Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[⑨ball]

Mr.R lives with Tyrant so I doubt he's got MU inexperience.

Haven't seen it yet, but I'm expecting good things with how much buzz this is getting.

 

[Shaya]

"Small mistakes lead to death at this level".


I think Ramin could've had better DI. He didn't know. Not to say he would've won considering the dominant play from Leo otherwise, but you can get further away from up airs and can avoid the second hit of shuttle loop (although it's "read" based for MK as he has angle control) likely a bit more frequently than we saw. Fast fall nairs on shield/whiff were flub punishes for Ramin each time.
It was kinda bizarre watching this because it felt like I was watching Brawl. SlipperyKnight and confirmed "you're ****ed" moments. The reads and the punishes and the sub mid range spacing (empty short hops, fast fall spaced aerials)... and the opponent was the best player from a region with Meta Knight banned for the past 5 years and they got a lucky little-MK bracket until finals.
Twilight zone.

Hooray for another nation breaking out from the darkness when it comes to Smash beyond just the USA and Japan Sweden.
This game's accessibility being greater than ever before... new blood rising to the top. Our scope of "Majors" may now be much too small (or underpar) to the skill that actually exists across the globe. It won't be long until the USA is the worst region, just like in League of Legends.

 

[MistressRemilia]

Mr.R lives with Tyrant so I doubt he's got MU inexperience.

Haven't seen it yet, but I'm expecting good things with how much buzz this is getting.

Tyrant is a good player but not a good MK, so i wouldn't consider him a good way to train this matchup

 

[Espy Rose]

I'd love if the US was trash at this game.

 

[Illuminose]

I don't really think Ramin was playing on point either. He kept doing aerials into MK's shield and doing risky, scared spot dodges. He wasn't DIing really. Bottom line, he was making mistakes that are unacceptable at that level of play, really. He was playing scared and got punished hard for it. He can do better than that.

Everyone still has a lot to learn about this game, as we've seen. There's a massive lack of consistent results and so many close calls right now that I kinda think will falter off as players become more established and gain more experience with the game. It's exciting regardless.

 

[adom4]

Flame Chain seems to make Ganondorf rise at least one tier because of the multi-hitting and safe attack that it is. No one can grab Ganon out of it, nor even retaliate because all of the hits happen one frame between each other. This makes the attack perfect for edge-guarding opponents, despite removing only two setups via Flame Choke. It's also got a very tremendous reach and horizontal knockback, making it especially deadly for a kill confirm at low damages from combos. It even lets Ganondorf combo from it as well with the horizontal knockback, making people rethink their approaches. Flame Chain, a multi-hitting attack that will just link up into one another and punish Ganondorf's opponents. Since the attack can't make Ganon fall off the edge like Flame Choke and Flame Wave, it's perfect for punishing any character who tries to get back on, especially characters who jump and come back on normally. That reach also helps it out by just wailing opponents with it.

But to be honest, Ganondorf gets consistent and decent results. So I really honestly believe he's somewhere in the upper middle or lower high tier around the 25th to 32nd positions (25th is around lower high, 32nd is second highest upper middle). Not only does he get good results, but he's got a MU spread that is better against opponents with hitboxes that can connect to F-Tilt, which can kill opponents really early (I'm looking at you, Shulk).

What do you really think of Ganondorf? Is he not deserving of, at least to best, upper middle to lower high tier?

I honestly don't get the hype behind flame chain, it's way too slow & punishable, even against Rosa i'd rather use flame wave over chain.

I mean, player skill is definitely a factor, and Ganondorf players obviously still have mind games and the like at their disposal like everyone else, but I really don't see the character going anywhere but down. I am likely underrating him a bit, but he just seems bad to me. Results are results, though. However, I am a bit curious about the Rosalina MU. She's pretty flimsy, and I imagine most of Dorf's moves have no problem disposing of Luma. What makes it so bad?

The hardest parts about the matchup are her edgeguards & U-air juggles, one of the reasons the matchup becomes so much better in customs is that dropkick makes recovering & escaping those juggles much easier.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Was I the only one more impressed by the Toon Link? The times he wasn't thirsty, he forced Mr. R to play his own game. Both players seemed to rely on rolls Mr. R probably due to MU inexperience and the Toon Link because of his playstyle).

I feel like Mr. R felt a bit off or uncomfortable as he was doing uncharacteristic habits of forcing rolls, not DI, and falling for MK'S tricks way too much.

 

[PUK]

Tyrant is a good player but not a good MK, so i wouldn't consider him a good way to train this matchup

Really don't say this. It means ITo is a slightly above average MK but sucks as a player. And Leo, sorry about that, is far from being optimal in his punish. And did dumb things like upB unguarented.
By the way M.R plays the mu really well, and DI. But Leo were able to follow when it mattered.

Imo Ramin should have won. But MK is more or less a ganondorf whith fast run speed and godd frame data. He's the first/second best punisher of the game because of this

 

[MistressRemilia]

Really don't say this. It means ITo is a slightly above average MK but sucks as a player. And Leo, sorry about that, is far from being optimal in his punish. And did dumb things like upB unguarented.
By the way M.R plays the mu really well, and DI. But Leo were able to follow when it mattered.

Imo Ramin should have won. But MK is more or less a ganondorf whith fast run speed and godd frame data. He's the first/second best punisher of the game because of this

iTo is by no means a bad player, i just believe he's rather on his way to get better fundamentals. I'm excited to see how he evolves throughout monthes, because i see a lot of potential in him.

 

[Ikes]

Wario's bite? Frame 2

you're kidding right?

assuming you're not, doesnt that make it the best option against shield like, in the game?

Frame 8.

thank jesus my gullibility was wrong

frame 8 is still among the better grabs in the game, isnt it? still amazing against shield.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Tyrant is a good player but not a good MK, so i wouldn't consider him a good way to train this matchup

I wonder why people say asinine things like this. Tyrant was the highesr placing mk at evo and he also was a high level brawl MK. Where do you guys come up with this stuff from?

 

[warionumbah2]

Wait you guys aren't on about Brawl MK again?Glad MK has his 24hour of fame.

Turns out ZeRo is right. Sheik isn't broken, people just need to play better.

:]

btw the MK Sheik matchup is definitely at least 50:50, if not 55:45. I think we just saw MK combos, dominant mid range, and the KO power differential coming hugely into play. He's comparably fast and can jump over needles with his multiple jumps. This isn't some new idea (Sheiks and MKs have known since forever), but I think this shows it better than any measly regional results or theorycraft that this matchup actually pans out pretty much just like it does in theory. Not only that, but a Mexican Toon Link was doing pretty damn well in losers finals. Color me impressed, I thought that matchup was pretty bad for Toon Link. Made that matchup look more like a +1 than a +2 or +3 though I'm wary that it's Mr R not knowing the matchup and thus don't want to draw any immediate conclusions.

No sheik wins. Needle camping is what makes it in her favor, if the sheik player is hella cocky and doesn't lame MK out then this happens.

Everyone getting turnt up over nothing.

 

[Ikes]

in 3 months we'll be calling MK the second best character in the game

and I will be smiling because I want to see it, it would be so funny and I dont know why i feel this way, I dont even play him.

Maybe just the irony of being absurdly broken in the previous title, getting the nerf hammer hard, and still being top tier. Something about that just brings a smile to my face. not to mention I love his voice and overall character

to bring this back on topic, what is the slowest move in the game outside of flare blade, falcon punch, warlock punch, and ganon's utilt? what comes out the latest?

 

[Cassio]

does NOT have the advantage on . It's definitely even. I also do NOT believe has the advantage on given the fact that Larry has beaten Esam like 2 times now with . I also think might lose to . He's not top 3. He's top or high tier for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxx1Uy3c_C8 <Larry vs Esam at Final Battle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdVb_G0Lae4 <Game 1 Larry vs Esam at CEO.

Pika owns sonic, MM me scroob.

But srsly I think even Larry still believes fox pika is pika advantage. Before and after final battle I won ~60% of my (friendly) matches vs Larry and gave him good experience in the MU. He also half-convinced me not to give ESAM any advice, but that was mostly due to my laziness too.

CEO is harder to say, but I really don't think ESAM has much experience in this MU to pull much from it.

Side note: Quick attack is a highly punishable move that loses to any hitbox.

Incorrect, but there's a ton of misunderstanding about this move especially since it's never used well. Part of the problem is that no ones bothered to analyze it outside their MU experience. Ppl will eventually understand what a truly stupid move this is.

Lot of other pika stuff I might address later, but too much work from mobile now.

 

[PUK]

in 3 months we'll be calling MK the second best character in the game

and I will be smiling because I want to see it, it would be so funny and I dont know why i feel this way, I dont even play him.

Maybe just the irony of being absurdly broken in the previous title, getting the nerf hammer hard, and still being top tier. Something about that just brings a smile to my face. not to mention I love his voice and overall character

to bring this back on topic, what is the slowest move in the game outside of flare blade, falcon punch, warlock punch, and ganon's utilt? what comes out the latest?

DDD's fsmash, Din's blaze, ike's fsmash come to my mind

 

[Ghostbone]

No sheik wins. Needle camping is what makes it in her favor, if the sheik player is hella cocky and doesn't lame MK out then this happens.

Everyone getting turnt up over nothing.

Everyone complains about needle camping, fact is MK has the run speed, and the 5 aerial jumps to effectively work around and punish needles.
Doesn't mean she won't land them, but they're far less influential than in most matchups.

 

[Zage]

Is anyone else noticing a pattern of X character winning or placing high at a national and everyone proceeds to bandwagon that they are under represented or sleeper top tier?

I mean make no mistake, I agree that MK is strong, but this is only one tournament. Lets also take player skill into account here rather than just the characters strengths. Has he been getting consistent results elsewhere?

 

[Smog Frog]

was for the most part always regarded as strong....

 

[Cassio]

I don't think Pikachu is top 5 or even top 10. His matchup spread is decidedly not amazing. It was perhaps amazing at one point in time, when his ledge hang time was less, but right now he has a lot of matchups that are rocky or "difficult" (if even). He has evens down the line, and matchups in which he outright struggles as well.

Time and time again I have seen high-level Pikachus have trouble with the following characters:



He is slated to win against ZSS, Fox, Rosalina, and Sonic, but as Seagull said, he may not win against Sonic and Fox. Fox gets gimped and Sonic's spindash gets stopped by Tjolt, but these characters have oppressively strong onstage games that extend beyond these binary interactions that Pikachu's landing lag has a difficult time coping with (not to say that they win, though).

ZSS and Rosalina are in a unique boat, where if Pikachu plays quite perfectly (and I mean perfectly; ZSS combos and kills Pikachu at ridiculous percents, like 40, and Pikachu won't be escaping with QA against guaranteed combos), he is their worst matchup. That's quite useful if your goal is to counterpick these characters.

But then you go down the list and you have characters like Ike and Game and Watch that Pikachu randomly has some difficulty with. What other top/high tiers can you think of that struggles with so many mid tiers? The only comparable case is Luigi, who has bad MUs against the likes of Megaman and Pacman. But Luigi makes up for it in spades by being the worst MU for many characters, or among the worst. Which mid/low tier character considers Pikachu their worst MU? (please, don't say Ganondorf or Dedede) But take someone more consistent like Fox for example. Does Fox just get destroyed by anyone below high tier? Absolutely not, there's not a single matchup below the level of Luigi or Falcon that I would say Fox doesn't win. He sweeps the low and mid tiers easily.

Indeed, at this point, some of the high-level Pikachus feel that Pikachu is a counterpick character rather than a viable solo main. @Pikabunz because I respect his Pikachu play (we know ESAM's thoughts already).

Those are my thoughts on Pikachu. I have recently been transitioning to maining other characters and using Pikachu in difficult matchups.

The sheer amount of options pikachu has grants him favorable MUs against the more limited cast. The problem any given Pikachu has against these characters is from pikas glass cannon attributes, their success will have a strong correlation to their skill compared to characters that can BS them. In Melee, a character like luigi or ganon can roflstomp fox within a reasonable skill displacement (whereas a character like marth, sheik, or jiggs are strong regardless). But at a certain point your Melee mid-tier heroes hit a growth ceiling that fox shoots right through.

Tangential, but no character stands out for me as second best. ZSS could be argued based on results but that doesn't sit right with me.

 

[Ikes]

and yet wario places top 8 in two majors thus far and people still put him in upper mid...

like seriously, how do you justify that? it's happened twice now -the second time he placed even HIGHER- so it's in no way just "lack of MU experience", I dont buy into that bullcrap. Not to mention Jeepysol has taken at least one tournament against a Sonic main using Wario. That's pretty big.

 

[Ghostbone]

Is anyone else noticing a pattern of X character winning or placing high at a national and everyone proceeds to bandwagon that they are under represented or sleeper top tier?

I mean make no mistake, I agree that MK is strong, but this is only one tournament. Lets also take player skill into account here rather than just the characters strengths. Has he been getting consistent results elsewhere?

Ito dominates his region (trevonte came 25th at EVO and Ito has never lost to him to my knowledge), Tyrant does really well also (came 17th at EVO iirc?), and now we have Leo beating Mr. R solidly

The character has better representation than Pikachu lol

 

[Routa]

and yet wario places top 8 in two majors thus far and people still put him in upper mid...

like seriously, how do you justify that? it's happened twice now -the second time he placed even HIGHER- so it's in no way just "lack of MU experience", I dont buy into that bullcrap. Not to mention Jeepysol has taken at least one tournament against a Sonic main using Wario. That's pretty big.

Well erm... I think you overpraise Wario. Yes he is very very VERY good, but he has kinda meh MUs against most of the top tier characters (only character he is somehow good against or doesn't get bodied is Rosa&Luma). And tbh if you ask me we should IGNORE tournament results when making tier list. Why? 'Cause of skill and MU knowledge. MU spread list > Tier list.

 

[⑨ball]

It's a bit weird to factor results into a tier list because it begs the question of what a tier list's purpose is.

 

[Shaya]

Tier lists reflect results one way or another. Usually you'd expect it to be the consistency of results = tier list.

 

[warionumbah2]

Ito dominates his region (trevonte came 25th at EVO and Ito has never lost to him to my knowledge), Tyrant does really well also (came 17th at EVO iirc?), and now we have Leo beating Mr. R solidly

The character has better representation than Pikachu lol

Trevonte beat ito using custom sheik and sent him to losers, then ito came back and won the whole thing.

Zex is the one that gets bodied all the time.

This is the 2nd time leo won a national btw

Leo is a Mexican Meta Knight who won our latest National. If that counts for anything that is.

And btw, imo, as of right now, you can not compare regions' strengths.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Well erm... I think you overpraise Wario. Yes he is very very VERY good, but he has kinda meh MUs against most of the top tier characters (only character he is somehow good against or doesn't get bodied is Rosa&Luma). And tbh if you ask me we should IGNORE tournament results when making tier list. Why? 'Cause of skill and MU knowledge. MU spread list > Tier list.

You're largely underestimating Wario if you think his MU spread is that bad.

His MU against the top tiers is nothing remarkable, but it's good enough. I don't see how he can't compete.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

So can we talk about ZSS for a bit?
Good players like @DeLux and @NickRiddle kept saying that she's never going to win a national and that she has a rather mediocre MU spread in high tier.
So now we have Nairo, who is destroying everyone except ZeRo left and right, which boils down to his godlike grab game (imo) and she suddenly appears in top 3.

I'm especially interested in your opinion @ Shaya

 

[Routa]

You're largely underestimating Wario if you think his MU spread is that bad.

His MU against the top tiers is nothing remarkable, but it's good enough. I don't see how he can't compete.

Oh I think you misunderstood me. Wario's MU spread is far from bad, but it is not good enough if you ask me to be considered top tier (top tier in my eyes is top 5). Most of his MUs against top tiers are either 40:60 or 45:55. Also many of his good MUs are 60:40 which is good, but he does not hard counter anyone (as far as I know).

But then again... My knowledge of Wario isn't the best even thou I main him.

 

[TriTails]

Mario hard-counters no one.

People have been calling him top tier for quite some time now.

 

[Ikes]

his MU spread amongst top tiers is better than most, and his MU spread across the board is overal lgood. I cant think of any particular character besides mario that he loses to very badly, and mario is at the very worst 65:35 IMHO. Rosa maybe, though he has the tools to challenge her defensive play and mobility to catch her when she's got no luma. Sheik I can definitely see, although he's not particularly combo food due to being a weirdm ix of floaty and sorta heavy. The fact of the matter is that Chomp -literally- devours approaches. It's been done against sonic and is one of the reasons that MU might be in his favor. Sonic simply has a harder time getting through chomp and cant approach as easily.

The fact that wario has poor range is negated by his ability to weave in and out of battle. His effective range is a lot longer than his hitbox due to the fact that he has the specs to get in while a hitbox is out, and get out when it ends, effectively increasing the range of an attack. Take fair for example, sure a fair with no horizontal momentum has piss poor range in the end, but when he can move forwards so quickly when it comes out, and then weave back when it ends pretty much makes the range of the attack the width of his body. Sure he's still extending a hurtbox, but it's something since it'll most likely either trade or he'll be out before it can be reacted to/punished.

I strongly believe that if he's not top 6, he's at least top 8. Him being (afaik) top 4 in japan should really be an indicator of his prominence as a viable top tier.

 

[Shaya]

After Sheik it's a big glob.
Zero Suit kinda sounds good for the title due to option spread, damage output, range, kill power, etc.
but she does have hard match ups.

So the question is, who doesn't? Mario kinda? Fox perhaps? I mean in terms of characters who could almost say it, I doubt either of them do.

So you look at results. There's only one big Rosalina, while there's a few Zero Suits of varying levels globally with good results. Sonic and Fox have mile-wide armies but without national victories or top placements, and Mario + Luigi (and Ness) filthying up locals/regionals near you.

I'm not mentioning Diddy because he's probably the only other "fair" character to place there, with his fantastic frame data, animations, combo game etc, yet everyone feels (including the top players behind him) that he's not "best in the game". I guess the only thing we have is to look at the characters they place higher and go "we disagree". But it's really hard to disagree because no character clearly has results other than Sheik, the rest is just players.

Delux is Delux, and I'm not sure how negative nick McGriddle is. I think we all agree the range of 'hard' match ups is Sheik, Mario, Ness, Pika and Olimar. Although I'm pretty indifferent towards Sheik. As in, I think it's fine and it's why ZSS is obviously such a strong character; Nairo has winning (or even) records against like... every other Sheik bar ZeRo I believe, and Choco maintained #2 in Japan behind Rain with Nietono and Nyanko as the dominant Sheiks. In terms of other possibly bad match ups, I'm wary of Toon Link and Tiny Brawler as well.

Everything else is pretty much PIE (or evenish).

 

[Routa]

Mario hard-counters no one.

People have been calling him top tier for quite some time now.

But then again he doesn't get hard countered by anyone (he does get soft countered, but that isn't a big deal). If you look at Mario's MU spread you can see that most of the MU's are either 50:50 or 55:45.

@ Ikes you are right about his options, but I think it is still not enough. The fact that he has very little options from grab hurts him a bit (well it can be ignored due to best command grab in game so). In my experience he gets shutdown by disjoints which isn't such a big deal due to most of the spacing characters are mid/low tier.

Tbh I just simply cannot see Wario on the same tier with Sheik or ZSS. I can see him somewhere with Mario or Villager.

Edit: mah grammar sucks.

 

[TriTails]

To be honest, while Mr. CC got 25th at EVO, he himself said that 'he could've placed higher, maybe top 8 if he didn't misfired from the center of Smashville in the first 5 seconds at 0% and instantly died'. So Luigi might have the potential to take on big events such as EVO.

And people need to dig out of the soil of 'Rosalina plays defensive' because that kinda irks me especially since with TWO characters for crying out loud, she can basically go ham on one player and time out another.

 

[Konneh]

Concerning the Tier Discussion,

if we really went by results, Rosalina absolutely can not be #2.
There's only one big Rosalina getting results - @Dabuz - and arguably a lot of that success is to be attributed to a strongly chosen and practiced secondary as well as strong player skill.
Additionally, he has not been taking the #2 slot in CEO and EVO - arguably this could possibly be attributed to bad MUs, but those also would take their influence on a tier placement.
I just feel like there is so much easy reward to be gained in MU knowledge against Rosalina, I see a lot of people still treat Luma in really suboptimal ways even at high levels, and I believe as time passes she will be more and more figured out by her enemies. That won't make her bad, but I do think it knocks her off of #2.

The statement "Rosalina plays defensive" is probably a testimony to only knowing Dabuz. Falln also placed Top32 at EVO, as far as I know, and I've seen beautiful aggressive plays from him in the past.

 

[C0rvus]

In my mind,a tier list should reflect a few things, though the order of importance is up in the air:
1. Matchup Spread, or relative strength within the cast. A character with mostly even or slightly advantageous MUs sould be considered better than a character who counters a bunch of characters but gets countered by a few himself.
2. Tournament Results, considering representation overall. There may be a consistent Sonic presence in top 16 at majors, but there are a lot of Sonic players, for example. Majors matter more, but locals/regionals shouldn't be ignored.
3. Theory; just a bit, but if we see potential in a move or technique that hasn't been explored yet, that should likely reflect on our tier list as well.

And concerning Wario's matchup spread, it's not that bad. He has a pretty solid advantage against Rosalina, he does well against Luigi, Sonic is doable, Diddy has to be around even; and for all the annoying ones (Pikachu, Mario, ZSS, Fox) that he loses slightly to, remember that Wario has that built-in comeback button, so winning a match is rarely out of reach. He's kind of an anti-meta character in the way he beats defensive play (he gets rewarded for doing nothing, Chomp is amazing, Bike camping is a thing, especially with Speed Bike, etc.) I don't doubt he's high tier, but on the lower end of it, maybe even upper mid. He gives a bunch of upper mid-ish characters a hard time (Mega Man, Villager, ROB come to mind), but I have no idea how he fares against random mid tiers like Marth, Shulk, Ryu, Kirby, etc. Weird character.

 

[migul]

you're kidding right?

assuming you're not, doesnt that make it the best option against shield like, in the game?



thank jesus my gullibility was wrong

frame 8 is still among the better grabs in the game, isnt it? still amazing against shield.

My bad dude. That's what I heard

 

[Routa]

Wait... Is Chomp only move that beats both Shield and Spotdodge?

 

[C0rvus]

Wait... Is Chomp only move that beats both Shield and Spotdodge?

ZSS and Pacman's grab can do that, but it's a timing thing. There may be a couple others.

 

[meleebrawler]

Wait... Is Chomp only move that beats both Shield and Spotdodge?

Any command grab that can be held out. That includes Kirby and Dedede's inhales. Wario just has the safest one along with the best mobility.

 

[Smog Frog]

trampoline probably. if popping them up counts as beating spotdodge