Tier List Speculation

[Frost | Odds]

Thanks Softie, I forgot about Marth. :/

Maybe it's ROB > Marth > Mario > Ivy or something in this matchup? idfk

I can't really prove the Ivy thing - and could very well be wrong. I'd need a lot more experience with both characters to have any authority on the subject whatsoever, but here's my conjecture anyway.

Basically, Samus loses badly to Jigglypuff in Melee mostly because of the latter's awesome air mobility combined with her low-commitment, high-disjoint bair. As I've mentioned before, Samus kinda falls with Peach into a 'short-range trading' archetype - she wants to bait (or force, with projectiles) opponents into her area of grounded influence and then punish them with dsmash/upb/whatever. Unfortunately, characters with long-range, low commitment aerials have no reason to really get that close to Samus ever as well as not particularly caring about missiles in the first place - they can just keep weaving and poking Samus with relative impunity.

Somewhat compounding the problem historically was that Samus had some major problems punishing floaties. They've been mitigated in terms of kill moves, but Samus still can't really combo floaty characters to save her life. Ivy in particular probably has this exact problem against Samus, so it might even out. Can Samus effectively morph ball under grounded razor leaf?

 

[MudkipUniverse]

@ Frost | Odds did you end up winning that tournament

 

[Litt]

She has insanely good matchups against the spacies - going even with them in melee and thus almost certainly beating them 55:45 or 60:40 in PM due to their nerfs and her significant buffs. The ice mode makes her much more resilient in [floaty] matchups that used to give her endless numbers of problems, and she ends up only having a couple truly terrible matchups (ROB, Mario, maybe Ivysaur and/or Mewtwo) - probably in that order) while being an extremely tough nut to crack for most of the cast.

Last I checked, there are no players that even come close to properly using her entire kit at the moment. ESAM was definitely the best, but has quit or something - and nobody's really stepped up to the plate yet. Maybe @ Litt @ pooch182 or @ Chevy will completely astound us all one of these days.

Zero chance that is coming from me until 4.0, Ive decided there is still too much bs and jank in the game and will stick with melee until I feel the game doesnt do the work for you and they take out **** like super armor or unnecessary speed given to heavy hitters, 3.5 is the dawn of the dino and big bad characters have a huge advantage

 

[Boiko]

Marth should still be one of her top 3 worst MU's

She has zero ability still too get down from juggles. Marth can just walk/run under her and jump and upair and she has no hope.

FWIW I beat a bunch of capable Marths with Samus just the other day. I still think it's even.

You guys are however, forgetting Sheik.

 

[Frost | Odds]

@ Frost | Odds did you end up winning that tournament

I did! Just rewatched WFs last night, and cringed so hard at some of my tech flubs and the charity stock. Feel like I've leveled up hard though; after playing 14 games that intense against Luke and coming back from that deficit, it seems like my mindset issues are actually being dealt with.

Zero chance that is coming from me until 4.0, Ive decided there is still too much bs and jank in the game and will stick with melee until I feel the game doesnt do the work for you and they take out **** like super armor or unnecessary speed given to heavy hitters, 3.5 is the dawn of the dino and big bad characters have a huge advantage

That is some next level salt, wow. I'll be the first to say that D3, Ike, and Ganon are often underrated, but damn, dude - the other heavies suck a pretty mean one, and it's not like Samus is worse than any of them.

 

[Litt]

FWIW I beat a bunch of capable Marth's with Samus just the other day. I still think it's even.

You guys are however, forgetting Sheik.

The sheik MU is not bad at all in PM since nothing is guaranteed for her against samus anymore, and marth samus is at least even if not in samus favor

 

[supascoot]

Zero chance that is coming from me until 4.0, Ive decided there is still too much bs and jank in the game and will stick with melee until I feel the game doesnt do the work for you and they take out **** like super armor or unnecessary speed given to heavy hitters, 3.5 is the dawn of the dino and big bad characters have a huge advantage

I don't really see this being the case. Currently the only heavyweight chars with fast ground mobility are zard and DK, with DK only being notable because he's above average in the straight up ground mobility department. ROB I could see being too fast in the air, but even then, characters like fox and CF still run circles around them. The only 3 heavyweights I could see being placed in the top 10 of tier lists are ROB, Samus and Yoshi, and for the last two its not due to their amazing mobility tools. I also disagree with the comment about super armor, as the only character with that in abundance is bowser. lol@bowser.

I can't really disagree on you with you saying there is too much jank and bs, as its more of a subjective thing, however much of what I would call jank was removed in 3.5. Only to be replaced by my undying hatred of ROB

 

[MudkipUniverse]

isn't super armor not the only type of armor? super armor refers to taking no knockback regardless of how much knockback the attack should take. bowser has light/medium armor I think

 

[Rizner]

I don't really see this being the case. Currently the only heavyweight chars with fast ground mobility are zard and DK, with DK only being notable because he's above average in the straight up ground mobility department. ROB I could see being too fast in the air, but even then, characters like fox and CF still run circles around them. The only 3 heavyweights I could see being placed in the top 10 of tier lists are ROB, Samus and Yoshi, and for the last two its not due to their amazing mobility tools. I also disagree with the comment about super armor, as the only character with that in abundance is bowser. lol@bowser.

I can't really disagree on you with you saying there is too much jank and bs, as its more of a subjective thing, however much of what I would call jank was removed in 3.5. Only to be replaced by my undying hatred of ROB

I understand what you're saying here and don't mean this directly at your post or think your view on this is wrong or anything, but I feel like lots of people use the argument "but fox can deal with this fine" and miss out that having one or a small handful of characters being able to deal with situations fine just means that everyone needs that melee character secondary to deal with issues and that it shouldn't be used as a reason for something to not be an issue. It doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist, it just means that fox and friends can deal with anything and that issue exists for others.

Pretty sure I worded this terribly, but on a phone and can edit or expand on this later

Edit: like sheik chain grab in melee. Sure those above her didn't get screwed by it, but it still sucks

 

[Boiko]

The sheik MU is not bad at all in PM since nothing is guaranteed for her against samus anymore, and marth samus is at least even if not in samus favor

THANK YOUUUUUU.

 

[Narpas_sword]

i still hate fighting Falcon as Samus ...

just me?

 

[pooch182]

Samus typically struggles against characters with good disjoints, like Marth, Ivy, Jiggs, etc. She also tends to struggle against hard hitting characters that have solid range (Ganon and Ike).

In 3.02, Samus had an effective Zair that allowed her to safely zone against swords, but she lost that in 3.5. I've always loved the Marth MU, even in Melee, because the neutral game is really solid and it's honestly a close MU if the Samus is very good at spacing. Ivy, however, has very low committal moves with great disjoint, and it does a better job of edge guarding Samus than most other characters (although it's first-grade easy in 3.5).

In all honestly, my practice partner is @Moy and I'm pretty much guaranteeing that Ike is in her top 3 worst MUs. I've only considered a secondary to deal with Ike and Ivy, both of which are covered very well by Marth, who is a very easy to learn character.

Overall, with the tool set given to Samus, disregarding the (hopefully) incredibly incomplete tether, she falls into the top 8 in PM for sure.

 

[Frost | Odds]

isn't super armor not the only type of armor? super armor refers to taking no knockback regardless of how much knockback the attack should take. bowser has light/medium armor I think

@ Litt
ARMOR LEVELS ON BOWSER'S STUFF
Invincibility: Active frames of Usmash, first few frames of upB
Super: Bowser has no super armor you philistines
Heavy: Koopa Klaw, Down B active frames, Nair, FSmash
Medium: Dash Attack, Downsmash
Light: Charge frames of Usmash, Crouch, Crawl, Dtilt1

I'm pretty sure that's all of it

i still hate fighting Falcon as Samus ...

just me?

Falcon is busted. It's pretty much an open secret at this point.

 

[MLGF]

Zero chance that is coming from me until 4.0, Ive decided there is still too much bs and jank in the game and will stick with melee until I feel the game doesnt do the work for you and they take out **** like super armor or unnecessary speed given to heavy hitters, 3.5 is the dawn of the dino and big bad characters have a huge advantage

You haven't even gone to a 3.5 tournament, lol.

 

[Boiko]

i still hate fighting Falcon as Samus ...

just me?

Nah, I definitely think it's hard but not far from even.

Ivy, however, has very low committal moves with great disjoint, and it does a better job of edge guarding Samus than most other characters (although it's first-grade easy in 3.5).

I completely agree that Ivy has an easy time edge guarding Samus. Probably one of the best characters at edge guarding Samus specifically. But what about the neutral makes it so difficult? Back when I mained Samus in 3.02, I use to stomp our local Ivysaur (I didn't use zair) so hard that he only used MK against me. It could have just been a lack of MU knowledge thing, tbh. But I kind of just walled him out with missiles and ice fair (which was a bit more spammable then). And when he was offstage I would either go out and bait a fair and punish with ice fair, or control his recovery with missiles and set up for a fair/bair/nair.

 

[Soft Serve]

FWIW I beat a bunch of capable Marth's with Samus just the other day. I still think it's even.

You guys are however, forgetting Sheik.

The sheik MU is not bad at all in PM since nothing is guaranteed for her against samus anymore, and marth samus is at least even if not in samus favor

I'm really curious
what pm changes are there that makes the mu better for Samus to that degree? Ice form doesn't really do anything to marth. Is crawl that big of a boon in the mu? Crawl attack too? Rolls being much better means you can sheild moves without fear of getting tippered if you try to run away bc how easy chasing the rolls was? General hitbox buffs? Or the tether changes helping?
other than crawl/rolls and stages I don't see any changes that would help samus in the mu.

 

[Player -0]

ESAM is planning on attending Olympus according to the facebook event page so I'm not sure about it. If I attend I'll make sure to ask him about it (also did he delete his Twitter? I was trying to find more information on if he's still planning on quitting).


Thoughts on Squirtle vs. Samus? I can't see either character winning the MU super handily.

 

[steelguttey]

squirtle beats projectiles but if samus hits him while she has a charge shot he goes bye bye

 

[zFrost]

also cc down smash is a thing

 

[pooch182]

Samus v Squirtle is close:

 

[DMG]

Samus worst MU tends to be whenever her player messed up

 

[Narpas_sword]

I'm really curious
what pm changes are there that makes the mu better for Samus to that degree? Ice form doesn't really do anything to marth. Is crawl that big of a boon in the mu? Crawl attack too? Rolls being much better means you can sheild moves without fear of getting tippered if you try to run away bc how easy chasing the rolls was? General hitbox buffs? Or the tether changes helping?
other than crawl/rolls and stages I don't see any changes that would help samus in the mu.

Im not as experienced as the others, but the only thing that improved vs marth for me from melee was the 3.0 zair.
the 3.5 zair does nothing to help.

A minor help is the Fsmash extra range with the explosion. can help punish a whiffed tipper.

 

[DMG]

Samus also has Crawl-Ball (that is what I will call it forever, as in "Look at that Samus Crawl-Ballin!")

Bad Marths hate Crawl-Ball

 

[Soft Serve]

@PlateProp these guys are trying to say squirtle has an okay MU

How does this make you feel

 

[Player -0]

Samus v Squirtle is close:

I feel like this isn't a true representation of the MU.

It seemed that you didn't really know the matchup because you didn't punish any of the many D-Smashes or Side-B's. If this 3.5 (which it seems to be), Zwarm's grounded Side-B's would lead to an easy SH Dair or F-Smash angled down. Also Zwarm spammed Down-Smash a LOT and didn't really use much of Squirtle's movement tech. Zwarm also didn't edgeguard the tether very optimally.

On the other hand, I've only watched the first two matches but if you don't know the MU going into the set, while adaptations might be made, it still shows that you're lacking knowledge of the other character and what they can do.

 

[pooch182]

I feel like this isn't a true representation of the MU.

It seemed that you didn't really know the matchup because you didn't punish any of the many D-Smashes or Side-B's. If this 3.5 (which it seems to be), Zwarm's grounded Side-B's would lead to an easy SH Dair or F-Smash angled down. Also Zwarm spammed Down-Smash a LOT and didn't really use much of Squirtle's movement tech. Zwarm also didn't edgeguard the tether very optimally.

On the other hand, I've only watched the first two matches but if you don't know the MU going into the set, while adaptations might be made, it still shows that you're lacking knowledge of the other character and what they can do.

My inexperience in the MU combined with Zwarm's skill level and the results of this set (either the first or 2nd set I've ever played against him) are why I feel it's a good representation of the MU.

Sure, my punish game wasn't all too great, but my neutral was strong and showed that Squirtle has trouble dealing with Samus' range and KB, but can combo Samus hard if he gets in. His edge guards were definitely not on point, but mine were just as slop, and I was getting confident to the point where I'd put myself off stage to threaten rather than assume stage control. Contextualizing that, I would normally be off stage far less in this MU, and could safely play like a nerd and win, so long as I cover my holes well and keep Squirtman fenced out.

It's like fighting Falcon. We can hurt him really badly in PM, but once he closes in, it's brutal.

 

[DMG]

What is the Squirtle consensus on your best players? Dad is pretty good

 

[pooch182]

I bet I could take on most Squirtle players. They need more players to make full use of their kit. So much theory crafting and meta development to be had.

 

[Player -0]

Quoting people is awkward (not direct translation)

I think Squirtle can get in on Samus a lot better than Falcon due to his size (doesn't have to worry about missiles as much), crouch/crawl, and how his movement options work (he can approach with shield due to traction or crawl). On the other hand Falcon's combos are a lot more optimal vs. Samus because she ends up offstage and Knee is so good (Squirtle does get throw mixups to send offstage though).

I don't keep up with players a lot, you'd have to ask the Squirtle google hangout thread (or the best of 3.5 character thread if you think that's reliable enough). I believe @ ~Dad~ is definitely a contender though, I'm actually going to watch some videos right now to see what I think.

Edit - Why was G&W's bucket brake kept in while Charizard's "glide brake" was removed?

 

[pooch182]

Dad and I are gonna root beer float, so I'm fine with playing against him. We both win

 

[didds]

There is no best Squirtle, but I'm sure dad is one of the least worst of the bunch, and I'm sure even he knows he's nowhere near using squirt's kit in the best possible way

 

[Chevy]

Im not as experienced as the others, but the only thing that improved vs marth for me from melee was the 3.0 zair.
the 3.5 zair does nothing to help.

A minor help is the Fsmash extra range with the explosion. can help punish a whiffed tipper.

I don't think it actually has any extra range, in Melee the hitbox is stilll stupid disjointed. If it does, it's only a little bit extra.

Screw it let's make a matchup chart:

55-45 : Samus can pretty easily camp Bowser, and he's one of the few characters she can actually combo. Edgeguarding is stupid easy. However, she has a terrible grab to try and exploit is biggest weakness, and one wrong DI off of Koopa Claw or dash attack is probably a lost stock.

45-55 : Falcon might be even, but Falcon doesn't really have to try and Samus has to play super well.

60-40 : Neutral is a breeze, edgeguarding is easier now, can combo him cause he's fat. Charizard can kill her pretty easily off of vertical combos though, and she gets edgeguarded just as bad if not worse.

45-55 : Easy to combo, but you get punished every time you hit him below like 30% cause he suffers no hitstun and has insane range. He can edgeguard Samus really well, and is one of the few characters with better survivability than her.

60-40 : Combo-able, Samus has a good glide toss, Diddy can no longer kill. Without that stupid up-throw that killed her at like 120% last patch, this matchup is a lot easier.

65-35 : Probably Samus' best matchup, Kong doesn't get many followups on her, and can't deal with Missiles effectively.

50-50: Falco is still amazing and lasers will always be dumb. Crawl helps but only a little, good Falcos can shoot that low anyway. Samus should touch of death Falco if on point though.

45-55: I'd say this would be even or in Samus' favor with 3.0 tethers, now there's no reason not to die now if you get knocked too far off stage.

50-50 : Autocancel n-air is dumb, negates most of Ganon's projectile weakness. The cape means you can't just jam charge shots down his throat when he's off stage, and Ganon gets legitimate combos on Samus. If you have to tether, prepare to spend the next 30 second repeatedly being hit off stage, cause there's no way back. Gimping him should be easy, but playing around float makes things different. (Side note, when Samus does the forced tether jump, Ganondorf can tournament winner jump from ledge and still have time to get down and land a b-air. Forced jump is super overkill right now.)

? : Idunno, d-smash is good I guess?

60-40 : I played Just a lot before he moved, our games were always close and I believe he is a better player than me. It does seem worse in theory though.

? : Haven't played a good Ivysaur.

50-50 : Call it even because ice beam. Don't really know though.

55-45 : Easy to outrange and camp, he hits like a truck if he gets in though.

45-55: He has much better stage control, missiles aren't that good in neutral because they just hit one of his myriad projectiles. He also gets guaranteed kill moves off of throws.

55-45 to I don't really know: I played iPunchKidz on netplay once. I expected 0 to death combos but all I really got was a bunch of aura sphere charge hitbox cancels into whiffed moves. Maybe Samus is a weird weight for him.

55-45 : I haven't played a good Lucas in 3.5, but I thought she beat him slightly in 3.0.

55-45 : Easy to outrange and edgeguard, but he can edgeguard back pretty well, There are no combos in this matchup.

45-55 : Fireballs beat everything in neutral, cape makes projectile spam more dangerous, Mario gets combos on everyone, Samus included. He can edgeguard her super easily. She outranges him at least.

40-60 : Can't deal with his range, can't get down from juggles, can't survive being off stage. There aren't really any perks to this matchup.

55-45 : Haven't played a good 3.5 Meta Knight, it was probably about even in 3.0 though.

40-60 : Mewtwo outranges and edgeguards Samus pretty easily. Up-throw kills stupid early.

50-50 : GnW can't answer Missiles super well, god help you if he gets in though.

55-45 : Can't deal with Missiles, easy to edgeguard. He gets some ok combos on her though. Grounded d-air leads into up-air to kill at pretty much any percent.

? : I always have trouble if an Olimar comes up on random, probably matchup inexperience, but Olimar is a jerk and he hits too hard.

55-45 : Ice mode makes this so much easier than Melee.

50-50 : Can kinda sorta combo Pika, Samus wins neutral handily. Pika dominates offstage game though, and Samus dies to up-smash->thunder at like 50%

60-40 : This seemed about even in 3.0, people like to say Pit sucks so whatever I'll go with it.

35-65 : Grounded side-b is terrible for her, but it can be played around. N-air kills Samus super early, burst movement is scary. Samus dislikes killing throws. It feels like the worst thing in the world to play this matchup, in theory it doesn't seem as bad. Need to learn this matchup better.

55-45 : Crouch cancel d-smash ruins his life, but Samus still has trouble with swords.

40-60 : Still most of the problems from Melee, crawl helps a little.

50-50 : Easy in neutral, but die to upthrow->c4 at 60%.

55-45 : His up-air kills early, he doesn't have a reliable setup on her anymore though to the best of my knowledge.

45-55 : Armor through or slide under missiles, kills her at like 80% from up-smash or up-b, he can sorta combo her. Charge shot invalidates his existence though.

35-65 : This feels impossible against random Toon Links, definitely need more practice in this. Better zoning, too fast, spooky green boy.

60-40 : As long as you dodge the clap this is pretty easy, missiles and nooches.

50-50 : Wolf dies when he's offstage ideally, Samus can combo spacies pretty well. Wolf wins neutral though, new lasers are very good. He can also combo her, cause he can combo everyone.

50-50 : Not really sure on this one, need to play some good Yoshis. He can't answer missiles all that well, but Yoshi deals too much damage with a few hits, and kills vertically fairly well

40-60 : Nayru's love is just plain annoying, it sucks to be punished for a move that you predict perfectly because the reflect box lasts practically the entire animation, and there are hitboxes that stretch a mile in either direction. And it land cancels, hooray. Also d-tilt leads into up-tilt that kills Samus at like 80%, other random vertical kills that negate her weight. If it weren't for Nayru's this would probably be Samus favor.

45-55 : Hated this matchup in 3.0, haven't really played it in 3.5.

Anyway, all Samus players are bad because it's hard to ever choose the correct option because she has too damn many tools.

 

[~Dad~]

hey quit talking about me I beat hammy 2-0 this weekend I'm a big boy now

really wish that was recorded because I could show off how to actually use all of squirtman's moves and movement

(don't worry though I went on stream after that and broke down and choked hard weeeeeeee)

Dad and I are gonna root beer float, so I'm fine with playing against him. We both win

#pooch4boyfriend

 

[Player -0]

I'm pretty sure all Squirtles know that they don't use his full kit.

 

[Deleted member]

35-65 : This feels impossible against random Toon Links, definitely need more practice in this. Better zoning, has combos on her, grabs into early kill moves.

Although I do agree its a pretty bad matchup for samus, the reasons are incorrect. Its more of the fact that I'm a million times faster than you, and I don't actually have combos vs you, I just have u air which covers every landing option

My throws don't actually combo into kill moves at early %s either, since you're a heavy floaty meaning that you can jump out from my **** more often and you also make my throw animations last longer due to weight dependent throws. Its still pretty bad for samus though, I agree.

 

[Chevy]

Although I do agree its a pretty bad matchup for samus, the reasons are incorrect. Its more of the fact that I'm a million times faster than you, and I don't actually have combos vs you, I just have u air which covers every landing option

My throws don't actually combo into kill moves at early %s either, since you're a heavy floaty meaning that you can jump out from my **** more often and you also make my throw animations last longer due to weight dependent throws. Its still pretty bad for samus though, I agree.

Still pretty sure d-throw->up-b kills works at kill percents, regardless of DI.

 

[Jolteon]

dthrow upb doesn't work on her.

 

[Deleted member]

Still pretty sure d-throw->up-b kills works at kill percents, regardless of DI.

Have you played vs a toon link before?! Toon Links D throw was reworked to be a 50/50 between D and F throw. If you correctly DI the D throw, you don't get any followups. Even at 100+, if you incorrectly DI my D throw I can't followup due to your weight/floatyness.

 

[Litt]

You haven't even gone to a 3.5 tournament, lol.

Thats not true, I went to one... got destoryed by phishys boozer and said **** this game again

 

[Narpas_sword]

lol, classic barbie