Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Fatmanonice]

Can you really blame the boards though? As a Mario main in Brawl and a Ness main in Melee, I know that talking up bad characters builds up confidence, creates comradery in the boards, and motivates people to keep trying and learning even if it's painfully obvious the character sucks. Granted, they'll learn they're wrong the hard way but at least they'll walk into the situation not believing it's a total lost cause from the get-go. Also, rule of thumb, players of bad characters will almost always overrate them and players of good characters will almost always underrate them.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

IMatchup boards can be biased as all hell. That's why you should always get people from the opposing character board to help discuss it.

Seriously, Ganon boards think they beat goddamn Wario.

That's why people can't get things done anywhere.

TMNTSSB4 , please don't continue the conversation. Otherwise I will have to call in based Shaya~

I don't think ESAM beating Nairo is definitive evidence that Pika beats Pit (I know DunnoBro wasn't saying it is, I'm just making a point), but it is worth considering. You can make the case that it's contextual, that ESAM used his dedicated main versus Nairo's "party trick" secondary, but a two-stock is a two-stock. Nairo evidently felt safer switching to a character that handles the matchup better.

1. You're late on that, well so am,which is why I replied in the first place(guess I got it lucky with top tier characters like her)

2. I already asked Shaya something, so you might have to wait or something.

 

[Zelder]

And yet the Jiggs board thinks their character can beat Fox and ZSS.

I really wish I was joking.
http://smashboards.com/threads/poke...-matchup-thread-discussing-fox.384478/page-13

This reminds me of when the Pacman boards were convinced that they went no worse than 45:55 with every character in the game.

 

[Thinkaman]

Thinkaman Do you think Zelda is salvageable (read: can we get her to at least mid tier with proper adjustments?) I feel like her kit isn't poorly designed, it's just that it's tuned all wrong. A flaw of execution rather than concept. The strictness of her lightning kicks is brutal, but maybe that's not the area we should focus on? There are so many other things to improve.

Eh, it's hard to qualify. The answer isn't really binary, though I would say that Zelda is the character who could be most accurately described as "structurally unworkable", even if that is excessive.

Zelda is very "rigid"; she tends to have singular options in many situations, and has few ways to motivate her opponents to move out of the way and do stuff. This combined with her poor mobility and meh grab result in a awkward gameplay style.

It's easy to overlook her strengths, including the strengths specific to Smash 4. D-smash is legit, and her others are solid walls. Her reward on simple actions is pretty high, and fair/bair are unconditionally two of the very highest damage/knockback-per-startup-frame moves in the game, full stop. Yes, she has to follow your DI to get an elevator kill with up-b, but it still kills you way faster than Boost Kick. SH AC Dair is a great move, and having a workable reflector is never bad news. My point is, once you dig through the flaws, Zelda has some cool stuff going on that could manifest into decent performance once the chains come off.

What I was going for with fair/bair changes was just wanting them to be safe on block. This, plus a safe upgraded Phantom, would enable Zelda to assert some sense of threat. If that is achieved, I'm pretty sure Zelda could be responsibly adjusted at least into mid-tier.

I never thought about invincibility on Wiz Kick for Ganon, but I was going to mention that it sure is annoying to be punished for landing it at early percents, so I support this.

Invincible Wizkick "completes" Ganon's kit and playstyle by giving him a high-reward hard-read punish against projectiles. And yeah, it needs a tad more BKB.

I'm game for that too. An overall summary would be "Decent vs most neutral heavy characters, bad vs punish heavy"

Sheik, pikachu, and rosalina are much more enjoyable MUs than luigi, zss, and falcon simply because it doesn't feel like you're winning until their stock is gone. Which DHD has trouble with.

Interesting framing, I wouldn't have said it that way but I like it.

When you say Rosalina, are you talking about default can? If so I'm going to need you to explain, since I think Rosalina vs. default DH is like a 1:9 unwinnable matchup, one of the game's worst. (But ZZS DH is at least 6:4 in Duck Hunt's favor? I'd play that matchup all day.)

The main reason I think it should be stronger is the true combos off frisbee. They just don't true combo while they kill on most characters with proper DI. Just a 5-10% increase in killtime would be enough.

Also, again, being precise and surgical is fine. But the reward for doing so being so much less than the meaty and braindead is not.

I'd sooner just adjust the KBG on frisbee to let it setup at broader %s. That sounds fun.

 

[LancerStaff]

Blah blah wishlist snip because mobile.

I know I've said this before, but you're asking for a lot of Pit stuff. Dair, Fair, dash attack, Dsmash recovery... And then the Roy stuff Pit usually does better, walking acceleration (I believe, been awhile since I've dusted off the wavebirds) and the combo throw namely.

I mean, I don't think they're going to give Marth a bunch of Pit or Roy's stuff to buff him. I honestly think the buffs are running dry...

Pit vs Sheik is weird. I'm pretty sure Pit doesn't have too difficult a time with everybody's favourite Sheika shinobi, I think it's just barely good for Sheik, but it's kind of irrelevant when he gets beaten down by ZSS and Pikachu.

Going to have to kindly disagree with losing bad to Pika, and I also don't think Pika is a major threat. Probably Pika's biggest weakness is it's range, which Pit obviously has more of. Pit barely losses if anything.

Nairo's pit did get 2-stocked by esam and he went back to zss tho

I knew somebody would bring that up... Nairo is a great Pit, but he's not very optimal either. Namely he goes Dark Pit over Pit way way too much, but that might be because he doesn't usually customize his controls (when he does play Pit anyway). The RC arrows naturally don't work as well when every time you press up you jump, and then jump on L is huge because it makes certain things, well, possible. Like Dair comboing into itself.

Pika's also an awkward matchup... Pika has some crazy stuff and his shortness makes Bair and Dair hard to land. I can safely say that if you don't know Pika vs Pit then you'll get bopped.

 

[teddystalin]

This reminds me of when the Pacman boards were convinced that they went no worse than 45:55 with every character in the game.

One of these days we'll actually have multiple high-level Pika and Greninja mains and we're going to laugh so hard about their current theoretical MU spreads.

 

[Nu~]

This reminds me of when the Pacman boards were convinced that they went no worse than 45:55 with every character in the game.

Except that never happened.

People love to lie about our matchup beliefs because we said that we don't have any hard counters
And we don't. Doesn't mean we're top tier or anything. Most characters in this game don't have hard counters.


I also remember the reasoning that many of you tried before.
"A matchup spread like that is comparable to brawl meta knight"
Comedy gold.

 

[Antonykun]

Lay off TMNTSSB4 .

I think he's learned his lesson, so there's no need to constantly address his mistake.

that's this thread for you


anyways lets talk about Swordfighter
Swordfighter's two biggest weaknesses are mobility (especially that godawful air speed) and kill confirms.
this means as long as your character has a camp game Swordfighter is going to struggle to land the kill despite having some ludicrously powerful kill moves for a non heavy.

 

[Nu~]

. Namely he goes Dark Pit over Pit way way too much, but that might be because he doesn't usually customize his controls (when he does play Pit anyway). The RC arrows naturally don't work as well when every time you press up you jump, and then jump on L is huge because it makes certain things, well, possible. Like Dair comboing into itself.
.

Combining dair into itself? Why does that work better with L as jump rather than say, Y?

 

[Wintropy]

Combining dair into itself? Why does that work better with L as jump rather than say, Y?

I've never had issue with Y-jump -> d-air myself, for what it's worth.

I don't think there's very many absolute unbeatable matchups in this game. They probably do exist, but I've yet to bear witness with consistency in practice.

 

[DanGR]

As long as Bowser doesn't get hit, he's pretty much guaranteed to win the match. Okay I promise I'm done now.

Anyways, I feel like a top 5 is something like and. I could see Rosalina dropping in the future (Rosalina mains seem pretty down on her staying power) and I think Diddy is top 5 because his high level gameplay is really developed/figured out so far (having the best player in the world utilize your character will do that, of course).

Rosalina's in an odd place right now. On a tier list that heavily takes into account actual tournament performance, she's undoubtedly top 5. She's got a suitable amount of players around the world playing her at high/top levels of play that have great tournament results.

But in a list that relies only on theory and her theoretical matchup spread (as we understand it now), she's not top tier. She's an average high tier character with bad matchups against #1 and #2, and many others.

Most of us think she loses to Sheik, ZSS, Pikachu, MK, Falcon, Olimar, Wario, Marth.
Most good Ike players and some Rosas think she loses to Ike.
Many players think she loses to Yoshi, but I'm skeptical.
I personally think she might lose to R.O.B. and TL when everything's said and done. Those are probably more evenish though.

How do you lose to at least 8 characters and be 3rd? o.o

 

[Zelder]

My reasoning is that, while it may be true in theory that Rosalina loses those match ups, it hasn't really been borne from results. She's still a dominant tournament presence in American and Japan. My personal theory is that Rosalina mains understand her weaknesses better than most opposing players do.

 

[DunnoBro]

Interesting framing, I wouldn't have said it that way but I like it.

When you say Rosalina, are you talking about default can? If so I'm going to need you to explain, since I think Rosalina vs. default DH is like a 1:9 unwinnable matchup, one of the game's worst. (But ZZS DH is at least 6:4 in Duck Hunt's favor? I'd play that matchup all day.)

Yea default can. I used to be hesitant to state this opinion but mvd agrees, just don't shoot the can. Only bring it out and let it sit away from her to cut off her escape options/give you some. She can't gpull gunmen and frisbee is an acceptable loss to gpull. But it punishes her buffered stuff and luma locks it at a low position which keeps her stuck in shield longer, so it's pretty safe to just throw out in general. If it connects her big body gets her comboed nicely too.

Only issue is she just edgeguards and kills you better.

I lost to a rosalina at smashcon but only after 2stocking them game 1 and nearly did it again game 2 but died at 30% when i tried to catch her landing with fsmash and died to rage luma dair :/

Had to play dabuz next tho so w.e lol

(In customs that MU is 60:40 or more in DHD's favor. Zigzag can't be gpulled and sometimes kills luma for free. Mega gunmen negate laser bits and really screw with rosas stage control.

I stand by the opinion DHD is top 10/15 in customs simply because of his dominating neutral now being accompanied by kill confirms and a better recovery.

And that sheik loses to him and several other characters)

I'm also iffy about ZSS. Overall I'll play it because most ZSS's won't know the MU and I'll get a lot of mileage out of that, but DHD's sheer inability to challenge the mobility of flip kick on some stages safely scares me. I dislike having to play ZSS on BF/Dreamland as I can't really keep up with her on FD/T&C.

Vabengals used to go pikachu vs me and officer jenny forfeited after game 1 before because I threw out an fsmash, she tried to grab and dhd ducked it while in endlag, and i fsmashed again.

But i dunno, if we assume familiarity I'd rather play pikas and sheiks than zss and luigis.

I'd sooner just adjust the KBG on frisbee to let it setup at broader %s. That sounds fun.

Well that'd be fine too, but truly the move is just so weak. Even other super technical characters like peach, and wario who have similar strength bairs which also only autocancel from SH, have wayyy meatier hitboxes.

As it is, the percents it kills at put opponents too high/far for you to frame trap with it for kills on it's own with that hitbox.

Personally, I think characters should have a higher reward for such pristine spacing, especially when characters like Ness, ZSS, and Luigi with such fast, meaty, and STRONG bairs. (killing about 20%+ sooner)

If it was stronger, he'd also have 50/50s off grab at higher percents. As it is, it can't connect at the percents it kills unless they're fast fallers

 

[Wintermelon43]

Well, people were dicussing about top 5 earlier, so I'll post mine.

|

:Self-explantory. No flaws apart from killing (At leas that I can think of)

:Great air attacks are one thing. up air can combo into many other airs, neutral air can combo and also kill at very high percents but it's still there, or close to blastline. I don't remember. forward air can do a lot of damage, and combo into a ton of airs. Back Air can followup from anything, do a lot of damage, even kill at very high percents. And all airs except for down air have almost no startup. Forward and Up smashes can actually KO, and all of his smashes do a ton of damage and can even ombo. Dash attack can kill at high percents, and can combo into up air. Forward Tilt can combo and keep the opponent away from you. Up tilt can combo into itself muitiple times, and combo into muitiple other airs. All of his throws can combo into something, down throw even into up tilt, and forward throw into anything. Neutral special can easily prevent the opponent from getting to you, and can get damage on to them. Down Special can actually KO, and Up throw can follow it into it. It can also spike. He has great recovery, one of the best, and his up special is good for offense too. You can go in any direction, so the opponent won't always know where you go, and it can hit twice, and can get damage quickly. And you can move to another spot safely with it. His only problem is not being able to easily KO.

:Great surviveability unless offstage, and has great camping ability (Which is why she can survive.) Great spaceing with star bits and jab. Great ko power with up and forward smashes and back throws and up airs and pretty much the rest of the airs slighty too, and great airs. Also great range when luma is there.

: Simple enough, top 3 are better. lol

:Best speed in the game, can easily get damage, best KO Power or one of the best, Has no trouble killing AT ALL, great air attacks, great combo ability, good range, can get damage from far awaydue to lasers, good down special, great edgeguarding.

 

[teddystalin]

Well, people were dicussing about top 5 earlier, so I'll post mine.

|

:Self-explantory. No flaws apart from killing (At leas that I can think of)

:Great air attacks are one thing. up air can combo into many other airs, neutral air can combo and also kill at very high percents but it's still there, or close to blastline. I don't remember. forward air can do a lot of damage, and combo into a ton of airs. Back Air can followup from anything, do a lot of damage, even kill at very high percents. And all airs except for down air have almost no startup. Forward and Up smashes can actually KO, and all of his smashes do a ton of damage and can even ombo. Dash attack can kill at high percents, and can combo into up air. Forward Tilt can combo and keep the opponent away from you. Up tilt can combo into itself muitiple times, and combo into muitiple other airs. All of his throws can combo into something, down throw even into up tilt, and forward throw into anything. Neutral special can easily prevent the opponent from getting to you, and can get damage on to them. Down Special can actually KO, and Up throw can follow it into it. It can also spike. He has great recovery, one of the best, and his up special is good for offense too. You can go in any direction, so the opponent won't always know where you go, and it can hit twice, and can get damage quickly. And you can move to another spot safely with it. His only problem is not being able to easily KO.

:Great surviveability unless offstage, and has great camping ability (Which is why she can survive.) Great spaceing with star bits and jab. Great ko power with up and forward smashes and back throws and up airs and pretty much the rest of the airs slighty too, and great airs. Also great range when luma is there.

: Simple enough, top 3 are better. lol

:Best speed in the game, can easily get damage, best KO Power or one of the best, Has no trouble killing AT ALL, great air attacks, great combo ability, good range, can get damage from far awaydue to lasers, good down special, great edgeguarding.

But a metagame is how all characters interact with each other. There's a reason why most top 5 lists talk about matchups instead of listing a character's attributes. A lot of characters have good tools, but simply listing them in isolation tells us next to nothing.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

IMatchup boards can be biased as all hell. That's why you should always get people from the opposing character board to help discuss it.

Seriously, Ganon boards think they beat goddamn Wario.

I've heard much more outrageous claims than that fwiw.

 

[Mr. Johan]

The more I see Megamans play the more I think he could get far if he embodies a Brawl Falco mentality. Projectiles in neutral, Metal Blade in grab conversions, and Dthrows into any kind of attack based on reaction. He's got the fall speed and walk speed to keep the pressure all day too. Just pretend Slash Claw is Brawl Falco Bair and have at it.

 

[warionumbah2]

Most of us think she loses to, Marth.

Losing to Marth means absolutely nothing, he doesn't exist.

Heck losing to Metaknight doesn't mean much, there's only 2 top Metaknights in the US. If the best player of your main is better than Tyrant you're all good.

 

[DunnoBro]

I don't consider pika or rosa top 5 simply because they are highly demanding technical characters who make secondaries difficult, and they lose hard to two of the most common tournament characters, Luigi(Pika) and Falcon(Rosalina)

And pikachu's lack of results overall make me really doubt he has as few bad mus as ESAM and others would like to claim.

Sheik and ZSS are a given.
Fox fails to lose to anyone hard enough to cripple his performance severely, though he does have his fair share of annoying/bad mus.

Sonic, MK, and Luigi are the ones I'd consider fighting for the 4/5 slots.

Sonic is the balanced pick who doesn't really lose to many top tiers but doesn't dominate any either.

Meta Knight is ironically the Anti-Meta pick as he's theoretically good vs most of the top tiers, including sheik and is an essentially new threat with a scary "can kill you whenever" playstyle that can go far thanks to unfamiliarity.

And Luigi is the results pick. There's no denying the optimal way to play this character can be learned relatively quickly, if we're talking about the top characters in the meta as it is now... Then luigi is irrefutable as he's won more tournaments than anyone else, just not at national level.

I knew somebody would bring that up... Nairo is a great Pit, but he's not very optimal either.

I only brought it up because he specifically noted "Pits the level of nairos" vs "Pikachus the level of ESAMs" should have no trouble.

I didn't mean to comment on the matchup itself just that his example happened and Nairo did in fact have a lot of trouble.

 

[Smog Frog]

except national level is what actually matters. has next to nothing at the national level. i'd accept top 10 but top 5 is a thing of the long-gone past.

 

[Vipermoon]

I know I've said this before, but you're asking for a lot of Pit stuff. Dair, Fair, dash attack, Dsmash recovery... And then the Roy stuff Pit usually does better, walking acceleration (I believe, been awhile since I've dusted off the wavebirds) and the combo throw namely.

I mean, I don't think they're going to give Marth a bunch of Pit or Roy's stuff to buff him. I honestly think the buffs are running dry...

Please stop comparing Pit to Marth and his clones! They are in no way, shape, form, playstyle, anything similar to Pit so you cannot compare them.

Honestly I don't know what is with you and doing that. You either hate the FE group, feel threatened by them, finding every opportunity possible to talk about Pit, or likely all three.

 

[Green L]

I don't think jigglypuff's edgeguarding has changed much. There are plenty of vulnerable/ short recoveries in smash 4. Little Mac, mario, ganon, luigi, ness, duck hunt, samus, lucas, Roy, wii fit etc. I think jigglypuff has the upper hand against these characters offstage

 

[Lavani]

My personal theory is that Rosalina mains understand her weaknesses better than most opposing players do.

This is rather true, though a large part of it is also opposing players not properly understanding her strengths.

I was going to do a long ranty writeup on horrible decisions I see people make regularly against Rosalina, but it could mostly be summarized as "people give Luma respect in situations where it can't do anything/is free to kill but disregard it when doing unsafe strings it can break Rosa out of, fail to understand how it moves around untethered (which leads to so many undeserved usmash kills), and don't take the time to lab out what moves they have to send it flying at 0%, among various other things."

It's a year into the game's life and Rosalina's been considered a top threat the whole way through, you'd think it would be a priority to spend 10 minutes in training mode to learn what attacks deal with a fresh Luma and how Luma moves around at the very least. I'd encourage anyone that struggles against the character to play her themselves for awhile to learn what she can and can't do.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I've heard much more outrageous claims than that fwiw.

That's not even an outrageous claim. Ganon anti-airs hard with Uair and Nair and generally does well vs. characters who rely primarily on aerial approaches and have limited range. I think it's even but Ganon winning slightly is totally plausible. Ganon is also thought to beat Mario for similar reasons.

 

[Spinosaurus]

That's not even an outrageous claim. Ganon anti-airs hard with Uair and Nair and generally does well vs. characters who rely primarily on aerial approaches and have limited range.

There's the problem with that claim.

 

[wedl!!]

Do Ganon mains not realize that they beat players and not characters?

 

[Djent]

Top 5 picks (based on my unfinished MU chart):

|

The first four are finished and have + spreads vs. the other top characters. Sheik is far and away #1, and ZSS is #2 by a little bit. Fox and Rosa are tied, but Rosa's ZSS MU is worse than any of Fox's MUs IMO (including Rosa) so I gave Fox the nod. Diddy is evenish w/ the top 2 at least (though he might lose to Fox and ZSS) so I have him 5th despite uncertainty about his final spread.

 

[KiskeQ]

Fun thing that the most solid top 5 people mostly agree is the characters who have the right combo of proprierties... 'cept for Rosa in some sense due her puppet char props. Though puppeteers are either underwhelming or damn good

 

[Jamurai]

We thought MK was almost even with Sheik, but unfortunately as time has gone on, and as we have recently discussed, it has become apparent that Sheik is probably MK's worst MU (at 60:40 Sheik favour). Sheiks are getting more technical, better with their combos and pretty much all of them with the exception of Mr R are prepared to sit back and abuse needles if they need to. It was depressing to watch both Ito and Tyrant struggle in vain against VoiD at Indigo Plateau last weekend, I believe Tyrant even brought out Luigi in his last game as a last resort. Sadly I think the "MK does well against Sheik" train has come to a grinding halt.

 

[TurboLink]

We thought MK was almost even with Sheik, but unfortunately as time has gone on, and as we have recently discussed, it has become apparent that Sheik is probably MK's worst MU (at 60:40 Sheik favour). Sheiks are getting more technical, better with their combos and pretty much all of them with the exception of Mr R are prepared to sit back and abuse needles if they need to. It was depressing to watch both Ito and Tyrant struggle in vain against VoiD at Indigo Plateau last weekend, I believe Tyrant even brought out Luigi in his last game as a last resort. Sadly I think the "MK does well against Sheik" train has come to a grinding halt.

Do you have links to videos of that?

 

[Jamurai]

Do you have links to videos of that?

Winners Quarterfinals - Ito vs VoiD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jdOOtZRpXs

Losers Finals - Tyrant vs VoiD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USjXV5tRyjA

Small note: I was wrong, he played Luigi in his second game out of three.

 

[NickRiddle]

I love reading 10 pages at a time in this thread and seeing my name for all of my random characters... pleases me~

For sure.

When NickRiddle brought out his Robin and beat Seibrik's Sheik, I knew that character had potential. Robin has a surprisingly decent matchup against Sheik.

Jab2gud
I've used Robin multiple times as a game 2/3 shake-up, and I often manage to pull out wins.

Not even trolling, can anyone link me some videos of a good marth player winning. There is nothing on the marth boards for any tournament archive videos.

Does anyone actually win with him at mid to high level?

AT LEAST MID LEVEL?! Got you covered then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy1_jsbuhgU&list=PLdXeDqcxuW05cHfBrOEPGr8w9bftrLCey&index=15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EjxboIGDjk&list=PLdXeDqcxuW05cHfBrOEPGr8w9bftrLCey&index=23
Not much, but a little!

Nick uses Marth when he feels like, mostly for fun, but from what I can tell he doesn't take Marth too seriously.

I use Marth because I love Marth... I don't think Marth can win a large event, so I keep using ZSS/Robin.
Marth.Robin buffs please so I can main them :'(

 

[warionumbah2]

Mr R's Sheik been cockblocking Tyrant since CEO. I really feel bad for the Metaknights that truly believes he stands a chance against her.

ZSS hasn't been eliminating top Metaknights its been Sheik all along but who cares, Leo leo leo.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

that's this thread for you

I'll bet most of th em never fought Nairo or Acestarthe3rd...not even Teichi/Techi(always forget how to spell his name for some reason).

Please stop comparing Pit to Marth and his clones! They are in no way, shape, form, playstyle, anything similar to Pit so you cannot compare them.

Honestly I don't know what is with you and doing that. You either hate the FE group, are threatened by them, finding every opportunity possible to talk about Pit, or likely all three.

What are you even talking about? If you didn't know, the Pit boards(the only Kid Icarus board alive in a way) and Robin boards(the only active social thread in the Fire Emblem cast besides maybe Roy's)made a pact and are a family. If someone wants to bring up Pit in the same sentence as Fire Emblem and vice-versa, deal with it. I'm not saying Pit/Pittoo and Marth/Lucina/Roy are similar in anyway besides looking kawaii(or some other word that sounds weird, like senpai), but doesn't mean they can't be compared in some shape or form.

 

[Antonykun]

I'll bet most of th em never fought Nairo or Acestarthe3rd...not even Teichi/Techi(always forget how to spell his name for some reason).

Imma have to ask you to not say such inflammatory things (it's spelled Techei btw)

uhhh more Swordfighter info?
Turns out Swordfighter's jab is frame 6, that's actually pretty fast for a move with as much range and reward as it does
Jab 1/2 into grab is delicious.

 

[|RK|]

We thought MK was almost even with Sheik, but unfortunately as time has gone on, and as we have recently discussed, it has become apparent that Sheik is probably MK's worst MU (at 60:40 Sheik favour). Sheiks are getting more technical, better with their combos and pretty much all of them with the exception of Mr R are prepared to sit back and abuse needles if they need to. It was depressing to watch both Ito and Tyrant struggle in vain against VoiD at Indigo Plateau last weekend, I believe Tyrant even brought out Luigi in his last game as a last resort. Sadly I think the "MK does well against Sheik" train has come to a grinding halt.

I'll be honest - I never really knew why we thought that.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Imma have to ask you to not say such inflammatory things (it's spelled Techei btw)

uhhh more Swordfighter info?
Turns out Swordfighter's jab is frame 6, that's actually pretty fast for a move with as much range and reward as it does
Jab 1/2 into grab is delicious.

Not trying to flame stuff, though it's good/terrible to fight them(but also fun). I was gonna say Techei, but I had a feeling that was way off for some reaon...Greninja needs more recognition.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

My reasoning is that, while it may be true in theory that Rosalina loses those match ups, it hasn't really been borne from results. She's still a dominant tournament presence in American and Japan. My personal theory is that Rosalina mains understand her weaknesses better than most opposing players do.

That and she requires a large amount of matchup-specific knowledge to properly deal with Luma. Anti-tech, if you will.

A thought: Some characters just aren't suited to being secondaries since their unique mechanics demand such a large amount of commitment to master. I believe that these same characters are also unusually difficult to fight against since these same unique mechanics will tend to demand a certain degree of specialized practice to fight against.

 

[Nobie]

Meta Knight's worst matchup is a 40:60 oh no the horror.

 

[Jamurai]

I'll be honest - I never really knew why we thought that.

It did make sense from a theory perspective. Sheik converts a lot of her kills via juggles and edgeguards, both of which MK deals with relatively easily. MK doesn't die and builds up rage. MK (especially w/ rage) kills Sheik off the top really early because she's light. MK therefore fares well against Sheik. HYPE!!!

However, we stopped there and didn't think about everything else. MK is a great fall speed for Sheik's combos, his hurtbox isn't especially small, he gets hit by stuff like Utilt > FH needles > fish kill combo. And his big weakness in neutral is dealing with SH approaches, which Sheik does all day. MK wants to stay grounded, but needles. If he takes to the air, he has little to answer Sheik's Fair. Sheik has answers to MK's juggles and edgeguards herself... blah blah blah.

So like most matchup theories, it doesn't work that well in practice.

Meta Knight's worst matchup is a 40:60 oh no the horror.

I put that ratio in to make it clear that I wasn't claiming it was really bad. I'm aware that MK has a great matchup spread, it is one of the reasons why he's a great character.