Most interesting thing from Zero's High Tier list (at least to me) was that he put Pichu and Bowser in it. I expected more or less the rest of those characters be listed in High Tier. The Link main in me has also noticed that many different tier lists have ranked Link and Young Link pretty evenly; usually with Young Link just edging him out.
I havent put much thought into it or watched the video for his reasoning but I thought Pichu was considered better than Pikachu?
And Bowser being high tier is my personal stand out. It would be the craziest thing considering hes the heaviest character in the game. Super heavies in general dont have the best track record in tier lists. A high tier super heavy is something I'm down to see
Did you expect
Ice Climbers? I'm not even memeing, that one was just.. wow, to me.
Otherwise, Pichu just got hit with a
truck of nerfs, pretty much dealing more damage to himself across the board on all attacks and having a good bit of his kill power taken away to boot. FTilt was gutted, the move doesn't kill until 130-140%ish
at the ledge now. Overall Pichu got made more glass and less cannon, all while Pikachu was untouched by nerfs and even got a grab range buff I believe. Pikachu has also been developed quite a bit overtime, the main thing hurting his results is that he only has one truly notable player (ESAM) and isn't the most well represented character out there due to how many jumped on Pichu back closer to launch. Pikachu at this phase I would definitely say is superior to Pichu, but not by a
ton or anything like that.
Also Bowser is clearly the best superheavy and is certainly a candidate for the lower end of high tier, as $AF pointed out above (and much more tbh) he has a lot of good going for him and just outshines the other characters in his weight class by a wide margin.
The Links aren't the most well represented characters out there, but I personally would put their viability along the lines of Young Link > Link > Toon Link but I think all three are in the same tier (high tier) though I'd say Young Link is the only one of the three that falls into the category for upper high tier / high tier +. He has combo into imagination potential, the Kokiri Sword has deceptively good range for how small it looks so paired with his speed he doesn't have problems hitting you, his 'kill problems' are mostly imagined because by god does this character have kill confirms / setups for days (albeit nothing truly fantastic to just graze someone with and neutral and score a kill without a hard read or something, but his kill setup moves aren't hard to land either so) and his speed / damage output combined with his projectile game just make him a very deadly character in the right hands and a downright
scary counterpick in a lot of MU's. For this reason, I'd say YL definitely edges the other two out.
All in all not every placement on this tier list is bad or laughable, it's more-so the fact there's a lot of blatant misinformation being put out in the process
and it also seems he really does just pull stuff straight out of his ass sometimes without a care in the world. Saying Falcon is 'close to being high tier, but needs more combos labbed out' shows an outright lack of knowledge about the character. NAir 1 and NAir 2 are both godlike combo starters / setup tools that can lead directly into high damaging combos, regrab setups, kills, you name it and on a character like Falcon once you get a read on your opponent's movement they aren't hard to land at
all. DAir sets directly up into both combos and kills, both smash attacks and aerials (Knee and BAir). Low % BAir sets up grabs, as do NAir 1 & 2 and all can have regrab potential through the possible follow ups. Falling UAir is still a thing. Raptor boost not only starts combos, but can even be a combo extender or a mixup in some cases.. not to mention the armor on this move does wonders in neutral sometimes. FTilt, specifically angled (Downward) FTilt, is an amazing tool to tech chase people and set up jab locks with.
NAir 1, NAir 2, UThrow, DThrow, BAir (Weak and strong hit), DAir, UAir, UTilt, FTilt and NAir 3 (full) are all combo starters and/or extenders on Falcon, and a lot of his strongest moves such as FAir (knee), DAir, USmash and FSmash can used (true) to finish out said combos. This character already has a slew of ways to put a ton of damage on you or even 0-death you out of a single neutral interaction or read, he has the potential to get mileage through reactive play too.. and at high %'s he's never lacking for a means to kill you. I understand things such as his startup dash speed and his turnaround frames on top of rockcrocking do hurt him to a point, but calling the character mid tier and saying he needs more lab time, especially after his recent buffs, well it just proves my point. ZeRo doesn't understand a lot of the characters he's speaking about.
If he got Falcon wrong, he got other characters wrong. I can only say all this about Falcon because of how well I know the character, but it's by no means the only questionable placement on his tier list. I also dislike how he outright stated in a recent video he didn't understand the Shoto's at
all but was still quick to shove them into high tier. I think they at
least are high tier too, don't get me wrong, but that sort of thing just kind of makes a statement imo.
All said it's by no means the worst tier list out there, no, but for a 'top' player that a
ton of people watch and take at their word, it does dishearten me to see such a list being made with so much misinformation and bias in it. That sort of stuff can have ripple effects, but I digress.