Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[LancerStaff]

Wait, what? Zelda has above-average custom options. (In large part because her defaults are THAT bad for 1v1...) The Neutral options are poor, and Up-3 is gimmicky, but the other 5 are all respectable moves.

Phantom Strike was way better than the other two options before this patch. While it was improved, the other 2 were improved more, so it might not be the best anymore; not sure.

Zelda social says otherwise. Phantom Strike was better, but still terrible. And none of them give her enough of a boost to stay even, much less move up.

 

[Shaya]

To follow up from what I said, I think those 5 characters are the safest, possibly the only characters in the cast that shouldn't require secondaries and have (near) solo main amazing results attached to them.

Have to agree about MK

It's not even difficult to routinely get kills off dash attack or down-throw at around 30-40%. Plus higher than that MK is still ridiculously threatening with up-airs since they confirm into themselves and up-b for KOs (up air around 70%+ is death a lot of the time >.>)

The character's neutral does suck but his reward is ridiculously skewed, and dash attack/dash grab and rolls are generally enough to sustain it, plus falling nair is safe on shield (at least as a cross-up) since they reduced the landing lag.

Well that's just it, his rewards and the resulting "bad" character from the start was probably intentional. But when you buff BIG reward's characters abilities to be consistent over and over again, then their original "amazing reward" starts becoming apparent as an abusive/stupid dynamic.
Marth is in a very similar boat really. For every patch with end lag reduced you're making the possibility of comboing into tipper fsmash more likely. The moment Marth players can do this is the moment Marth is suddenly no-brainer high/top tier and would require KO power nerfs to rectify it.

 

[migul]

To follow up from what I said, I think those 5 characters are the safest, possibly the only characters in the cast that shouldn't require secondaries and have (near) solo main amazing results attached to them.


Well that's just it, his rewards and the resulting "bad" character from the start was probably intentional. But when you buff BIG reward's characters abilities to be consistent over and over again, then their original "amazing reward" starts becoming apparent as an abusive/stupid dynamic.
Marth is in a very similar boat really. For every patch with end lag reduced you're making the possibility of comboing into tipper fsmash more likely. The moment Marth players can do this is the moment Marth is suddenly no-brainer high/top tier and would require KO power nerfs to rectify it.

So 17th at EVO is "amazing".
K
EDIT: Scratch 25th. Ito didn't make it into bracket apparently

 

[Ffamran]

Zelda social says otherwise. Phantom Strike was better, but still terrible. And none of them give her enough of a boost to stay even, much less move up.

The Zelda boards are probably the trolliest boards and there's one person who's very optimistic about her. The rest? Cynics, pessimists, trolls, and non-Zelda mains. Oh, and lots of mods visit there to troll too.

 

[DanGR]

Mario seems like the pretty obvious #3 if Sheik then ZSS are top 2. Honestly, if Nairo never showed me what ZSS was capable of in practice, I'd be more inclined to put Mario as #2. It's hard to argue with his consistently "do-able" matchup spread and equally consistent tournament record.

 

[Ghostbone]

So 17th at EVO is "amazing".
K
EDIT: Scratch 25th. Ito didn't make it into bracket apparently

Ito got taken out by Tyrant iirc, not really fair to judge MK when he gets knocked out by himself.

Lets not forget the best player in Mexico is an MK main who demolished Mr. R (who has plenty of MK experience).

 

[LancerStaff]

The Zelda boards are probably the trolliest boards and there's one person who's very optimistic about her. The rest? Cynics, pessimists, trolls, and non-Zelda mains. Oh, and lots of mods visit there to troll too.

And the optimistic ones (yes, plural) calls her customs trash.
Do you really think there's any character worse then Zelda in customs besides ?

 

[migul]

Ito got taken out by Tyrant iirc, not really fair to judge MK when he gets knocked out by himself.

Lets not forget the best player in Mexico is an MK main who demolished Mr. R (who has plenty of MK experience).

The thing I thought was wrong was that Shaya said that his top 5 had amazing solo main results, which I don't find to be true.
Edit: I do know about Leo's triple 2 stock on Mr. R, but imo that doesn't shoot a character from high tier into top 5

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Ito got taken out by Tyrant iirc, not really fair to judge MK when he gets knocked out by himself.

Lets not forget the best player in Mexico is an MK main who demolished Mr. R (who has plenty of MK experience).

I don't think its really fair to judge MK's viability on that set since Mr. R was playing pretty badly then. He made several key mistakes such as DIing poor and throwing random grenades on occasion, among other things.

 

[Speed Boost]

To follow up from what I said, I think those 5 characters are the safest, possibly the only characters in the cast that shouldn't require secondaries and have (near) solo main amazing results attached to them.


Well that's just it, his rewards and the resulting "bad" character from the start was probably intentional. But when you buff BIG reward's characters abilities to be consistent over and over again, then their original "amazing reward" starts becoming apparent as an abusive/stupid dynamic.
Marth is in a very similar boat really. For every patch with end lag reduced you're making the possibility of comboing into tipper fsmash more likely. The moment Marth players can do this is the moment Marth is suddenly no-brainer high/top tier and would require KO power nerfs to rectify it.

I played some MK here and there before the recent buff. From what I remember the percentage window to get an UAir string into UpB was pretty small. I'm assuming Dash Attack is the same way.

Is is comparable to getting an UAir string into UpB with ZSS? I was thinking it might even be a smaller window.

Edit: Sorry, I just skimmed your post, didn't see you addressed this issue @ Shaya

 

[blinkingpigs]

Villager should certainly be higher than ROB and Olimar IMO and that isn't just from my personal bias

 

[Shaya]

The thing I thought was wrong was that Shaya said that his top 5 had amazing solo main results, which I don't find to be true.
Edit: I do know about Leo's triple 2 stock on Mr. R, but imo that doesn't shoot a character from high tier into top 5

ESAM is one of the greatest Smash players of all time. Otherwise Pikachu has very little going for him in terms of results or strong tournament presence.

Ito dominates regions.
Meta Knight wins nationals.
His rise/results/everything have been continually getting better over the course of the last 2-3 months.

If you're going to contribute nothing while trying to start a semantics argument you've come to the wrong thread.

 

[migul]

Sorry, Pikachu kinda sucks.
ESAM is one of the greatest Smash players of all time.

Ito dominates regions.
Meta Knight wins nationals.
His rise/results/everything have been continually getting better over the course of the last 2-3 months.

If you're going to try to start a semantics argument you've come to the wrong thread.

Wait where did Pikachu come into play? Just because I put Pikachu down as my main doesn't mean I'm advocating him for top 5 dude. Pls don't assume that

 

[Vipermoon]

Marth is in a very similar boat really. For every patch with end lag reduced you're making the possibility of comboing into tipper fsmash more likely. The moment Marth players can do this is the moment Marth is suddenly no-brainer high/top tier and would require KO power nerfs to rectify it.

Funny you say that. Just did a landing Fair in training mode on another Marth at 55% and it comboed into tipper Fsmash for the kill. It's very difficult though. The Fsmash usually doesn't reach.

Landing Fair also combos into rising Fair now. So say hi to Fair strings across the stage (not that I wasn't doing those anyway last patch).

Also, Shaya, why does down throw to Uair true combo Marth at 106% (random number I set) for the kill? He never had a hoo hah.

These ones are obvious but falling Uair and the back hit of Utilt to tipper Fsmash are very reliable.

 

[Shaya]

Wait where did Pikachu come into play? Just because I put Pikachu down as my main doesn't mean I'm advocating him for top 5 dude. Pls don't assume that

My assuming involves filling in the gaps of you not saying anything relevant, you may not think pika is top 5 but who else and why do you not think MK can (with zealot theory crafting as explicitly stated in my original post) be top 5. Nit picking single small things in a post again while not addressing anything else... Why.

*sigh*.

 

[Noa.]

I'm surprised you don't have Fox in your top 5. He seems to be a pretty dominant character and has a lot of tournament results. I can't think of any character you would need a secondary for.

Idk how large that Mexican tournament was, but I'm not sure if it would be correct to label it as a national.

MK may seem strong now, but he's only just being noticed by the majority. Who knows what kind of counters will come out of the woodwork. I wouldn't say MK has been around long enough to state that he doesn't have any character counters at a high level.

 

[Shaya]

@ Noa.
Characters I've seen be wrecked by Rosalina are hard for me to feel confident as top 5, although Fox can definitely argue it (and I've argued it before).
Not sure how much the jab nerf hurt him in some of his close/other high tier match ups.

And eh, national within the context of the US? Maybe not.
National within the context of Mexico? It would be incredibly silly to not agree. Mexico is completely off the map for most of us and it shouldn't be (and their players don't seem to be fans of them being ignored/underrated either).

Sheik is a big factor to my "theory". I originally felt (probably still do) that Sheik/Fox isn't bad for Fox (heck some results would indicate Fox advantage). As the jab lock never really applied to Sheik it's probably a net gain overall. Sheik players seem to be growing still while Fox does seem to be slowing down, although not certain, I'm just currently aware of more things that get in the way of Fox than I'm feeling towards MK.
His rise will plateau at some point.

For what it's worth it's hard for me not to think of Sonic, Rosa and Fox as high/top-tierish still.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Victory is my Destiny

Is he wrong?
I mean he went from undisputed bottom tier to undisputed mid tier to somewhat disputed top tier over the course of the meta.
And I'm fairly certain that if a character can reliably kill at like 60% while being fast and tiny it's pretty hard not to be high tier.
I actually don't think the hype surrounding MK will die off so quickly. Hopefully people keep pushing his meta because it's still young, whether we want to believe it or not. Today's low tier could be tomorrow's counterpick character for all we know. We like to think we're ready for a back room or a tier lost but we still need time tbh.

 

[Ikes]

Victory is my Destiny

Is he wrong?
I mean he went from undisputed bottom tier to undisputed mid tier to somewhat disputed top tier over the course of the meta.
And I'm fairly certain that if a character can reliably kill at like 60% while being fast and tiny it's pretty hard not to be high tier.
I actually don't think the hype surrounding MK will die off so quickly. Hopefully people keep pushing his meta because it's still young, whether we want to believe it or not. Today's low tier could be tomorrow's counterpick character for all we know. We like to think we're ready for a back room or a tier lost but we still need time tbh.

I feel like if Sheik, Rosa, and ZSS get nerfed, MK could end up being the best character in the game yet again

 

[Speed Boost]

I could see MK being top 5 if a player like Nairo were to pick him up. His plays type is perfect for the character.

Without a top player playing MK I don't think he will get the results to warrant top 5 status. I cant imagine who that top player is gonna be that switches to MK at this point. Baring further nerfs to Sheik and other characters ahead of MK in results this far.

Results point toward a clear top 3, , and after those three we have a group of five characters that can really argue for the last two spots based on their national results. Those characters being .

Rosalina and Pikachu have great national results, but only on the backs of Dabuz and ESAM. To me that makes me think the characters might not be as good as those players. Maybe Pikachu and Rosalina are top 10 characters being players by top 5 players?

I think Sonic and Ness have shown to have the best combination of results and representation aside from the aforementioned top 3.

So, with that said I would say the current top 5 is

 

[Tito Maas]

I'm glad people are finally starting to recognize Meta Knight.

The whole idea of him being bottom tier in Smash 4 was never substantiated even a little bit.

 

[Ikes]

I'm glad people are finally starting to recognize Meta Knight.

The whole idea of him being bottom tier in Smash 4 was never substantiated even a little bit.

I always thought he was good, if not just because I thought it would be funny if the killer of brawl came back for a second term

 

[DanGR]

Without a top player playing MK I don't think he will get the results to warrant top 5 status. I cant imagine who that top player is gonna be that switches to MK at this point. Baring further nerfs to Sheik and other characters ahead of MK in results this far.

That top player is already playing MK. His name is LEO, and his play is nothing short of consistently phenomenal. If he's not blaring red screeches all over your radar monitor already, I don't know what will.

 

[Speed Boost]

That top player is already playing MK. His name is LEO, and his play is nothing short of consistently phenomenal. If he's not blaring red screeches all over your radar monitor already, I don't know what will.

I haven't seen him do it on a national stage against all the top players. I had not even heard of him until he beat Mr R. So, I'm gonna hold out judgement until I see more before I call him a top player.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I could see MK being top 5 if a player like Nairo were to pick him up. His plays type is perfect for the character.

Without a top player playing MK I don't think he will get the results to warrant top 5 status. I cant imagine who that top player is gonna be that switches to MK at this point. Baring further nerfs to Sheik and other characters ahead of MK in results this far.

Results point toward a clear top 3, , and after those three we have a group of five characters that can really argue for the last two spots based on their national results. Those characters being .

Rosalina and Pikachu have great national results, but only on the backs of Dabuz and ESAM. To me that makes me think the characters might not be as good as those players. Maybe Pikachu and Rosalina are top 10 characters being players by top 5 players?

I think Sonic and Ness have shown to have the best combination of results and representation aside from the aforementioned top 3.

So, with that said I would say the current top 5 is

Results results results. Almost meaningless imo you claim all this result stuff. Don't bring up MU's or character tools.

So please tell me what's MK worse MU's are and how many poor MU's he actually has.

 

[Shaya]

MK probably was low tier at the start of this game though.
His up (and down) air had less range than it does now for one.
Neutral air and back air would never kill and in the former case do less damage.

But yeah, the moment he got those aerial buffs all that time ago was the beginning of a solid/playable character. Dash attack or strings into Shuttle Loop were well known, but when you compared that to Sonic's safety and back throw, Diddy's insanely better grab game and KO power, Rosa being overwhelming + people not knowing the match up, while all these characters had better range than him, it was easy to think MK wasn't viable.

Mario/Luigi have been continual things that seemed to get in the way of early MK as well. Gaining solid ground moves in ftilt/jab help a lot. Mario is probably still quite hard for MK, but we just aren't seeing that too often. But as people seem to be getting better against Luigi, MK doesn't seem a definite as losing to him anymore either (but I can't recall any instances of MKs beating top Luigi mains/players).

Maybe overall MK is the anti-meta. His risk/reward with every light weight top tier character seems skewed towards MK a lot, none of them can really get a hit at 60 and end his life (bar ZSS, probably a bit to do with why they think it's his worse MU), while heavier characters probably don't come so easily for him.

 

[Ikes]

so apparently if a character is being played well, we ignore that and continue with endless theorycraft

no, dont be stupid, if someone places high with a character it means that that character is being used correctly and that should be focused on

IMHO results and optimal performance should be the sole focus of tier lists.

 

[Noa.]

@ Noa.
Characters I've seen be wrecked by Rosalina are hard for me to feel confident as top 5, although Fox can definitely argue it (and I've argued it before).
Not sure how much the jab nerf hurt him in some of his close/other high tier match ups.

And eh, national within the context of the US? Maybe not.
National within the context of Mexico? It would be incredibly silly to not agree. Mexico is completely off the map for most of us and it shouldn't be (and their players don't seem to be fans of them being ignored/underrated either).

Sheik is a big factor to my "theory". I originally felt (probably still do) that Sheik/Fox isn't bad for Fox (heck some results would indicate Fox advantage). As the jab lock never really applied to Sheik it's probably a net gain overall. Sheik players seem to be growing still while Fox does seem to be slowing down, although not certain, I'm just currently aware of more things that get in the way of Fox than I'm feeling towards MK.
His rise will plateau at some point.

For what it's worth it's hard for me not to think of Sonic, Rosa and Fox as high/top-tierish still.

I have no idea how badly Fox loses to Rosa or if he even loses at all. Larry lost to Dabuz at CEO but I'm not sure if the matchup was to blame there. It's really hard to make judgements for Rosa's
Matchups at high level play because Dabuz is her only player. Personally I would place fox over MK just cause he's been showing a high level of performance for longer.

When I think about nationals I think about the amount of player talent that is there, and the variety of regions in attendance. I mean no disrespect to Mexican players, but I didn't recognize anyone in that tournament except for Mr. R. They clearly have very talented players and must be a strong region, but I feel like it's really difficult to compare them to American players because there's been such limited exposure. Mr. R is a great player but he might not be an incredibly consistent top player. 3rd at Apex, 9th at CEO, 2nd at EVO, and then losing to an unheard of MK player and getting 2nd. Judging the strength of one region or skill caliber of a tournament off of only one recognizeable player may not be too accurate. I think this MK's win over Mr. R is significant, but this result isn't at the level of a national like Apex, Evo, or even CEO.

I think it would've been wrong to have Diddy in the top 5 before this latest patch. Only MVD and Zero seem to be pulling in large results with him. Even then, Zero relies heavily on sheik so he wouldn't be a good example to draw upon when considering the best characters who don't need a secondary. The Luigi matchup was looking pretty poor for Diddy, and the Pika and Ness matchups weren't too nice either. But with these buffs this might change and help Diddy significantly. Especially considering the fact that Luigi has been nerfed/changed. I'm wondering how strong Diddy is now with these buffs at a top level.

But I don't think there's a clear drop off at top 5. Sheik is a very obvious first choice, and zss is pretty agreeable to second. After that though it's pretty indistinguishable between the next 4 to 6 characters. Making a top 5 is a pretty arbitrary limit.

But I do like the five you've chosen. They're very interesting and definitely make sense.

 

[Speed Boost]

Results results results. Almost meaningless imo you claim all this result stuff. Don't bring up MU's or character tools.

So please tell me what's MK worse MU's are and how many poor MU's he actually has.

Anything I would say about his MUs would be speculation because we haven't seen enough of the character at the highest level to really know what the MUs are like.

Theory is great and all, but it is just on paper without consistent data to back it up.

 

[TriTails]

Luigi hasn't really been nerfed. Aside from D-tilt there isn't anything really significant. Fireballs nerf may be there, but it barely affects my play. I have gotten used to it that I think 'Wait. This was nerfed?'.

 

[Shaya]

Just for clarity, I would refer to tournaments like Apex and Evo as "majors" "internationals" "global tournaments".
CEO was more of a national to me, although the biggest national to happen in the US thus far.

Although Evo didn't attract love from Europe (good thing Melee exists) or Japan, Japan still did show up.

Villager/Ness won a national in Australia, I wouldn't say that measures up as well as another country's nationals, but it does say a bit about character capabilities within a "secluded" environment.

 

[Thinkaman]

so apparently if a character is being played well, we ignore that and continue with endless theorycraft

no, dont be stupid, if someone places high with a character it means that that character is being used correctly and that should be focused on

IMHO results and optimal performance should be the sole focus of tier lists.

Every time someone says "well lol that's just Zero/Nairo" in response to anyone pointing out how good Sheik/Diddy/ZSS are...

I just. Want. To flip a table.


Yes: The best players picked these characters to compete in international tournaments.

What does that tell you?

 

[Noa.]

Just for clarity, I would refer to tournaments like Apex and Evo as "majors" "internationals" "global tournaments".
CEO was more of a national to me, although the biggest national to happen in the US thus far.

Although Evo didn't attract love from Europe (good thing Melee exists) or Japan, Japan still did show up.

Villager/Ness won a national in Australia, I wouldn't say that measures up as well as another country's nationals, but it does say a bit about character capabilities within a "secluded" environment.

Ok yeah I would agree with you then. Nationals are very important when considering how good a character is.

We have yet to see MK perform extremely well at a major though. He probably will soon however.

 

[Firefoxx]

Top 32 at a 2000 person tournament seems really good to me. And MK could have had an even better showing if the two best MK players didn't have to meet up in pools.

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm skeptical that MK is top 5, but yeah, since when is top 32 at EVO not a big deal?

By the way, if you guys didn't notice, Duck Hunt's ground dodges are now tied with Mac's for best in the game.

Edit: I lied, they are tied with Giga Mac. DHD is now the #1 ground dodger in the normal cast.

 

[Speed Boost]

Every time someone says "well lol that's just Zero/Nairo" in response to anyone pointing out how good Sheik/Diddy/ZSS are...

I just. Want. To flip a table.


Yes: The best players picked these characters to compete in international tournaments.

What does that tell you?

Right, and we also have other top players that have done well recently with those characters. Sheik has plenty of top level representation right now. MVD has shown that Zero isn't the only one that can make Diddy look like he is still top 5. Then there is Nick Riddle's ZSS.

There are are multiple top level Ness player in FOW, Shaky and Nakat. Sonic is in the same boat. However when we look at Fox, Rosalina, Mario and Pikachu we really only have Larry, Dabuz, Ally and ESAM at the top 16 at a major level.

Obviously, their results and the theory behind the characters say that these are top tiers without a doubt, but when you are picking a top 5 out of 7-8 viable characters you have to use some criteria to differentiate them.

To me it makes sense to give more value to characters who have multiple players that are able to be successful with them. In the end they are all amazing characters, so I don't understand why people get so up tight when you disagree with them.

 

[Noa.]

Top 32 at Evo is a huge deal. But if we're talking about bringing into a character into the top 5, I would expect to see them in the top 8 of majors. Which MK hasn't done yet. His meta is developing later because he used to be a bad character, and only patches have allowed him to reach the potential of top tier. It wouldn't surprise me at all if MK did make top 8 or even top 3 at the next major though.

@ Speed Boost some notes about your list. Fox also has Megafox. He doesn't leave Texas, but he is on the level of these top players. When shaky went to a Texas tournament he reset the bracket against Megafox, but Megafox still won the tournament. I would love to see him play at a national or major but he hasn't traveled out of state.

And the only sonic player that can make top 16 right now is static manny. 6wx did great at apex but has dropped off significantly since then. The same can be said about Nakat for Ness and Fox.

 

[Vipermoon]

I heard from a couple of MK mains that he loses to Cpt. Falcon. Could this be true?

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Right, and we also have other top players that have done well recently with those characters. Sheik has plenty of top level representation right now. MVD has shown that Zero isn't the only one that can make Diddy look like he is still top 5. Then there is Nick Riddle's ZSS.

There are are multiple top level Ness player in FOW, Shaky and Nakat. Sonic is in the same boat. However when we look at Fox, Rosalina, Mario and Pikachu we really only have Larry, Dabuz, Ally and ESAM at the top 16 at a major level.

Obviously, their results and the theory behind the characters say that these are top tiers without a doubt, but when you are picking a top 5 out of 7-8 viable characters you have to use some criteria to differentiate them.

To me it makes sense to give more value to characters who have multiple players that are able to be successful with them. In the end they are all amazing characters, so I don't understand why people get so up tight when you disagree with them.

I really don't think you know what you're talking about and you're hiding by results a bit much. There's 4 high level Rosalina that do extremely well in their region and has shown up at big tournaments. The same is true for fox and Mario. Fallb was top 32 at evo and ceo however you limit your results to top 16 only. Then there's the fact tgat Abadango out placed dabuz and was using Rosalina also. It's weird to see you talk about nakat's ness but ignore his fox. When looming for high level foxes. There's also grimturtle and megafox. Megafox has better shaky and falln has beating nakat. There's more rel that I'm probably forgetting for these characters but it's still there.

 

[Speed Boost]

I really don't think you know what you're talking about and you're hiding by results a bit much. There's 4 high level Rosalina that do extremely well in their region and has shown up at big tournaments. The same is true for fox and Mario. Fallb was top 32 at evo and ceo however you limit your results to top 16 only. Then there's the fact tgat Abadango out placed dabuz and was using Rosalina also. It's weird to see you talk about nakat's ness but ignore his fox. When looming for high level foxes. There's also grimturtle and megafox. Megafox has better shaky and falln has beating nakat. There's more rel that I'm probably forgetting for these characters but it's still there.

Like I said when you have 7-8 characters that can argue for the top 5 you have to draw the line somewhere and no criteria is perfect. Instead of telling me how I don't know what I'm talking about why don't you enlighten me.