TheMarthRunner
Smash Cadet
Why You Should Main a Low Tier Character
In the Super Smash Brothers series, a player often wonders who they should pick as the character they want to master and develop skills as. This process is known as “choosing a main”. When picking a main, players often refer to a tier list, which is a ranking of the game’s characters from most viable to least viable. These tier lists can be very beneficial in learning more about the game, but so often a player will look at this list and limit themselves to the top-tier characters. This essay will help you, as a player realize that not only do you need to treat tier lists as gospel, but you may be better off ignoring them all together.
Freedom
If I think back to a decade and a half ago when I first picked up a brand new copy of Super Smash Brothers: Melee- which I will focus primarily on because I am more knowledgeable about this version than the others- I can vaguely remember my process of choosing a character. It had nothing to do with an arbitrary list put together by strangers, it had everything to do with playing the characters I genuinely liked. I would choose Young Link because he reminded me of Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, one of my favorite games. I might also choose Donkey Kong because he was a giant ape with his own theme song and a super-charged death punch. I was not thinking about frame data. Part of me wishes I could mentally go back to these days. Playing Smash Brothers should not just be about winning. It should be a celebration of your favorite Nintendo characters. It should be about having fun.
From a tactical perspective, you are much more likely to practice and improve when playing a character you find fascinating than you are when playing a character you are simply not interested in. If you pick your favorite character, regardless of how other people feel about them, and exploit ever gimmick and combo they might have, you can show people why the character you main is viable and should not be ignored. Now, if your favorite character is Fox, Marth or some other high-tier, power to you, but for many people, their favorite character isnt anywhere impressive on the tier list, which is why you ought to ignore the tiers when you are starting out. This is exactly what professional Smash player, Amsa, did.
Amsa, real name Masaya Chikamot, is a Yoshi main from Japan. Originally, Yoshi was placed fairly low on the tier list, but Amsa changed all of that in the Smash tournament, Evo 2013. Chikamot had been working for years developing his favorite character, Yoshi, from a joke of a main into a tournament-viable character. Amsa had developed techniques with Yoshi that were hardly ever known to the competitive Smash scene, such as parrying. He took everyone by surprise when he started beating some of the best players as a low-tier. He even took a game off of Mew2King, one of the top five best players in the world. The best part is that if you look at any of Amsa’s matches, he has a huge, energetic smile across his face. The man is having a blast! He didn’t listen to the tiers, he just had fun playing as his favorite character.
Support
If you go to any Melee tournament Fox, Falco, Marth, Peach, Captain Falcon and Sheik tend to dominate a large portion of a player’s character selection while middle or bottom-tier characters such as Doctor Mario, Luigi, Ganondorf, Bowser, Donkey Kong tend to be ignored. This is a tragic waste of the game’s roster, but when one of these lower tier characters are picked, they player who picked them will often win over the crowd of people watching. It’s always interesting to watch two top-tier Fox’s fighting it out, but it is riviting when a low tier comes into the situation. People love an underdog and people love to see their game’s competitive scene develop. People want the low tier to win. When you pick a low tier, you will often find that people are willing to help you out. They are often willing to give you general pointers or just give you some practice. The crowd has more fun when you play a low-tier. Go look at any of Bizzaro Flame’s matches. Bizzaro Flame is a Ganondorf main who focus a lot on flashy moves and combos with his character. People love him because he isn’t supposed to win, but somehow he does anyway. If you want to have the crowd love you, pick a low tier.
Recognition
Now, recognition is not important to many Smashers, but to some it is. Especially if you are trying to get sponsored. I briefly mentioned it earlier, but if you are just another top-tier main, you had better be the very best out there, otherwise you are forgettable. However, when you pick a less common character, you stick out! You are fun to watch and people remember you! It is much easier to remember “The Donkey Kong master that played fairly well” than it would be to remember “The Fox player that played alright”. Even if you win more games when you play a top-tier, you are less likely to stick out.
This is not to say that playing a low-tier will be easy. It will take lots of work and you will really have to nail down your fundamentals. If you play your character poorly, it will only reinforce the notion that it is a bad character choice. You will not only have to play well, you will have to be better at the game at its core than your opponent. It will take arduous work and training, but once you begin playing well, people will start to notice you.
Tier Lists Change
Since the release of Melee, there have been 14 different tier lists. These lists are not concrete and should not be treated as doctrine. The purpose of tier lists are to give a general idea of which characters would be best if played by players of the exact same skill level as one another. Yoshi, as used in my previous example, has jumped up ten slots on the tier list since the game’s initial release. You can control the tier list by discovering new ways to use your character that no one has ever exploited.
Tactical Advantage
While it may seem counterintuitive to think that choosing a worse character could actually give you an advantage, that is the case in many situations. First of all, most players aren’t familiar with the matchups of their character with a low tier. You will sometimes have several matched before they can adapt to a new character matchup, and often by that time it is too late and you have already won. This unfamiliarity with you character won't last very long though and, as such, should not be depended on.
Another advantage a low tier main can give is that of reinforcing your fundamentals. Timing, directional influence and reading your opponent are all things that you really need to fine tune if you are going to be successful as a Smash player. When you pick a low-tier, you are forced to rely on these basics for a lot of your matches. Melee Bowser just doesn’t have the tools needed to keep up with Fox and Falco. In order to win your matches you need to get into the heads of your opponents and predict their actions. When you play a top-tier character, this is important, but you also have bread and butter combos that you can fall back on if you need it. Back when I mained Marth, I had fallen in the habit of throwing out random forward airs, hoping they would connect and then try to perform a Ken Combo. This is okay, if you are thinking of the fundamentals as well. For me, I was not able to slow myself down and really get a grasp on the game until I switched my main to Ganondorf. Now, because of the extra effort I have needed in order to succeed as Ganon, my Marth and other characters are better because I really worked on those basics. This is not to say that switching to a low-tier will solve all of your problems, but in my case, it helped a lot.
A Word of Caution
While playing your favorite character is fun, just remember that if you want to excel as your character, then you as your player need to put in the work. Amsa and Bizzaro Flame didn’t get to where they are today by sitting around and complaining about how their character wasn’t great. They sucked it up, buckled down and got to work. This holds true for you as well. Remember that as you practice with your low-tier Mewtwo, there is a top-tier practicing Fox just as hard. When it comes down to it, you need to be the better player that playing a low-tier forces you to be. You will get bodied a lot and you will lose a lot of matches, but when you do win there isn’t anything quite like that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you embarrass a top level player as Donkey Kong. So choose your favorite character to main, not the top of the tier list. Work hard, train hard and show the Smash community what low-tiers can do.
