or less every response we mention that we don't think Sonic is mid tier, something that Gimpy doesn't seem to get in the tier list thread and tells us to accept our character as bad in his ever helpful posts.

We're not like other boards, who whine on about mid tier (ehhh, Mario boards for example) without any actual basing to their arguments whatsoever. We don't take the piss in our match-up discussions. You'd find if you looked on post #3 of the match-up thread, that most of our match-ups are disadvantages, with barely any advantages and a few neutrals. If you looked in a mid tier characters boards, the new Pit match-up chart fully completed for example, when I checked a few days ago, said that Pit had a total of 5 disadvantaged match-ups and was at the advantage to Snake. Anyone who has ever played Brawl knows that this is wrong.

That's basically just a note to people who complain a lot about us complaining, we know that our character is bad.

I'ma highlight this next bit because it's really important.

Sonic's success in tournaments, larger and small, is down to the attitude of Smashboards. Mindless statements thrown around about Sonic by people like Overswarm just further cement Sonic's position as a joke character. As a joke character, you're not taken seriously, obviously. When it comes to Sonic's turn on a boards character match-up discussion, I cannot stress how difficult it has been to get any points across. We're completely ignored and shunted just because we main a bad character who can't do anything to dtilting characters. They're basically decided in X character's favour over Sonic, and no real discussion is put into the mix other then "lol dtilt" or "outprioritise him." Obviously, when faced with a competant Sonic main who CAN handle dtilts using a magic thing called Spinshot, these people don't know what to do, and so are losing on the grounds that no one has wanted to learn the match-up.

We at Sonic boards want to find out how well he does when people stop being, quite frankly, ignorant. The purpose of Tenki's thread on how to beat Sonic is to educate people. They can learn the match-up, and actually pose a challenge to good Sonic mains, without any extraeneous variables like character inexperience affect their game. Again, considering most of Sonic's wins and success have come because Sonic is not taken seriously, we want to take these elements out the game to see if Sonic can really stand up as a potential mid tier character. If he continues at the rate he is going, I can't see how he couldn't be considered over characters with dead metagames like Lucas and Mario.


I look forward to Le Thien's responses on all this. He seems like an intelligent guy.

 

[Browny]

its not an attitude problem on SWF, its just that the majority of people in matchup discussions are very, very stupid. You cant argue with children who have no concept of the idea.

Facts, frame data, priority characteristics etc are all lost on people who cant understand it. Its not like these people are ignorant by choice. The average age on this site seems to be around 17-18 and only recently do i realise the reason no one has any idea how to debate properly is simply because they are too young to understand it. I mean ive been told that Fox's bair is an excellent spacing tool... how the hell can you debate with people who dont know what theyre talking about lol

Hence, as ive said before, I think matchup discussion threads in general are a complete waste of time and most certainly should NOT be an important consideration in tier lists. the real matchups exist between the best players who play the best of each character in tournaments, they know more than anyone else. When you base tiers (partly) off completely arbitrary lists (yay examples, lets poke fun at the marios) who list almost everything as no worse than 40:60 and advantages against a surprising amount of the cast with hardly any high-level tournament matchups between top players to work with, in an effort to make thier character look great, how can that be considered accurate?

I assume the SBR doesnt even look at these sorts of threads anyway, but since tourney results are worth nothing... :/

 

[Le_THieN]

Well D***, now I has to go win my local tourneys (fat chance, SK92 plays there), start collecting da monayz, and go to more OoS tourneys... that is to say my parents will actually let me >.>

LOL, you don't have to win; just place well, give top-shelf competitors a run for their money and make some heads turn. Regardless of whether or not you win or lose, if you demonstrate the mere capacity to compete with a character who is comparatively disadvantaged to most of the rest of the cast, people will take note of this. I learned so much from my set against Mr. 3000 at OH SNAP! v4.0 in Winner's Brackets, and I have written much on the subject of that particular match-up since then. I, too, am fully convinced that Sonic can be a legitimate contender later down the road, but we just need more guys like 3K to do what he has accomplished everywhere else other than Texas.

All we really wanted for Sonic was just one or two more spots, and to at least get the sense of security that people know why he really is there. Don't get us wrong, we love Sonic, and we just want him to be understood. For the moment, he rose, and that's good, but still a little bit lower than he should be (as far as the metagame has gone for now). Are we not being reasonable by just saying Sonic should be in the upper half of the lower section of the list? We know our character has limitations, but it just gets annoying when people speak of the same stupid things over and over... at least when it isn't correct.

I completely understand this sentiment. However, just for clarification's sake, we had no idea where everyone else was going to fall as far as the order of the tier list went (other than, of course, MK and Snake). The gaps in the tiers were determined by how big of a drop-off there was in the averages of points. We didn't look at the order of the list and just made arbitrary cut-offs, and we especially did not look at where Sonic was in F-Tier, say to ourselves, "THIS ISN'T RIGHT!" and moved him below Mario, Ness, Lucas and Samus just to spite you guys. The tier splits occurred where there was a natural gap in points. Sonic actually had a higher standard deviation than many of the other characters (meaning a handful of us had him higher while everyone else had him around the same area he was on v1.0), so not everyone thought that Sonic didn't deserve to move up. This is just the way the numbers played out.

As it has been mentioned repeatedly, the weakest portions of v2.0 are the bottom half of the list. Everyone has pointed that out, and we even admit it ourselves. There just isn't very much representation of this lower-tiered selections at major tournaments, so we admittedly went by our scant knowledge of what we knew his match-ups and move set to be, rather than explore the entirety of his current meta-game. This only makes our list imperfect, but we need dedicated Sonic mains to travel more and tear a new ******* in unsuspecting pro players so that we have a little bit more to go off of.

I'll take Samus as an example. Most of us here feel that there is no justification at all as to why she's above Sonic on the tier list. I mean, tournaments, she's no contest to Sonic. Her match-ups are as bad as Sonic's, with some of the more popular characters on the scene (Falco, Dedede, MK) causing her big problems, which I think gives Sonic the edge over her in this department, considering none of his match-ups are higher then 35:65, and only a handful are that.

Like I said, all we did was vote, take the averages of each respective vote and sort the characters accordingly. The only time bias occurred was when individual members were assigning specific characters with numerical values; other than that, the order was purely dictated by the averages, and the tier divisions determined by value gaps. We didn't look at it and intentionally move Sonic underneath Samus, who is in many ways more disadvantaged than Sonic is. I promise we will take a closer examination on the lower-tiered characters here in the next several months though. For me, I will be making closer observations this weekend in San Antonio at Final Smash 5.

One problem with placing in large multiregional tourneys is that regardless, of how good or not Sonic may be, it is likely the better, more recognized players will win.

Like I said, you don't necessarily have to win or place well. It could be that you just suffer from bad luck and end up in an insanely hard pool or brackets that you don't place well. This isn't meant to be johning in advance, but I'm just trying to point out that we do take a look at things like who people played in order to get as far as they did in a tournament, and how impressive the performance was. If you play against an established professional in an epic set with your "scrubby" Sonic, that established professional will more likely than not mention something about that set to someone else. People don't tend to forget about close matches they have against lower-tiered characters, and it's something that definitely sticks out.

A great example (as someone else has pointed out) was at Sethlon (Falco)'s newly-minted Tomball Monthlies in Tomball, TX, where Espy finished 4th or 5th, behind the likes of FlipHop (Diddy), Ultimate Razer (Snake) and Sam Boner (Fox, Luigi). It only featured under 30 players, but there were enough recognized players present for this particular victory to become notable.

Add to this the lack of Sonic mains at all, and I think his current placings mean more than what theyve accounted for so far.

These are valid reasons, but they are also johns. I'm not trying to be a jerk when I point this out, but it sounds like you guys are shoehorning yourselves into an "us against the world" scenario, when that simply isn't the case. Yes, it's true that there are an unusual amount of external factors that may have more or less sabotaged your attempts to make Sonic the new pink, but actions still speak louder than words at the end of the day. I can rant about how amazing my set with Mr. 3000 is all day in the SBR-B, and I can do so with the most amazing, poetic prose these forums will ever see; but he's just one guy, and the only guy I happen to play who happens to be amazing with Sonic. Trust me when I say that there are believers of Sonic's worth as a character in the Back Room, but we just need more people to do well at bigger tournaments for us to have more ammunition.

I don't see why this would place him below characters like luigi samus ness and lucas, who have gotten even less rep. Sonics also have beaten some people of note.

I love Luigi and I also happen to think he's amazing. His ground and aerial mobility are awful, but his attack speed, power and priority easily puts him in a whole different class than all the characters you mention. Other than that, I don't profess to know much about the Samus, Ness or Lucas meta-game to decide what the order should be, so this will be redetermined by you guys in the coming months.

We know sonic probably wont place high in large tourneys etc, thats not a problem. but can you honestly say those characters have proved themselves to be more viable in a tourney situation? ATM all I see thier mains doing to support thier case is grossly overestimating their characters ability and throwing matchups no lower than 40:60 despite rarely being able to even place top 4 in anything

LOL, funny story: I hosted one of my Smash-fests last week, and we had a small, 14-man tournament. In Loser's Finals, I went random against my crew-mate, who mains ROB, MK, and excels greatly with Mario. He went Mario, confident that I would end up with a terrible character, and I happened to get Sonic. I applied Diddy Kong tactics in this match (i.e. do not use F-smash or B-air until the appropriate KO percentages), and racked up damage with dash-dance feints to reverse grabs and lots and lots and lots of F-tilts. Using these methods, I had a surprisingly easy time killing and gimping (I eventually 2-stocked my crew-mate), and it was probably the second time I'd ever played Sonic in my life. I didn't use any of his special moves other than Spring Jump because I had no idea how to apply them, but I found him surprisingly effective if I applied the same zoning tactics I use when I play Diddy.

Moral of the story: I also think he is better than Mario. =) This atrocity will be amended in coming months!

thats the same reason that that chuck nasty guy doesnt get PT more respect because even though thien flat out said that he trades sets and wins with his top level diddy consistently, its still a local tourney that doesnt account for much. and i dont think thats right.

Trust me, I understand that this sucks just as well. I was ****** everyone in the state for months, but recognition was still eluding me. The reasons for my victories not being particularly noteworthy are understandable, though; when has Oklahoma ever been known for being a competitive state, and how good would someone like me do against real competitive players? Unfortunately, traveling is the only answer, but if you are gifted and talented enough, the character recognition will follow shortly after.

Incidentally, Chuck Nasty tied 9th place at HOBO 11, the same tournament I tied for 13th (KOS-MOS tied for 25th). He did better than I did, and all of our combined results surprised a lot of people at how well we repped Oklahoma in our first, big, major out-of-state experience. The hard truth is that no one cares that he and I beat each other all the time.

Sonic's success in tournaments, larger and small, is down to the attitude of Smashboards. Mindless statements thrown around about Sonic by people like Overswarm just further cement Sonic's position as a joke character. As a joke character, you're not taken seriously, obviously. When it comes to Sonic's turn on a boards character match-up discussion, I cannot stress how difficult it has been to get any points across. We're completely ignored and shunted just because we main a bad character who can't do anything to dtilting characters.

I don't know when or who started the trend, but it's our fault for exacerbating the situation and perpetuating the joke. There is an undeniable humor in the the D-tilt thing, but it comes across as snobby and elitist when one or two of our own guys are throwing that out purely to be antagonistic. In their slight defense though, it has been difficult to micromanage every argument that you guys were bombarding the v2.0 thread with, and some really unfriendly and downright nasty retorts were dished out in rapid-fire succession. I won't lie, either; my first instinct after being overwhelmed by that initial squabble was to just say, "Y'know what? **** ALL OF YOU LITTLE KIDS!" and be done with it.

I'm glad I didn't do that. =)

I especially wanted to do this after people started accusing my original post of being long and meaningless. The funny thing is now that no one is pissed off, you guys are actually coming around to see my original points. I haven't even reworded anything; I'm merely just repeating things that I have been saying all along. =) It's just that people are more willing to listen to each other when polarized emotion is put on the back burner.

But yeah, sorry that this is the situation that you guys have been cornered into. I can't speak for everyone, but I will do my best to wean everyone else off being a jerk about it.

Hence, as ive said before, I think matchup discussion threads in general are a complete waste of time and most certainly should NOT be an important consideration in tier lists. the real matchups exist between the best players who play the best of each character in tournaments, they know more than anyone else. When you base tiers (partly) off completely arbitrary lists (yay examples, lets poke fun at the marios) who list almost everything as no worse than 40:60 and advantages against a surprising amount of the cast with hardly any high-level tournament matchups between top players to work with, in an effort to make thier character look great, how can that be considered accurate?

Very insightful. This is why making tier list (even for a game that's been out for years) will never be a perfect process. I've been spending the last 36 hours or so trying to make you guys understand that we have so much time left in the lifespan of Brawl to make the appropriate updates and adjustments. Even though you feel like we've done Sonic a disservice with v2.0 with his relatively poor placement, it is not the end of the world. Summer will be around before you know it. Many match-ups will be revaluated. Blowouts like D3 vs. Wario may end up being a lot closer than people actually think it is, etc. We've already seen things like MK vs. Diddy swing closer to Diddy's favor, ZSS become more and more viable against top-tiered characters, G&W slowly fall from grace, and Olimar blow up the rankings. A lot of swings and shifts and reconsiderations have gone down in the span of 10 months. Now that everyone is a lot better at the game (and hopefully a lot smarter), who the hell knows what's going to happen in six months time?

I'd put money on Sonic doing some hellla cool things. *shrug* That's up to you guys, though.

 

[Camalange]

Well, you heard the man.

We just gotta get our computers and go to bigger tournaments.

Le THieN, I really appreciate the time you took discussing with us...I know we can come off as a bit...angry...sometimes, but we'll just have to work on that >_>

<3

 

[Tenki]

No, you guys just turn into angry rabid werehog fanboys every time a tier list comes up.

I saw it last time.

This time, I went on the other side and argued against Sonic's rise and stuff. :3

 

[Kinzer]

We get angry when people like Gimpy think we're a joke...

...well you know what, even if this isn't Melee, at least our best matchup isn't 4:6 our opponents favor or still worse. ^_^

 

[Chis]

I thought this thread would go like the other 'tier threads' @_@

GG's guys, even though I didn't argue much

 

[da K.I.D.]

what cam said...

i just wish there was a better way to do things as opposed to having to just say.

this is a bad way to do it but its the best we have and its better than every other option.

i wish there was a method that could just be said.. "hey, this works!"

@tenki, we get angry because we know sonic as a character is better than samus and earthbound.

 

[Browny]

pfft Tenki

you expect people to be civil when you see the arguments put against us? I wasnt angry at Sonics placing, I was furious at the way my arguments were shot down under constant claims of scrub tourneys etc. I was in that thread, and the rankings thread beforehand providing a ton of evidence to support my claims and what do i get in return? nothing but assumptions and insults.

thank god this thread has turned out MUCH better.

 

[Espy Rose]

This is exactly why I didn't post even once in the Tier List v2.0. I wanted to read everyone's own personal opinions on Sonic and the like.

Mind you, I really don't give one, two, or hell, even three rat arses about where on the tier list Sonic belongs, because regardless of where he is placed, I'm going to continue playing with and kicking *** with him.

But I also realize that there are people who bash Sonic through ignorant claims and the like, so I'm going to try my best at tournaments to solve this little dilemma revolving around the character. I do, afterall, tend to inform people at tournaments about what they can do to stop my Sonic.

As a matter of fact, I was telling Hylian how I played Sonic prior to our match at Tomball Monthly #1. I gave him a simple and quick statement of how I was going to play, if he were to go Ice Climbers.

I just told him I wouldn't get grabbed.

Le THieN, thanks for helping the other members of this subforum out with the entire Tier List fiasco, I appreciate it, and I'm sure (most, if not all of them) they do too.