Tier List Speculation

[xquqx]

What happened to "Yoshi is sleeper OP" in PM

He legit went from like 5th place to last on people's lists

3.6b came out

 

[DMG]

you were saying?

Posts from Ripple always leave a warm spot in my heart

Edit: Did they gut Yoshi's parry or something??? Ew get that filthy thing away from me

 

[G13_Flux]

I personally think Fox loses to Ike, but I haven't seen the matchup at a high level with Fox winning. Ike has QD movement options to play around fox's dash dance, and has the world's easiest time edge guarding space animals with Fair's giant hitbox. Also, Ike has grab combos for days. Ike doesn't do well against shield pressure, but he has enough movement options to avoid getting put in that situation.

So there's my intermediate level analysis on why Ike beats Fox on a character level. It's important to keep in mind that Ike is far from being optimized and has crazy good tools, while Fox is much closer to that front. Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong, it makes for good discussion.

I also have suspicions that MK, DDD, Rob, and Marth beat Fox in PM, but I don't know enough about those characters to say that with any amount of confidence.

Edit: And for the record, I just said there's no way Fox has zero losing matchups in PM. He may still be #1, but he probably doesn't beat all 40 other characters in terms of matchup stats.

I really dont think ike beats fox. unfornately, while QD is great for burst movement, its not really a neutral tool in MUs where the opponent has a great DD, speed in general, and good approach options. when performed, even though he has options, hes still commiting himself to approaches that will be beat by characters with strong neutral games. if youre going to use QD to try and grab, aerial approach, or bait and WD backwards, you might as well just run > grab, run > aerial approach, or DD, respectively. strong DD characters can keep a tight spacing with ike such that any QD attempt can be stuffed. when you look at ikes neutral options from that standpoint, nothing is really remarkable. average DD, average grab range, average speed, less than remarkable tilts (from a neutral standpoint at least), and not a ton of ways to combat CCing. bassically, ike needs a grab. characters that have strong neutrals typically have at least one other, quick, lower commitment neutral option to either slap people out of a DD when theyre not CCing, or at least play the spacing game and box them out (roy dtilt, MK dtilt, DDD ftilt, fox/faclo nair, wolf nair, falcon nair, etc.). none of ikes normals really serve that purpose. ftilt doesnt have enough speed or range, or even power at a range for it to be a good neutral tool. dtilt is too slow, despite its low cooldown, and nair isnt out in front of him quick enough, nor does it have the quick landing lag needed for it to be a good approach option, considering that its relatively easily CCed especially when not at the hilt. bair is quick and has good power, but not enough horizontal range to serve as a spacing option like ZSSs or DKs. What does this all leave him with? try and get a grab with your average DD and grab range in a game with characters like fox, wolf, falcon, roy, marth, ZSS, MK, diddy, etc. its just.. difficult.

now dont get me wrong, when ike does get a hit, QD is amazing for allowing him to keep the gap closed, while not necearily committing to heavily to a move that would only cover one option (ie, a tech, combo escape, etc.). his ability to continue punishes, work an opponent offstage, and guard the ledge is very very good, but he just needs a hit first to do that. so i cant really see ike beating fox, especially with his terrible OOS options, worse even than ZSSs, who is another character that loses to fox mostly for that reason (not entirely, but thats the big one).

switching characters (and unrelated to the above paragraphs), i personally do believe that MK beats fox. he has a very comparable DD but coupled with lower commitment, disjointed moves like dtilt and ftilt, and a rewarding CC. This means that MK has plenty of ways to get a converion without putting himself at too much of a risk, and since his moves are quick and disjointed, neutral game interaction isnt going to be too heavily in one sides favor. MK is going to survive a bit longer imo however than fox is, since its incredibly easy for him to work fox offstage and get a gimp, but no so easy for fox to get a gimp on MK in return. MK has decent survivability vertically, so that will help in living from uairs and upsmashes, even if its relatively minor. The main thing here is how if feel the neutral game plays out. similar neutral interactions happen with characters like marth and roy, but they are actually a bit easier to edge guard or at least put them at a distance that they are not coming back from. The relative survivability on MKs part in this MU is going to be key for him.

 

[Bazkip]

If something allows you to move quickly while still having most of the options you might use in neutral available to you, then it's probably a neutral tool.

Ike's grab is also well above average.

 

[DMG]

I stopped reading that big post at "Ike QD is not really a neutral tool"

 

[G13_Flux]

If something allows you to move quickly while still having most of the options you might use in neutral available to you, then it's probably a neutral tool.

Ike's grab is also well above average.

against characters that have a really good DD, QD is in fact, not a neutral tool. if your playing someone with an average DD, sure, you can probably get some milage out of it. All a fox player has to do though is keep a tight range close to ike to pressure him, and any attempt to use QD is going to get stuffed by a nair approach.

ikes grab range is pretty decidedly average. there are plenty of characters with longer grab ranges. its not terribly hard to test that. ike in 2.5 had a decent grab range, but they nerfed that, then only slightly recompensated iirc.

I stopped reading that big post at "Ike QD is not really a neutral tool"

same as above. in the fox MU, ike will get stuffed pretty often by a fox playing the neutral correctly. If you want to ignore all the well reasoned comments i made pertaining to the MU, be my guest. but its not really worth much to anyones conversation.

 

[Bazkip]

against characters that have a really good DD, QD is in fact, not a neutral tool. if your playing someone with an average DD, sure, you can probably get some milage out of it. All a fox player has to do though is keep a tight range close to ike to pressure him, and any attempt to use QD is going to get stuffed by a nair approach.

ikes grab range is pretty decidedly average. there are plenty of characters with longer grab ranges. its not terribly hard to test that. ike in 2.5 had a decent grab range, but they nerfed that, then only slightly recompensated iirc.

That doesn't mean it's not a neutral option though, it just means some characters are able to deal with it very well. It's perfectly valid to point to that as a reason that Ike might have difficulty in a matchup, but to say it's not a neutral tool is false.

As for grab range, I'm pretty sure it's just the tether characters, DDD, Marth, Roy (and maybe a couple of other characters that I'm forgetting) with better grab ranges. That's definitely above average.

 

[DMG]

If Fox doesn't get hard Nair, you probably can ASDI down while getting hit out of QD and cheese him with a grab or something. QD is pretty good, even against faster chars. Obv it's not flawless and totally usable against all characters in all situations, but it's pretty bueno. The breathe of options he has is bueno. Muy bueno. Queso blanco bueno.

It's harder to use against Fox Falcon Sonic and others cause they fly around with the speed of Satan's Anus on a Rocket. That's like a flaw 90% of tools have to deal with because holy cow they are fast.

 

[G13_Flux]

That doesn't mean it's not a neutral option though, it just means some characters are able to deal with it very well. It's perfectly valid to point to that as a reason that Ike might have difficulty in a matchup, but to say it's not a neutral tool is false.

As for grab range, I'm pretty sure it's just the tether characters, DDD, Marth, Roy (and maybe a couple of other characters that I'm forgetting) with better grab ranges. That's definitely above average.

youre right. i should have specified a bit better. the comment was specifically pertaining to the fox MU, as well as any other characters with very strong neutral options.

ive cited this a bunch, but i think its super useful:

http://imgur.com/Mrzepjz courtesy of magus420

Theres 14 characters above ike here, and that doesnt include the tether characters (olimar, ivy, link, tink, yoshie, samus, and lucas). Including the tethers, that makes 21 characters that have a larger grab range than ike, putting him below the median. its still a decent grab range for all practical uses, but when youre playing the quickest characters in the game, it doesnt have much notable going for it.

 

[Bazkip]

youre right. i should have specified a bit better. the comment was specifically pertaining to the fox MU, as well as any other characters with very strong neutral options.

ive cited this a bunch, but i think its super useful:

http://imgur.com/Mrzepjz courtesy of magus420

Theres 14 characters above ike here, and that doesnt include the tether characters (olimar, ivy, link, tink, yoshie, samus, and lucas). Including the tethers, that makes 21 characters that have a larger grab range than ike, putting him below the median. its still a decent grab range for all practical uses, but when youre playing the quickest characters in the game, it doesnt have much notable going for it.

Oh damn I thought he leaned forwards more than that lmao my b

 

[DMG]

Ike's foot is sticking out far from his body. If he shifted his upper body to where his foot was, and stood up straight like Marth/Roy, his grab range would probably look like Roy's tbh

 

[Ripple]

I feel as though you'd get a much better idea of how big a characters grab range is by comparing it to distance from shield. not from standing position

 

[JesteRace]

Remember when people thought Ike was the Fox counter cause Ally beat M2K that one time? Sheesh people are so quick to react what could very well be(and in fact, turned out to be) an outlier.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Yoshi had the air grab removed, shield loses full shield party (just his nose?), dairs landing hit was removed so it isn't safe on hit till 50's, double jump can't be footstooled. I think that was it going into 3.6b/F. I think the sleeper top ten feeling was just from the 3.0 -> 3.5 transition (like Ike being top 5). I dont think he is bottom 10 or sleeper top 10, I think Yoshi is in a similar spot as Squirtle: Just above bottom 10 until results/development proves otherwise.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Actually I'm still playing around with Yoshi; I think he might be able to do it.

 

[SunJester]

I always got the impression Yoshi is really hard to play but didn't have as high of a "peak" as other hard to play characters.

He turned a few heads in Melee, I think if someone was willing to put the time in they could turn him into a solid character.

Edit: I realize you could say that about a lot of characters, but I think Yoshi has some of the highest potential of the current "low tier" characters.

 

[G13_Flux]

hes still one of the hardest characters to get a proper conversion on. heavy weight, frame 1 combo escape + counter, great CC moves with dtilt and dsmash, and still has invincbility on his nose on shield start up. gotta count for something.

 

[Luk101]

I think Ness would be at least even with yoshi in terms of being the "highest potential low tier". Maybe Icies as well, but they have more guaranteed setups than either of these two, especially Ness.

 

[G13_Flux]

I think Ness would be at least even with yoshi in terms of being the "highest potential low tier". Maybe Icies as well, but they have more guaranteed setups than either of these two, especially Ness.

i honestly dont even think ness is low tier, or considered to be low tier. i think hes pretty solid atm, and probably sits right in what would be B tier, imo. (going by S > A > B > C > F). Hes had a pretty decent amount of good repuation and some relative success too.

 

[redbeanjelly]

**** yoshi, **** icies, Ness is definitely the best of the worst

 

[Luk101]

Good point, wasn't sure exactly where low tier cut off at lol. Carry on.

 

[Blue6969]

Hi, hey! Sorry to interject, buuut... What's the general consensus on Link's placement in the tier list? I'm sure you guys have probably discussed it, but I thought it'd be easier to ask/start the discussion, rather than going back and reading 1,000 pages.

 

[Saproling]

Mid most likely.

 

[GabPR]

Now that PM is gold I would like to ask about a problem I have noticed. It seems that whenever there is some type of speculated tier list it just gets lost in the discussion, I was wondering if there will be some kind of sticky or main page that could fix this in the future?

 

[Life]

Opinions on Link range from "strictly worse version of Toon Link with a bugged grab" to "this guy is heavy and has a sword and projectiles, what do I do" to "fine I guess."

There is no consensus. The closest thing to a consensus is Fox being the best, and people even question that sometimes (if usually ineffectually).

 

[_Chrome]

I for one put Link as being in the "kinda sorta competitive" tier, just outside of the "these characters probably aren't competitive" tier (ie the tier above Bowser's tier containing a few other characters).

 

[G13_Flux]

well, what good MUs does link have? i can see him beating people like DK, DDD, and bowser (huge targets for projectiles, general weakness towards projectiles), and maybe other slower characters like ganon or zelda. But who among S,A, or B teir does he beat? i cant see him beating any of the spacies, diddy, or MK. cant see him beating rob, ZSS, roy, marth, ike, tink, lucas, shiek, lucario, mario, wario, sonic, peach or CF.

the best possiblities i can see him in winning in are snake, GW, ness, ivy, mayyybe m2 or luigi.. im sure there might be a couple others, but those are the best i got right now. even if he won all of those however, theres a significant chunk of whats most likely S and A tier that he maybe will go even with at best (if not ALL of S and A tier). it seems that any likely winning MUs he has might be limited to the cast thats under the most competent teirs, which is going to make him B at absolute best.

thats also going by the possible MUs ive laid out. I have some good link experience, but i could be wrong.

 

[_Chrome]

I can guarantee Marth loses to Link in this game. In Melee it was a relatively even MU and Link is quite a bit stronger in this game. I mained this guy in Melee for a few years (I don't have too much PM experience with him) but he probably beats ZSS, goes even with Tink, evenish with Ike, beats Roy, does well against Lucas, and about even with Mario. He beats Sonic, destroys Peach (she can rarely win against Link in this game and never against Tink), and most people agree Link beats Wario as well. He gets absolutely destroyed by CF in this game and in Melee, but the Sheik MU has gotten a lot easier. Snake, GW, Ness, Ivy, M2 and Luigi are easy for the most part. Overall I'd say Link's MU spread is okay-ish... I wouldn't say it's good or bad, just kinda lackluster at the bottom line.

 

[Player -0]

Link loses to a lot of top tiers.

See: Sheik, Falcon, (imo) MK, Fox, Falco (no one plays Falco kek). Probably other stuff but we lazy boys.

 

[Saproling]

well, what good MUs does link have? i can see him beating people like DK, DDD, and bowser (huge targets for projectiles, general weakness towards projectiles), and maybe other slower characters like ganon or zelda. But who among S,A, or B teir does he beat? i cant see him beating any of the spacies, diddy, or MK. cant see him beating rob, ZSS, roy, marth, ike, tink, lucas, shiek, lucario, mario, wario, sonic, peach or CF.

the best possiblities i can see him in winning in are snake, GW, ness, ivy, mayyybe m2 or luigi.. im sure there might be a couple others, but those are the best i got right now. even if he won all of those however, theres a significant chunk of whats most likely S and A tier that he maybe will go even with at best (if not ALL of S and A tier). it seems that any likely winning MUs he has might be limited to the cast thats under the most competent teirs, which is going to make him B at absolute best.

thats also going by the possible MUs ive laid out. I have some good link experience, but i could be wrong.

Ivy goes even imo.

 

[G13_Flux]

I can guarantee Marth loses to Link in this game. In Melee it was a relatively even MU and Link is quite a bit stronger in this game. I mained this guy in Melee for a few years (I don't have too much PM experience with him) but he probably beats ZSS, goes even with Tink, evenish with Ike, beats Roy, does well against Lucas, and about even with Mario. He beats Sonic, destroys Peach (she can rarely win against Link in this game and never against Tink), and most people agree Link beats Wario as well. He gets absolutely destroyed by CF in this game and in Melee, but the Sheik MU has gotten a lot easier. Snake, GW, Ness, Ivy, M2 and Luigi are easy for the most part. Overall I'd say Link's MU spread is okay-ish... I wouldn't say it's good or bad, just kinda lackluster at the bottom line.

Really? its kind of hard to see why marth loses, can you explain more? im a dual roy/ZSS main, and i can pretty confidently say that he doesnt beat roy. roy has quicker movement, quicker moves, with less cooldown, and far more effective conversions. he also has longer pokes in neutral, again, with quicker start up and less cooldown than many of links moves. a lot of roys aerials become a lot more safe on shield as well (nair for instance) which gives him an even better approach game. I can see him going closer to even with ike since ike has slower normals and worse pokes, despite a better survivability.

I also dont think ZSS loses to link. he just simply is not fast enough to deal with her, coupled with the fact that she actually has some crazy spacing/disjointed moves. again, some of her approaches become a lot safer. fair, for instance, is good at getting through projectiles, and is normally tricky to stay safe with on shield because its -4. link has a terrible time coming up with much to punish that effectively however.

what are some of the reasonings on some of those MUs?

 

[JesteRace]

The most relevant top/high tier matchups that he wins solidly are G&W and Samus. Link vs. FE is debatable but I think he's even or +1 vs. all of them. Do not underestimate Link's ability to keep these characters out. They have great punish games but they do not have an easy time getting in on Link. The whole reason Link does relatively well vs. Marth in Melee is because he wins the neutral at far range and only slightly loses at mid-range because he has similar range with his sword and only loses to essentially perfect spacing. In PM, he has a new tool that makes a huge difference: Zair. Not one of the FE characters have a move that beats Link's zair, and it pops up for easy follow-ups? Fuh-getta-bout it. Do not underestimate Link's punish game on these characters either. They all have ideal weight/fall speeds for Link. The real struggle Link has in these matchups is they all edgeguard him fairly well, but Link still wins neutral, if not by a whole lot. +1 imo.

Link's actual bad matchups are Falco/Falcon/Sheik. MK might be bad, I don't actually think Fox is THAT bad, and the rest of the top high tiers he's either even with or -1 at worst. It's really just Falco/Falcon/Sheik that are god-awful.

 

[_Chrome]

Well, JesteRace covered my explanation for me. Thank god, because I'm on mobile. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I'll give a short explanation on Link versus ZSS. Link has chain throws (dthrow) for pretty much ever, and his ledge punishes on her are crazy. She generally loses to sword characters (minus MK and if you count Pit as a {sword} character), and Link's super good range really hurts her.

 

[eideeiit]

Here's a match of HoT vs Axe from LTC3

1st game is Link vs Marty.

Some things I notice/think:

Both players seem a bit sloppy(?)
Trades favor Link usually
Marth has trouble keeping Link at the range where he can threaten him, Link can fairly easily fall back, perhaps with a rang, or move forward with nair or fair
Marth's aerials lose to shield pretty often.
Link has safe stuff on shield.
Lots of run-in-shields from Marth. Usually they seem to force a bit of a scramble not in Marth's favor, as he can only really attack OoS with aerials.
Once Link reaches a certain %, like 50, he seems to get comboed pretty bad.


Idk, this match may not be the best example as HoT should have a massive advantage in MU knowledge, though Axe did beat him at Aftershock(?) so it's not that bad. Axe also seems to play in the air an awful lot and gets caught there pretty often. Whether it's just his general style or a real strategy, idk.

 

[G13_Flux]

in 3.02, yeah i can totally see it. but in 3.6, now with a rang thats not active until frame 27, its just hard to see. I was not aware that link could contest with marth in neutral in melee, and even with your explanation, its still hard to understand why. marth has more range, and quicker moves at that range as well. link could possible "win at the long range" but what can he get off that? once marth closes the distance, what exactly does he have to keep marth out? Ive also not really seen anybody do it, so going against a view that matches results with theory (at least, my theory) is a bit hard imo.

As far as ZSS goes, she doesnt lose to marth or ike imo. its not a sword thing usually, its more about how one can contest her mobility in neutral (typically high speed coupled with long last hitboxes is was she loses to, aka fox, falcon, wolf, falco). Shes loses to roy because roy has arguably the best punish on her tether in the game, but also because his neutral is incredibly threatening to her specifically. her aerial approaches arent as good as others (both nair and fair are not exactly B&B approaches), thus roy can be assured that he can dtilt like crazy without her having a ton of answers to it. she also cannot work an effective CC game against roy, and with the threat of being punished terribly hard from a botched attempt at CCing, its kind rough. she doesnt have this same threat with marth or ike. applying this to link, his neutral isnt quite like roys. at a range, yeah he can get a rang out, but pulling a bomb is VERY difficult in this MU, not only because of her high speed but because her projectile is just straight quicker and has less cooldown than any of links. at a closer range, he just doesnt have the speed, or non-committal aspect to his moves that are reminiscent of a powerful ability to punish the fastest characters in the game. he does have good punishes on her tether, i will give him that, but i just think its very difficult for link to actually get the hit he needs in neutral to be able to work his punish game. She can also crawl under links stuff, which adds up, even if just slightly. im not gonna go out an say that ZSS kills link, and i theres always the possibility that its even, but i just cant see how she loses that one. Ive had some experience vs link with her, and thats what its shown me. it would be good to see the match up played out by the best ZSSs and Links, though i dont think it happens all that much unfortunately.

 

[eideeiit]

Doesn't AZ have Blue and Vixen? Though she doesn't play anymore or something?

Also Socal's Jfalls and Tristan's Rule must've played it at least a few times.

 

[_Chrome]

Here's Ottawa's number one Smasher and the best Link in the World versus the Moon. If you haven't seen it already, maybe this'll help you understand how the Link versus Marth MU works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6FFMcDtBM8

 

[JesteRace]

Trades favor Link usually.

This is due to Link's ridiculous damage output which gets overlooked a lot. Luigi also has a similarly high output, which causes a lot of Gamestop trades and makes everyone complain about his "priority"

 

[Blue6969]

Yeah, AZ has Blue. But Vixen isn't active anymore, so there's not much ZSS vs Link information to be gleamed from there.
SoCal has Tristan and JFalls, but Tristan plays Tink, not Link, so... No Link/ZSS information there, either.

I don't think Link has a great advantage against many of the high-tier characters, but I also don't think he's very disadvantaged either. Perhaps it's just due to my playstyle, but I typically only struggle against Captain Falcon. I can definitely see why Sheik, Fox, and Falco have the advantage over Link, buuut... I don't want this message to get too long, so I'll try to summarize each of these matchups very quickly.

Hylian shield invalidates Sheik's needles and forces her to approach you. Also, you can DI her D-Throw and B-Throw on-reaction so as to avoid any of her nasty followups on bad DI.

You can use a combination of Shorthop -> N-Air and Fullhop -> Nair to get under/over Falco's lasers and hit him, and if you get caught in his pillars, Link can N-Air out of them at low percents (after getting D-Air'd, Link can usually throw out a N-Air before Falco can touch the ground.)

Fox is... I don't really have a game plan against him, but as long as you can consistently SDI the first hit of his U-Air, and SDI his drill in order to mix up the direction/distance you go when he shines you, Link should live for an annoyingly long time.

As for Falcon, well... Captain Falcon's N-air is the best projectile in the game, and it really puts our boomerang to shame. I suspect that Link's DACUS would do wonders in this matchup, but I can't DACUS consistently, so I haven't implemented that in any of my sets against Falcon.

Anyways, sorry for rambling for so long. I hope this information helps out somebody with either making a tier list, or dealing with these matchups.

 

[Luk101]

Captain Falcon's N-air is the best projectile in the game

This is so accurate it hurts.