I've been making small changes to my vote here and there ever since we've been able to, but there's one change in particular that I feel I should talk about, and that's Link. In my original vote I had Link up two characters (not number placements) compared to the final tier list; then following the release of the tier list a few things happened (such as Link continuing to get significant tournament results this far into the meta) that eventually convinced me that I may have underestimated him, which isn't surprising because he doesn't look that good on paper, and so atm on my vote he's up six more characters. That's significantly higher than where a lot of other people have placed him, and so I'd like to see if I can persuade you to consider moving him up yourself as part of my own defence for placing him where I have. Usually I write about Link's tech and flaws, so this should be interesting XD.
Let me just start by saying that you can safely forget most of what you know about Link from Brawl and pretty much everything you've been told about him in the competitive impressions thread. He functions as a very different character to his Brawl counterpart and everything I've ever read about him in the CI thread is wrong to some degree, except sometimes from Rizen.
What people who don't understand Link-theory tend to see is a character with sub-par mobility, slower than average moves, and a dysfunctional spam game, and so they write him off. What I'm here to tell you, among other things, is that either Link mains have found a way to make this kit work, or these bad attributes actually directly contribute towards his particular playstyle.
I can probably reduce the whole theory to a single sentence by simply saying that Link actually prefers versing rush-down over bait-and-punish playstyles. This may confuse some of you because it is typically believed that rush-down should directly counter Link, but where rush-down falls short is its predictability. Link isn't so incredibly slow that he can't deal with someone trying to get in his face, but he is laggy enough on whiff that making him unsure of whether you'll approach and be in-range or not will greatly hinder his willingness to throw out moves in anticipation of an approach.
Link thrives on making the opponent approach and making them run into his attacks, and unlike many sword characters he's got the tools to force this situation. In this sense, it's actually a good thing that there are holes in his spam-game. He wants the opponent to see an opening then go rushing in. What he has to counter their approach are huge disjoints, and I'll talk briefly about F-tilt and Grab in particular.
Link's F-tilt is one of those largely unknown super amazing attacks. It has slow start-up, yes, but the area of attack it covers is amazing, easily beating out aerial approaches and hitting deceptively far bellow stage. It does good damage (13%), is a great kill move, has low end-lag and good shield-push, and as a result is completely safe on shield. It's like a faster, better ranged version of MK's F-smash with much more active frames for catching rolls, -that obviously can't be charged and is connected to a less mobile character.
Link's Grab is pretty good for what it does. It has marginally less range than ZSS's since the buff with less start-up time. Due to his poor mobility however he won't be using it as an approach, and due to the still relatively slow start-up, it won't often be used OoS in retaliation to someone hitting his shield. Most of Link's grabs will come from reading approaches either by dashing forwards and grabbing their shield or retreating and doing a pivot grab. Once he gets a grab he has a range of guaranteed follow ups on all but 5 lucky characters
http://smashboards.com/threads/link...found-in-the-op.379659/page-35#post-20457552; notable guaranteed follow-ups include U-smash, Aerial Up-B, and U-air, all of which do great damage and have killing potential.
Other notable mentions go out to Uair for lasting longer than airdodges and autocancelling out of a FH, U-smash for being a huge three hitting monster of a move that beats pretty much everything except shield, counters, and ranged disjoints from the side, and Link's fall speed to FF speed ratio which is amazing for a bunch of reasons i.e. every reason why you would ever FF made significantly more effective, such as used in conjunction with Uair and U-smash to do empty hops and bait responses. Suffice it to say, Link's trap game against landings is top-notch.
Most people will say that Link doesn't have a combo game, and for the most part that's true. I could mention D-tilt, Boomerang, Bomb, U-tilt, D-throw, and Bair as combo starters, but in general you'll just be seeing single hits. The reason why I mention this is because I want to talk about Link's advantaged state following one of those single hits, which is another thing a lot of people don't seem to understand.
Because of Link's range he thrives on an environment where he can predict not necessarily what the opponent will do, but simply where they'll be, because in most exchanges, so long as he can get within range and he spaces correctly, he'll beat them anyway or be able to return to neutral. [Note that most of the attacks he'll actually be using in neutral are all safe on shield (or are safe insofar as there is a mix-up) if spaced properly.] So when Link gets a hit and the opponent is e.g. in the air or off-stage or lying/teching on a platform, it becomes much easier for Link to predict where they'll be and space accordingly. The advantaged state for Link therefore isn't so much about being in their face and getting combos/strings as it is about abusing the fact that it becomes easier to read where the opponent will be. Because of this he doesn't need the fastest ground speed or the quickest attacks, he just needs to out-range the opponent's available options and continue to get those single hits, which he does very well.
Like most characters who do surprisingly well for some unexplainable reason (hint: rage may be a factor), Link is a heavy character who is able to recover consistently, thanks in no small part due to being able to e.g. throw projectiles to cover the ledge and stop/deter people from coming off-stage, FF airdodge tether for when they do jump up and go off-stage, throw Fair out which is a two hit meaty attack that can kill from the other side of the stage and has great range, and use two Up-special recoveries if necessary (which is guaranteed every time if he pulls a bomb immediately).
The results Link has been getting this far into the development of the meta, not so much at a national level in America, but pretty much everywhere else, just don't reflect that of a low tier character. Rizen has made posts about it before
http://smashboards.com/threads/4br-...tive-impressions.429826/page-73#post-20920571 and there's also the tournament results thread on the Link boards for sources
http://smashboards.com/threads/link-tournament-results-thread-25th-october.404196/.
The point I'll just make for now is that
immediately following the release of the official tier list, we had:
Izaw placing 9th out of 87
http://smashboards.com/threads/link...read-25th-october.404196/page-5#post-20828527
Huggles placing 2nd out of 47
http://smashboards.com/threads/link...read-25th-october.404196/page-5#post-20847050
Seven placing 4th out of 68
http://smashboards.com/threads/link...read-25th-october.404196/page-5#post-20848130 then later 3rd out of 73
http://smashboards.com/threads/link...read-25th-october.404196/page-5#post-20908646
Izaw and Catana placing 4th and 5th respectively out of 128
http://smashboards.com/threads/link...read-25th-october.404196/page-5#post-20848183
Scizor placing 1st out of 68
http://smashboards.com/threads/link...read-25th-october.404196/page-5#post-20858118
Then at Beast VI we had Izaw placing 9th out of 267, and if Cat had gone there would have been another similar result for Link at this tournament
https://smash.gg/tournament/beast-6/brackets/10660/10838/38057
The likes of Unknown, Hyrule Hero and Requiem are also well worth mentioning, all getting consistently great results; it's just that I deliberately restricted myself to tournament results occurring immediately after the release of the tier list.
These kinds of results have been steadily coming in since the release of the game and have, if anything, been getting better with recent patches. (E.g. the recent Fair buff that allows us to kill confirm out of Bombs now or just flat-out destroy stocks with Fair; also the damage buff incidentally made it even safer on shield when landing.)
These aren't the results of a low tier character. I've tried to explain the theory behind how this is possible, how it is that a character that looks bad on paper can get these results this far into the development of the meta.
Anyone who put Link in their bottom 10 needs to reevaluate his placement. Anyone who put him in their bottom 15 might want to consider giving him a boost. I've placed him higher still based on what I know and what I've seen, but in the end it's your call. I just gave up on trying to ignore what was right in front of me and trying to insist that it was just a matter of time and then people would realise how bad Link was; over time I was forced to see him in a different light, and now I'm finally simply giving him credit where credit is due.
