Tier List Speculation

[~Frozen~]

Confusion doesn't do a whole lot vs Tink's bombs due to their physics and he isn't likely to be hit by a reflected boomerang since most Tinks won't throw it horizontally. Tink's combo game is also well suited to hit floaties hard and M2 being huge does him no favors. Glide Toss is great to have against him though.

I've played the MU a lot vs DVD who's definitely in the running for best Toon Link and I'm pretty sure Lunchables hasn't fought a Mewtwo of my caliber or even close to it. I'm much more unfamiliar with Roy though. (Not that I'd win for sure if I knew it; I think his Roy is certainly better than his Tink)

I wouldn't call Roy a bad MU though. Probably even, could possibly even be like 55-45 Mewtwo when played optimally. Falcon/Ike are said to beat M2 but I feel they're both even or very close to it. Wolf/ZSS/Pit feel like 45-55's. Tink is probably a 4-6. All are very doable, just kinda frustrating and a little uphill.

 

[DMG]

I put Falcon as even with Mewtwo awhile ago and got grumbles about Dthrow Knee / Knee in general, like it was a foreign concept Falcon might not beat everyone to a pulp with LR LR Knee. People surprisingly more pessimistic about Mewtwo's chances (in a couple key MU's) than I would have assumed.

 

[Life]

Last time I saw Mewtwo vs. Falcon a few months ago, M2 wasn't getting hit by dthrow knee all that much. Think it was Frozen vs. someone.

There are zero brakes on the Mewtwo hype train for me!

 

[Deleted member]

idk CF vs M2 looks pretty damn bad- lot more to do with upair or nair than knee

 

[shairn]

M2 is a fat Floaty without a particularly good projectile game so I feel like he should have some trouble with CF. Is his tail still a huge disjoint? I don't remember if that was ever a thing. I feel like that matchup is sort of like Peach/CF but worse.

Tune in next time for my in-depth analysis of matchups concerning characters I don't play

 

[Kapapanerp]

idk CF vs M2 looks pretty damn bad- lot more to do with upair or nair than knee

Exactly. You definitely can escape from some of his kill setups, but you still get juggled to hell and back.

M2 is a fat Floaty without a particularly good projectile game so I feel like he should have some trouble with CF. Is his tail still a huge disjoint? I don't remember if that was ever a thing. I feel like that matchup is sort of like Peach/CF but worse.

Tune in next time for my in-depth analysis of matchups concerning characters I don't play

I believe about half his tail disjointed, not 100% on that though.

 

[~Frozen~]

Only the tip (bulb? the part where it's more round basically) is disjointed.

 

[Zach777]

I have tested to see where M2s hurtbox ends on his tail a while back. If you look at M2's tail in the pause menu, zoom into where it starts to shrink in radius. Right at the point(almost) where M2's tail is the tiniest is where the hurtbox ends. I assume the hurtbox stays that way through all of M2's animations.

So basically what Frozen said.

 

[mimgrim]

grumbles about Dthrow Knee

I'm pretty sure Dthrow Knee doesn't even work on Mewtwo at kill percents because M2 gets out of hitstun before Falcon can Knee him and thus can interrupt him before he gets Knee out. But there are other things Falxon can do. But M2 has **** to. So yea I'm prwtty sure it closer to even and could go a small in either's favor.

My personal worse MU as M2 gas been against Marth and Ganondorf (although Dorf seems to be my worst with any character tbh lmao).

 

[G13_Flux]

Marth because their flaw is no sword

That's what I was referring to with strengths that mitigate weaknesses. There are other parts of her recovery that let her avoid the tether issue entirely, but it's still a weakness if she is forced to reel in on a hogged edge.

I've been told ZSS beats Marth. I'm not really convinced, though.

ZSS beats marth for a number of reasons. the big one is that marth doesnt do that well in neutral vs her. Shes a faster character, arguably has the best overall mobility in the game, has disjointed moves, and a projectile with pretty low commitment. when it comes to punishes, shes pretty good at gettiing out of juggles with down b. marths only reliable way to put you in the air is uthrow, and when zss can manage juggles from it pretty well, that significantly deters marths punish game on her. marth also doesnt edge guard her very well, and his punish game on her tether hop is very bad. pretty sure marth can manage a bit better on smaller stages, since its easier for him to cover platforms and its harder for zss to manage certain approaches (things like fsmash and dtilt) when she has less space to work with. but most small stages also have walls (yoshis, WW, GHZ, FoD kinda), which boosts her recovery a lot. ZSSs punishes usually get better on smaller stages too. id argue that marth AT BEST goes even with her on FoD and maybe yoshis. other maps like PS2, FD, dreamland, delfinos, etc. are going to favor ZSS.

Ive played this MU a lot, and im very convinced on it.

 

[DMG]

I think his neutral vs her is fine. It's the other areas of the MU that start to fall off. You're expected to have a recovery, or a decent attempt at one, as ZSS. Marth doesn't have a lot of good choices. ZSS can maintain the juggle or maintain the positional advantage from below, Marth has a harder time. Kill power is flexible and ever-present as ZSS, so on and so forth.

Actual neutral isn't crippling imo. It's lame cause both chars can move around and play safe, but overcoming an annoying neutral isn't a problem for Marth unless the rest of the MU is in the poo. If you are super godly, you can craft a pretty strong neutral that's not gonna get cheesed or overly baited as him, but you may not be able to fix other discrepancies between the characters. If ZSS "won" neutral at the current rate, but lost some other top attributes, Marth could quite easily pull ahead by maintaining a high enough level neutral and winning in other areas. Who "wins" neutral could come down to whatever player is more experienced or plays better for that day, while other areas may boil down to character stats more.

There's possibly massive growth and variablity in neutral, with everything past that much more narrow and focused. Equalizing or accepting a small disadvantage in neutral seems fine if you cover the bases beyond well.

 

[redbeanjelly]

his punish game on her tether hop is very bad

But ledgehop Bair covers the forced reel-in, regardless of how she chooses to drift. Can you not rinse and repeat that, or does she still have mixups after getting hit by one Bair?

 

[DMG]

I don't think ledge hop Bair would cover her drifting full onstage very well. Fair might but that would be fairly weak. On full drift onstage, you'd probably have to empty land / ledge dash and take a free Fsmash, Dair, maybe grab etc.

 

[Deleted member]

no its correct that ledge hop bair covers zss tether reel in well, the real issue is she can always just hold in and never get a tip hit or anything else that actually kills her, she just gets a weak blade hit and usually a free reset to neutral.

also skipped that marth upthrow on zss at 0% is half her stock, without that the MU would be garbage.

 

[Boiko]

In my opinion, ZSS beats Marth solidly. Marth has up throw>whatever, but it doesn't matter, because she can just SDI and then down b out of the combo. Couple that with her great landing mix ups, and juggling her becomes somewhat challenging. It's still possible, and you can still get good damage on her, but it doesn't mean much where there are no reliable ways to kill her. Marth has great edge guarding against a significant portion of the cast, but not her. I've gotten most of my kills with fair>fsmash, which isn't the most reliable set up.

She goes at least even with him in neutral, if not beating him, has amazing combos, and edge guards for early kills, and has the resources to set ups kills at mid percentages if she can't land an edge guard. I really can't fathom why people think Marth wins this match up.

Edit: And don't forget, she can tether before jumping, so if you hold ledge and she drifts back, she can uair you off of ledge then jump>up b. You really need to respect her resources when she's recovering.

 

[G13_Flux]

stage layout is key in this MU. marth definitely loses neutral on big stages. Its not cripplingly bad, but enough that i think its quite noticeable for the marth player. ZSS just has way to much room to manage his sword, and its very difficult for marth to pin her down in one spot. even if she kind of gets pushed to towards one side of the stage, she has tons of ability to use the large platform layout to get marth to commit to covering space with an attack somewhere. if he tries to cover her options on a platform, shes likely just going to out-jump him, burst down to ground level, and either put him at worse positioning or simply reset the neutral. Marth needs a somewhat difficult read on her movement on big stages.

smaller stages are better for marth. he doesnt need to move as far to cover the space that ZSS could potentially exploit and doesnt have to worry as much about not being able to pin her down. If ZSS takes to platform camping, marth doesnt have to risk a good deal of possible stage positioning anymore in trying to attack her up there. ZSS is forced to rely less on platform exploits, and more on RPS approaches. because of the speed, DD ability, and reach both characters have, a smaller stage is going to involve a significantly larger amount of interaction, which marth definitely wants since "attacking her attacks" works pretty well when shes forced to interact. luckily for ZSS, she still has the tools to at least manage this style (projectile to force reactions; dsmash, side b, and nair as relevant disjoint). she would just prefer her larger stage layout against him. another bonus for her is that shes actually pretty damn good on the ledge with 10 frames of actionable intangibility, and two jumps to get her back on stage. getting crammed and pushed towards the ledge isnt the worst thing for her, and she can usually manage a reset to neutral from that position. marths dtilt really does nothing to her at the ledge.

and in regards to tether punishes, its not that marth cant cover her options, its just that he generally cant get anything useful out of it like was mentioned above. bair will get a dinky hit after she lands that likely puts her back towards the ledge with jump and down b refreshed. dair you would think would be good, but with a ~10 frame reel in, its not possible to react to get a spike. dair onstage comes to mind for a set up, but it generally gets marth nothing. fair gets nothing, nair gets nothing, uair gets next to nothing, fsmash gets a sourspot.. with good DI, ZSS can usually manage a reset to neutral eventually unless shes at like 150+ where sourspot fsmash might kill. Other than that, shes generally put back offstage with her down b and DJ regained. This is opposed to things like roys dair that gets him A TON of punish options that likely segway into kills, falcons stomp > knee, fox usmash, wolf dair > side b, etc. and like was also mentioned above, ZSS STILL has options to deal with opponents trying to get her in a tether hop situation.

edit: to sum up the top two paragraphs (both were completely about neutral) ZSS wins big stages, goes even on small stages.

 

[Zach777]

For Marth in a tether punish scenario, would he be able to waveland to wavedash past ZSS to run to perfect pivot to f-smash tipper her?
I know that sounds like alot, but pping in this game is pretty easy and if a Marth trained for getting a tipper f-smash out of pp, would it be an actually reliable punish?

Even if ZSS got tricky with her drift, Marth might be still hit her with sourspot f-smash and send her back off stage.

 

[G13_Flux]

For Marth in a tether punish scenario, would he be able to waveland to wavedash past ZSS to run to perfect pivot to f-smash tipper her?
I know that sounds like alot, but pping in this game is pretty easy and if a Marth trained for getting a tipper f-smash out of pp, would it be an actually reliable punish?

Even if ZSS got tricky with her drift, Marth might be still hit her with sourspot f-smash and send her back off stage.

frame data wise, its technically possible. I just tested it. ledge dash > pivot fsmash is a 50 frame sequence (tipper will hit on frame 50 at its max range). this requires marth to pivot on basically the very last frame of his initial dash animation. past that, he can no longer perfect pivot. if he pivots too soon though, he will hit the sour spot if ZSS has tether hopped as far as she can go onstage. note that this sequence has to begin only when ZSS releases the tether, and enters the tether hop animation. if marth releases the ledge earlier, she will grab the ledge. For ZSS, she will be able to shield around frame 56-58 (for some reason, the min time it takes her land onstage using a FF seems to vary between 26 and 28 frames, not sure why). however, one must account for realistic reaction times and the ability to execute this maneuver frame perfect. at the MAX, ZSS's tether reel in takes 10 frames until she enters the tether hop animation. human reaction time is about 15 frames, so if your visual cue is the start of her reel in, its very very unlikely youre going to start this near the correct frame. Her reel in is not a great cue mind you, and there is no audio to the reel in, which could improve your reaction time. you also need to factor in the likely event that the marth player will not begin their dash perfectly on the right frame after WLing, and will also not fsmash perfectly after 1 frame of pivot. good players often get very close to executing techniques like these perfectly, but more often than not, theres a few frames of error when you add up the number of actions performed. the reaction time needed combined with the likely imperfect execution seem to make it very unlikely that the marth player will get the fsmash out before ZSS shields. Additionally, none of this frame data analysis factors in ZSSs ability to drift on reaction. Since the marth player has to execute this near perfect, hes basically completely committed the second ZSS enters the tether hop animation. she has tons of time floating in the hop where she can react to a maneuver like this, and drift back to edge cancel or just grab the ledge.

all in all, im sure you will see this happen at some point, but it requires a completely committed read on what the drift pattern of the ZSS player will be. small variations in her drift can mean that marth either doesnt hit, or hits the sourspot. The sourspot is pretty easy to get on reaction to a tether hop (just ledge dash > fmsash without the dashing/pivoting process), but its not that rewarding. wont kill until 160 on FD

 

[Player -0]

Please just say pivot F-Smash or empty pivot, people changing name is kinda funky

 

[Foo]

ZSS beats marth for a number of reasons. the big one is that marth doesnt do that well in neutral vs her. Shes a faster character, arguably has the best overall mobility in the game, has disjointed moves, and a projectile with pretty low commitment. when it comes to punishes, shes pretty good at gettiing out of juggles with down b. marths only reliable way to put you in the air is uthrow, and when zss can manage juggles from it pretty well, that significantly deters marths punish game on her. marth also doesnt edge guard her very well, and his punish game on her tether hop is very bad. pretty sure marth can manage a bit better on smaller stages, since its easier for him to cover platforms and its harder for zss to manage certain approaches (things like fsmash and dtilt) when she has less space to work with. but most small stages also have walls (yoshis, WW, GHZ, FoD kinda), which boosts her recovery a lot. ZSSs punishes usually get better on smaller stages too. id argue that marth AT BEST goes even with her on FoD and maybe yoshis. other maps like PS2, FD, dreamland, delfinos, etc. are going to favor ZSS.

Ive played this MU a lot, and im very convinced on it.

Is there really an argument for zss being the most mobile character in the game? If sonic didn't exist, sure, but... Sonic.

 

[CORY]

overall mobility though?

actually, sonic's down and sideb let him do nifty stuff, too...

 

[steelguttey]

having a third jump, faster dive kick and longer dash dance probably put zss ahead of sonic tbh

 

[Foo]

having a third jump, faster dive kick and longer dash dance probably put zss ahead of sonic tbh

Sonic has way more tricky movements with his b moves, he also has a third jump, and his dive kick is way better for getting down imo because you can l-cancel (you don't have to ledgecancel like zss) it and you don't have to use after a longish startup on another move. Also, sonic's dash/run is MUCH faster.

EDIT: Like seriously, the stuff sonic can do with his spindashes is bonkers in terms of mobility.

 

[G13_Flux]

Sonics lateral mobility definitely is better, but ZSS still has better mobility vertically in the air. her ability to stall and keep her vertical position suspended, and then place relevant attacks out to cover space is far better. additionally, might argue that her divekick is better is many cases, because from a relevant height, the move will end right before she hits the ground meaning she doesnt take any endlag. edge cancelling is also definitely better than L cancelling. pretty sure sonic has like 15 frames of L cancelled lag or smth, and he CANT edge cancel dair.

So overall (keyword), i think its still arguable, because there are attributes that ZSS has that offer better mobility in the air than sonic has, and sometimes that mobility might more relevant to the MU at hand than the boosted lateral mobility sonic has (ZSSs laterally mobility and disjoint is already good on its own). but yes, sonic is absolutely going move around lateral space quicker than her, just like CF and fox.

nonetheless, id rather not get bogged down arguing over that kind of detail. the important thing is that her mobility trumps 98% of the cast.

 

[Player -0]

Side B hard pull back stall is dank

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I play both characters. ZSS definitely feels smoother. Nils are really cool, she has better mobility in the air and a better Waveland, rar, higher jumps, better shffl, super jump up B, edge cancels are better for mobility than dair likely because of drift and other factors. She also has access to super fast ledge reel in, and wave bounces/breverses.

Sonic on the other hand has spring, side B (grounded variations, pullbacks, etc.), and down b (which has access to spinshot, and can be jumped out of and wavelanded out of). Dair can actually be edge cancelled but it hardly ever happens. The spin moves let him change directions really quickly and his dash dance is better suited for long range punishes rather than up close baiting like ZSS'.

ZSS has better flow IMO, so I'd say she has better mobility overall. Like Sonic's dashdance game isn't even the best in the cast (looking at you, Fox).

The side B pull back is dank, much like everything Sonic does.

 

[DMG]

The difference is when ZSS moves around, she's a good character

Sonic can triple mc-spinghettidash cancel and it's still not a great char

 

[Strong Badam]

FWIW I think Sonic is pretty underrated by most people. There's a lot of things that the Sonic players could be doing that they don't do or do what they currently do better. He is just way too fast to be truly bad

 

[Foo]

FWIW I think Sonic is pretty underrated by most people. There's a lot of things that the Sonic players could be doing that they don't do or do what they currently do better. He is just way too fast to be truly bad

This. I don't get why everyone rates sonic so low. He has insane mobility, busted follow ups out of throws, an excellent combo and gimp game, and he can pressure really well if he chooses. If every character was fully developed, I think sonic would be top 10.

 

[DMG]

You'd have to commit to playing fairly boring, something PM players seemed allergic to until recently

 

[Kipcom]

Playing lame is life tbh.

 

[Life]

Playing lame is life tbh.

Hey, I resemble that!

 

[1FD]

You'd have to commit to playing fairly boring, something PM players seemed allergic to until recently

I find boring more interesting so is it boring anymore?

 

[DMG]

I find boring more interesting so is it boring anymore?

Well it operates like a reverse bell curve. Starts off kinda boring cause people are bad, then people get decent and do cool stuff, then people get lame and it's less interesting. Like when chars that have good ledge dashes start going to the ledge to avoid pressure entirely (instead of trying to outmaneuver first from the corner), or when Wolf uses Laser and waits, or when Squirtle decides to like not approach.

It's strong, it's smart, and it's the natural evolution of the game. But it's not (always) that interesting. The evolution of the game is Lunchables on Dreamland snuffing out Luigi with TL bombs. A better neutral with fewer mistakes and pushing advantages to the max = not always fun or interesting in Smash. I don't have anything against playing "lame": go check half of my Brawl vids and you'll see Wario running away while trying not to fight with a lead lol. Just that better / safer choices can simplify the match to a point where player input matters less ultimately.

Take the current meta (look at how many chars were represented at SuperNova), now cut out actual viability by half due to "lameness" in the future. Part of the "euphoria" (pre-edit: give me a fedora) of PM is some underlying feeling that if you get good with a char, success can come your way. That definitely isn't gonna last in the future: if the characters in question who succeed the most at being lame are also dynamic and trade advantages well with each other (healthy meta in say top 8-10 characters), the game will be fine but there's gonna be future casualties as some of these current character usage stats fall off the face of the earth competitively.

Will lean more towards just hardcore players supporting it, not a larger base including more casual or lower tier char mains.

 

[redbeanjelly]

This talk reminds me of that "don't approach" thread that Hax$ made a long time ago (back when he mained Falcon). An interesting read, definitely give it a look if you haven't, but the main jist of it was that optimized play is or will revolve around non-committal, non-interactive movement and minimized risk-taking until you've slowly taken stage control.

Call me an optimist, but I'm definitely not a fan of such a reductive attitude. Opponents of Hax's claim argued in that thread that people just need to get better at approaching, i.e. that it's a matter of pressing your advantages more quickly and more decisively. I think that that's just as feasible as a more tactical mindset, especially if you play a character with access to stronger burst movement.

 

[GabPR]

Something I see many people fail to realize is that Sonic's real streanght's are not just based on his great mobility, but rather, his great mobility MIXUPS. Lets start with the most obvious thing, whenever I see people commentate about Sonic I mostly hear the same thing around the lines of *All I see is this character turning into a ball and doing stuff*, at first I found this annoying, but then I realized they where right. Almost half of his tool kit TURNS him into a ball, with slight differences in sfx and animations, not only that but every option he has out of those represent an entirely different action with multiple properties each! Plus some moves like charge down b and bast attack have one of, if not the fastest burst movement option in the game (which comes with a hitbox), something that should not be taken lighlty. Add this to the fact than many of his b moves can be canceled and you have a character that you will never know what he is doing at least 70% of the time. When Sonic mains begin to implement their mixups correctly and combine them with fundamental movement options dash dancing and wavelands, the opponent will have no choice but to always keep their guard up in hopes of intercepting whatever ball attack comes next, if they dont cancel it first that is

 

[Ripple]

I don't understand how people sing the praises of ZSS. she's sorta kinda good, yeah. but outright beating marth or being the 5th or 6th best character? I don't think so

 

[G13_Flux]

I don't understand how people sing the praises of ZSS. she's sorta kinda good, yeah. but outright beating marth or being the 5th or 6th best character? I don't think so

maybe you are taking crazy pills. so why doesnt she beat marth?

 

[Avro-Arrow]

In a lot of MUs she can coerce opponents into approaching and then on reaction either stuff them or reset the camping situation. Mostly this happens to the slow characters but also to faster ones like MK on large stages. She's able to stuff them on reaction because she's super mobile and able to put out hitboxes whenever she wants that convert into really hardcore punishes. This combination gives her some of the most flexibility in the game.

Also if you guys want to learn more about how Sonic functions as a character, @Zenokidz recently did a video describing Sonic's general gamplan. It's really well done I'd say!

Sonic is basically super good because he has a whole tree of mix-ups, and even when he chooses one option he still has flexibility out of that option. Ex. DD --> {JC Grab, dsmash, da, fair, nair, full hop dair, fade back down B, Blast attack, run cancel jabs, aerial down B, run into them grounded down B turnaround, ..., side b}. Let's say he chooses side B. Now he can poke with it, cross up aerial, grab, baseball slide, rascal, or blast attack.

Lots of stuff to control if you're the opponent. Lots of counterplay too (like good walling). But playing against Sonic, you never know for sure what he's going to do. So basically once you've played against Sonic a little bit you'll know that from both sides it's a lot of reading into the other person's habits and making guesses as to where they'll be. Lots of micro- rather than macro-game.

Edit: oh yeah, and not only does he have a boatload of options, he also has an incredibly potent (busted) and streamlined (if difficult to execute at times) punish game too. So he's got that going for him too.

 

[Bazkip]

Couldn't Marth just dj from ledge, waveland down (so just slightly onto stage), and fsmash towards the ledge to deal with forced tether hop? Seems like if you do it in the right spot, you'd be able to cover all drift options.
Sure, you probably won't be getting many tippers, but you're still hitting them back offstage, and that's the important part. Keep doing it an eventually they're going to die.