Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[williamsga555]

Does Ryu still manage to do well at taking grenades out of the equation? I know that was starting to feel like the case a few years back but grenade play has changed a lot since then, so I'm not sure about how that matchup looks at this point in the game's life.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Does Ryu still manage to do well at taking grenades out of the equation? I know that was starting to feel like the case a few years back but grenade play has changed a lot since then, so I'm not sure about how that matchup looks at this point in the game's life.

Asimo does do very well against Hurt and Hurt considers the MU even, so maybe? Hurt could be playing the MU wrong though.

Some YouTuber did a retrospective of Snake in Ultimate, and the video is pretty good (clickbait thumbnail aside)

 

[NairWizard]

A romanticized hypothetical perhaps, but if Snake can play solid footsies against the likes of G&W and Ness like you suggest then that's in most ways kind of an ideal scenario considering I can't think of any other characters on the roster that invalidate Snake's reliance on grenade as a neutral option; Incineroar? Maybe Lucas has some advantages that Ness doesn't?

I'm actually kind of surprised that G&W can even consider to "work" in favor of Snake consider G&W outclasses Snake in pretty much every mobility category while having just as many meaty hitboxes or frame data to spare.

Joker and Min Min also handle grenade pretty well. Min Min punishes Snake for setting up with a 0 to death, and Joker gets Arsene, which can lead to 0 to deaths against Snake's unique disadvantage options as well. Min Min probably wins the MU while Joker is even, though, since Snake's edgeguards on Joker are pretty potent over the course of a set (might not get anything in an individual game though since you do have to read his option; Joker can be slippery).

I'm actually kind of surprised that G&W can even consider to "work" in favor of Snake consider G&W outclasses Snake in pretty much every mobility category while having just as many meaty hitboxes or frame data to spare.

Everyone, or nearly everyone, has more mobility than Snake without grenade. It's the amount of mobility you have that matters. G&W is faster than Snake, but it's not by enough to feel the difference.



For the thread and video, the meta development that made Snake so much better is that Snakes started getting better at camping. All the modern Snakes are grenade-heavy, but Hurt's grenade play is out of this world, very clean and airtight. The camping is so good that Snake started beating other zoners, and started having +2 MUs on all the swordies, which were previously considered even or losing MUs for him.


I always tell you guys, neutral is still the most important game state. All of the current characters soaring to the top are doing so off the back of significant neutral advancements.
Miya's advantage state is better than Maister's, but Miya's optimization of getting that advantage state via fully spaced n-airs is what really holds his gameplan together at top level.
Hurt's grenade play is by far the main thing that distinguishes him most from other Snakes.
Sonix? Do we even need to say anything there?
sparg0's Cloud evolved from sword spacing to realizing that you can just mash options like up-smash in neutral and not get punished in many scenarios.


Sometimes it doesn't feel like a neutral improvement because it's simple, just pressing a button faster in X or Y scenario, but neutral is the heart of the game still.

At this point everyone is 0 to deathing you at all levels. What really sets you apart is minimizing risk in neutral. Hurt's Snake does that, which makes it extra beautiful when he does take a risk, like vs. GnW and in game 5 set 1 against acola at Kagaribi.


It's why I still believe in Aegis. I can't remember who said this, but Aegis is just waiting for a CodySchwab figure, someone who can take the character and minimize risk with her.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Miya posted an updated MU Chart

Important to note that this seems heavily influenced by who Miya has lost too, for example Pit and Dark Pit are considered bad MUs after Miya lost badly to Zackray and his first G&W MU Chart had Corrin as a good MU for G&W before he lost to SHADIC, same with Mega Man and Peabnut.

 

[Rizen]

Miya posted an updated MU Chart
View attachment 389023
Important to note that this seems heavily influenced by who Miya has lost too, for example Pit and Dark Pit are considered bad MUs after Miya lost badly to Zackray and his first G&W MU Chart had Corrin as a good MU for G&W before he lost to SHADIC, same with Mega Man and Peabnut.

This MU chart reflects something I said, G&W has an amazing advantage state with amazing ledgetrapping and offstage interception. Look at his losing MUs: all of them except Aegis (who are outrageous in their own way) have good disadvantage states with good recoveries that can bypass ledge trapping. MK and Pit have excellent recoveries with multiple jumps, ZSS has flip kick, Yoshi has an armored double jump, Diddy can upB under the stage to the opposite ledge in several stages, Hero has zoom which completely bypasses the ledge, then Sonic and Rosalina both have good recoveries where they can aim high to avoid the ledge. G&W gets a ton of damage in advantage but when he can't do that suddenly he's an extremely light character who isn't killing as early as the opponent. I feel like this MU chart is a good indication of a top tier character but with a healthy amount of losing MUs.


Edit, after watching Kagaribi 12 Miya's win makes a lot more sense. He got really lucky in bracket. Spargo, Zachray and Acola, all the top threats to him, under preformed and were taken out by other players. The best player he had to beat was Hurt and G&W probably has a winning MU vs Snake. It's still an impressive win but not as much as I first assumed.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for KOWLOON 11.

1. Hurt
2. Glutonny
3. Ryuoh
4. Marcos
5. Nyonoknb
5. Gorioka
7. Sigma
7. Rokki
9. TomiTomi
9. Karoegu
9. SUZUNE
9. 33PeranBox

This was an extremely top heavy event with the top 4 seeds being Hurt, Gluto, Asimo and Goblin with Asimo DQ'ing and Goblin getting 17th. I believe it came at a B Tier due to the amount of Japan depth + Glutonny and Hurt giving a lot of points on the LumiRank TTS.

 

[NairWizard]

Haven't worked out the Lucina video quite yet, but there is a topic that's been on my mind recently: Bayonetta seems to be just as good as the very best characters.

Gameplaywise, she has all the tools she needs: the 0 to deaths, plenty of neutral finesse, and a disadvantage state that would make any sword character jealous. It's hard to enumerate all her great traits, but the best thing by far is her ability to slow down the game pace to a crawl and force you off your gameplan.

I don't personally care much for results when evaluating top characters, but if you do want to look at results, a unique lens you can look at Bayo through is regional difference: there is a successful top Bayo in NA, a successful top Bayo in EU, and a successful top Bayo in JP. Compare this to some other characters often seen as top meta threats -- you don't see Yoshi or Fox succeed in every region like that; not even Corrin or Sonic are excelling quite to the same degree across continents.

It's almost like Bayo doesn't care what meta she's in; she's going to win regardless.

And that characteristic is very, very indicative of a top character.

 

[williamsga555]

Yeah, I think Bayo's another instance of a character that would be difficult to make "bad" without unreasonably bad numbers slapped on her kit, and I think side b is the primary lynchpin.

It's such an amazing burst mobility tool that her opponents basically always have to be ready for it in neutral -yes, it's punishable if blocked, but if you're playing Ultimate neutral based around shielding you're not playing it optimally. She has other ways of shifting the pacing into her favor (offstage stalling, bats within from disadvantage, etc) but I think that being able to dictate the "comfort zone" of neutral in almost all matchups gives her a huge boost in overall potency.

It directly leading into Bayo advantage state certainly doesn't hurt either!

 

[NairWizard]

Yeah, that's such a good observation. You have to run up and shield against Bayo basically all the time unless you have some very strong projectile zoning (and Bayo eats some projectile zoners like Samus for breakfast anyway). That doesn't leave a lot of room for your own neutral finessing, while Bayo just gets all of the stage to herself to zoom around on.


Right after we posted talking about this, SHADIC is out of LTC at 7th due to losing to Geist, and Lima is in winners finals beating Teaser (who beat SHADIC).

Bayo is crazy strong, and I think only has room to get better. The counterplay doesn't have much wiggle room because you always have to respect ABK and Heel Slide, but Bayo herself has lots of room to keep growing.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Yeah, I think Bayo's another instance of a character that would be difficult to make "bad" without unreasonably bad numbers slapped on her kit, and I think side b is the primary lynchpin.

Well Bayo at the launch of the game was pretty bad, as she had virtually no kill power and most of her toolkit did not work properly.
She got super buffed by game updates, giving her more kill power and significantly improved the consistency of her toolkit, which greatly improved her combo game and kill power by itself.

I do agree that as long as her toolkit is functional and doesn't have Brawl Samus kill power, Bayo is a difficult character to make bad due to the nature of her character design.

Bayo is crazy strong, and I think only has room to get better. The counterplay doesn't have much wiggle room because you always have to respect ABK and Heel Slide, but Bayo herself has lots of room to keep growing.

That is a strong characteristic about Bayo that is true in both SSB4 and Ultimate; her toolkit grants her playerbase more expression than most other characters in the roster on what they want to do, whether it is playstyle or gameplan. No single Bayo player plays the same; how you approach the Bayo matchup varies quite a lot depending on who exactly you are fighting.
Also helps that the Bayo playerbase is one of the most dedicated and specialized playerbases there is. Even when dealing with the atrocious state of vanilla Bayo in Ultimate, a lot of her playerbase still stick with the character and continues to squeeze out her gameplan and advantage state as much as possible. No one else in the entire roster plays like Bayo, with Sora being the closest we have to replicating Bayo's character design, but they are both still leagues different from eachother.

 

[Aaron1997]

Miya Talks about G&W I got Translation from reddit.


I'll list some main points from this video. Please try not to read too deep into meanings behind the words. Also note that not everything is translated. Just things I thought were interesting.

• 1:10 In terms of being consistent or not, (GnW is) in the middle or leaning on not being consistent
• In general, I don't think any character is inherently consistent or not, but if I had to say, then I think (GnW is) on the side of inconsistent

He then talks about why characters are called inconsistent

• 1:30 Characters like Cloud and Aegis are strong offensively, which is overlooked in talking about consistency. In return, they are weak defensively off the stage.
• They are inconsistent because if they get edge guarded, then they will have a hard time with that game.

Wraps it back around to Game and Watch

• 2:00 Game and Watch has an easy time recovering, so he will not lose a stock early from recovering.
• However, he is the 3rd lightest in the game next to Pichu and Jigglypuff. Realistically, he's about the same as Pichu because his air dodge is frame 3, so he cannot get out of combos like Pichu can on frame 2.
• What makes him different from characters such as Jigglypuff and Olimar is that Game and Watch has a hard time killing
• Everyone says you can get others to 150% easily, but if you get your opponent to 150%, then they will get rage. Shows 150% Ryu Shoryuken killing Game and Watch at 60%
• Game and Watch has an easier time getting out of combos against characters that try to maintain advantage, but a really hard time against characters that have true combos
• 3:30 Also, his hit animation is terrible. He spreads his hands and arms outwards in all directions.
• Him having slow fall speed can lead to him getting hit too. Being light should make getting out of combos easier but Game and Watch doesn't.
• There are many situations where I get the opponent to 150, cannot get a ledge trap read, get one combo'd to 50, and then die.

Game and Watch Neutral

• 4:15 Game and Watch is not good at going in, so his neutral gameplan tends to be more basic/clean
• GnW can't hold forward.
• Hard to make a comeback, especially characters that can time you out
• Game and Watch has a hard time killing, but is strong defensively
• I think consistency ultimately comes down to the person

Burst Options

• 5:00 Characters that can skip ledge are really difficult. They often get to 150%.
• Characters that have a hard time at ledge are easier, so if those are the only characters you face in bracket, then he is more consistent, but if you can't read their ledge option, then GnW gets blown up, so its hard to say he is consistent.
• GnW has to read the opponent's habits at ledge to reliably kill, so it's easier against opponents you know. This is why I am consistent in Japan.
• Overseas, maybe I wasn't playing well, but I don't really know the players.
• I think given more time, I can get up to a 50% win rate against Sparg0 and Sonix, even though they've beaten me a lot
• Ledge trapping is just reading habits at the end of the day.
• I used to lose a lot to Tsubaki and Jogibu, but after I studied them, I stopped losing. I lost to Toriguri like 7 times in a row on Tamisuma(Online tournament), and I've won twice at Maesuma now.

"Do top players not change their habits?"

• 6:55 They can change, but I tend to adapt during the set
• I hope I can win against Zackray with this same thought process

Also

• 7:10 Two characters I tried really hard to deal with but couldn't were Yoshi and Rosa
• I can win sometimes, but not consistently, so I started using Steve against them
• I'm starting to think Sonic is also not possible, so I've been studying Steve vs Sonic. I've been watching KEN, Onin, and Sonix's matches a lot.
• Oh yeah also Metaknight. That character will kill you off one hit at any percent, so it's very inconsistent.
• More than half the reason I'm consistent is because I have secondaries. Solo GnW won't get you consistent results.
• I used to not care about character weight that much. I even thought it was normal, but people started preparing for the matchup by killing GnW early, so good players would instantly take stocks over and over and it was really difficult
• Characters with bad mobility are easy, but characters with good mobility are hard to deal with. Neutral is hard, and they can catch your landing and Up B OOS. I lost Umebura SP9 to DIO upairing my up B.
• GnW is actually exploitable. It's just his recovery.
• I still think this character is probably in the top 5. Also great as a secondary.
• I think at the end of the day, it comes down to the person

 

[Sucumbio]

• Oh yeah also Metaknight. That character will kill you off one hit at any percent, so it's very inconsistent.

DAMN SKIPPY

 

[NotLiquid]

In a game where character skill is so transferrable because of how 90% of every character is so uniform in utility (how many times have you come across the complaint that you really notice how similar every character's aerial is because of how aerial mashy Ultimate is) Game & Watch is one of those characters that particularly stands positively in terms of how little that's the case thanks to his unique aerial traits. That certainly has a knock-on effect on how to play consistently with him; beyond just always having to face away from your opponent in neutral you basically have to be fully cognizant of when to do full hop forward aerials to get the most out of the frame advantage from bombs. That's also really fickle to do against characters with really good neutral aerials, and while he has an absolutely devastating combo/advantage state, you need to both be able to respond to the opponent's DI and drift accurately with your neutral aerials in order to keep opponents trapped in his huge combos and juggles. Part of the reason Miya's G&W is so excellent is because his advantage state is probably the most polished among Ultimate's players and he complements that with excellent neutral conditioning, which is necessary when your character doesn't exactly excel in burst compared to the competition.