Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Thinkaman]

Nobody asked, but here's a list of moves that are uniquely interesting to armor with Straight Lunge as you try to end juggles:
(Extra important things in bold)

u-tilt, uair, dair, up-b, fireball
up-b, aerial down-b
u-smash startup, aerial up-b, bair, bombs
fair, uair, zair, up-b, bombs, stale homing missiles
bair, dair, eggs
u-tilt, fair, dair, up-b
u-tilt, fair, uair first hit, dair, aerial side-b, up-b
u-tilt, d-smash, nair, fair, bair, uair, t.jolt, quick attack
stale fair, zair, fireball, down-b
dash attack, fair, uair, pk fire, down-b
nair
really stale fair or uair, dair
uair, dair, up-b
flames, nair, up-b
u-tilt, nair, ice shot, side-b, down-b
almost everything
u-smash, nair, nayru's, up-b start
u-tilt, vitamins, down-b
u-tilt, nair, fair, bair, uair, t.jolt
u-tilt, u-smash hit 1, nair, fair, all specials
nair, dacing blade
nair, dancing blade
u-smash startup, fair hit 1, bair, zair, weak arrows, weak boomerang (returning), up-b, bombs
nair hit 1!
u-smash startup, nair
usmash startup, nair hit 1, sour fair, sour uair, side-b, up-b startup
usmash startup, nair, uair, side-b, up-b
u-tilt, nair, fair hit 1, bair, uair, sausages, up-b
u-tilt, u-smash, fair, bair, uair, dair, side-b, aerial up-b
f-smash startup, u-smash startup, nair, fair, uair, most arrows
u-tilt, u-smash, fair, uair, dair, zair, paralyzer, side-b startup, up-b
nair, fair, dair, up-b
nair hits 1-3, dair hits 1-3, cypher
nair, up-b
almost everything
nair, bair, bullet seed
u-smash startup, flamethrower, up-b
u-tilt, d-tilt, u-smash, nair, uair, banana,
nair, dair, zair, pk fire, pk thunder
utilt, u-smash, fair, uair hit 1, sometimes side-b, down-b
uair
u-tilt
nair, fair, uair, dair, up-b (all low aura only!)
nair initial hit, fair, uair, thin laser, side-b, weak gyro hit
stale bair, zair, weak arrow, weak boomerang (returning), up-b, bombs
u-smash startup, blaster, up-b
u-tilt, u-smash, d-smash, fair, slingshot pellets, lloid,
pellets, u-smash, stale fair, bair, uair, all specials
nair hit 1, up-b
fair (inc luma), late uair (inc luma), star bits
u-tilt, up-b
u-tilt, bair, uair, weak or multi-hit shuriken
fair, onslaught, soaring axe kick, helicopter kick, thrust uppercut startup
stale nair, fair, dair, shuriken of light, chakram, stone scabbard, aerial hero's spin,
u-smash, fair (late or stale), uair, grenade, flame pillar, homing missile, vortex
u-tilt, nair, uair, autoreticle, explosive flame
fair, dair, various weaker fruit
Thoron, bronze nair/fair/uair/dair, arcfire
shield/smash u-smash, stale/speed/shield/smash nair/fair/uair, shield/smash bair, up-b
f-smash startup, u-smash, nair, dair
smash initial hits, uair, side-b
light tilts, stale nair, uair, orange fireball
light tilts, nair, uair, fireball, side-b, up-b initial hit
limit blade beam, cross slash, limit cross slash startup, up-b, limit up-b, finishing touch
nair, dair, up-b
u-tilt, stale nair, fair, uair, bullets, side-b, up-b
u-smash initial hit, nair, uair, neutral-b
fair, fireballs
nair, weak cross, up-b, holy water
returning crown, up-b
stale u-tilt, fair, slingshot pellets, lloid startup
really stale uair, up-b startup
nair, up-b
u-tilt, nair, non-arsene fair, uair (only startup with arsene), gun, side-b
uair, up-b, magic burst except final hit if high strength
u-smash, nair, bair, uair, eggs
nair, up-b initial hits, down-b initial hits
u-smash initial hits, nair, uair
f-tilt (ramram or stale dragon), f-smash ramram projectile, dragon fire, ramram nair, uair,
jab/nair, u-tilt/uair (fist/wood/stone/gold/stale iron/very stale diamond), d-tilt, u-smash startup, d-smash startup, up-b
stale nair, stale tipper uair, shadow flares, up-b, down-b
neutral-b startup, side-b repeating hits, up-b startup
almost everything
10-hit 1-9, crouch jab
all 3 hit combos, all magic, side-b, up-b

When it applies, Straight Lunge is better than air dodge:

• Armor lasts from frame 1-however-long-you-want, vs. 2-26 for neutral AD or 2-18 for directional, vs. 6-34 for Counter.
• Inert commitment is only 34 frames (for early hitbox) or 41 frames (for any defensive option), vs. 49 for neutral AD or 62-89 for directional, vs. 70 for Counter.
• 0 added landing lag, vs. 10 for neutral AD or 11 for directional. (and vs. 3 for doing nothing!)
• Doesn't consume air dodge--you can cancel Straight Lunge into air dodge if you want, using it just having 2 air dodges.

Sure, you take damage, but you're Little Mac in disadvantage. Getting back to neutral is a big W, man. And if you do go the hitbox route, you possibly hit them for more than they did to you.

It doesn't snap to ledges, you can't DJ or up-b out of it in the air, you can still get grabbed, and the hitbox option is very unsafe on block. But it's probably the most overlooked anti-juggle tool in the game, with high applicability to common characters like Palu, Mythra, and ROB.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

After ESAM played friendlies with Glutonny he decided to post his thoughts on Wario

Aight when the wario/zss nerfs happened i thought they both got nerfed

Turns out zss got nerded enough for the both of them and Wario is still STUPID

GGs @GlutonnySSB

— ESAM (@imESAM) November 12, 2021

Edit: Takera, the best Ken in Japan did his tier list

キャラランク作成配信お疲れさまでした！

一応全階層に左右差はつけてますが、下のキャラも充分強いと思ってるので、ランクの並びほど下位キャラとは思ってないです。

v13.0.0
オフ基準 pic.twitter.com/lRZ3MP1Gmk

— takera｜SNB (@takeraketa) November 12, 2021

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Been over 24 hours so here's Mystearica's Palutena matchup chart

palutena player mystearica reveals how she REALLY feels... pic.twitter.com/YMKHXzSRvJ

— May (@Mystearicaa) November 12, 2021

Edit: An upset thread for Mainstage 2021 that will automatically update itself every time there's a new upset.
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/qt5xtt

 

[KirbySquad101]

So... what I've witnessed in this tournament is:

A. The brackets/seeding being revealed two days before the tournament
B. Set-ups that were tampered with by peeps setting knockback values to 0.9
C. Smash.gg brackets that are woefully behind on updating sets
and D. Multiple reports of players characters having Pro Controller issues (Quark, ShinyMark, Rickles). In fact, it most likely costed Grayson his set against NAKAT given the former's reaction to his controller right after his SD with ROB (EDIT: Can confirm that's exactly what happened)

Jeebus, what a mess.

 

[The_Bookworm]

C. Smash.gg brackets that are woefully behind on updating sets

Seems like that Smash.gg is back on track thankfully.

But yeah, this tournament sounds like a behind-the-scenes mess as of right now. I find it strange that it took until now for pro controllers to have latency issues. Probably something with a Switch update or with the Mainstage venue or something?

 

[Aaron1997]

That MinMain vs Chag is a big eyebrow raiser. Even though MinMain lost the fact planking could be usable strategy is a cause for concern.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

That MinMain vs Chag is a big eyebrow raiser. Even though MinMain lost the fact planking could be usable strategy is a cause for concern.

Just to point out to people who didn't watch, MinMain did not go , he went .

 

[SKX31]

Something to note about .

It isn't just the fact that MkLeo is the only player pushing the character to the heights where he is, the heights of winning 3 majors with mostly the character after offline returned.

It is the fact that MkLeo is pretty much the only player that actually uses Byleth in high level, period.

Byleth has one of the bleakest high level playerbases in the entire game, with mid level representation also being very low.
Outside of Ly who recently picked up the character as a co-main/secondary, I can't think of anyone else who actually uses this character.

When MkLeo started dominating with over two years ago, this thread was in large arguments of talking about how problematic the character is. One of the main things brought up is that Leo is the only one getting far and top 8'ing major events.

While this argument is somewhat true, thanks to MkLeo, Joker sprouted himself a very large playerbase in all levels of play. Not quite R.O.B. or Roy levels of big, but still one of the largest in the entire game.
Without MkLeo, Byleth's presence in high level play would be close-to-nonexistent, especially with Pelupelu being purely an online player (who is currently inactive at the moment).


So while MkLeo's success proves that Byleth is indeed very potent force to be reckoned with, with this character once being viewed by many as low tier (lower-mid tier at best), pessimism over the character's viability in the long run is a bit understandable.
I don't think we have any character in Smash history quite like in terms of metagame presence.

aMSa's comes rather close because his results almost singlehandedly improved opinions on the character. However, aMSa's case is a bit different since he got the results in an already relatively solidified meta - one of aMSa's first really notable placings is when he got 25th at EVO 2013 and took a game off of Mew2King in his prime. Yoshi's move up the tiers took just under 8 years - the dino went from 21st in the pre-E3 2013 (tenth) tier list to 10th in the current (thirteenth) tier list.

Leo's position is a bit different than aMSa's too. He's not only the consensus #1, but also in a game / meta where any developments might not be seen as that revolutionary compared to Melee. aMSa changed the way people look at Yoshi entirely whereas Leo didn't really change how people look at Byleth's playstyle all that much. Of course, there's a major difference in what's possible in Melee contra Ultimate too.

Still though, it took aMSa years of consistent performances to really solidify Yoshi, and it might likewise take MKLeo some time before a lot of people start to become confident in Byleth really.

Seems like that Smash.gg is back on track thankfully.

But yeah, this tournament sounds like a behind-the-scenes mess as of right now. I find it strange that it took until now for pro controllers to have latency issues. Probably something with a Switch update or with the Mainstage venue or something?

I do agree that it's kinda weird to see. BTS does not strike me as a large-scale tournament organizer though (their organizational focus has largely been on streaming events and running Summits in various games. I dunno if this is their first large-scale tournament - but still.) so if I had to guess the root cause lies in inexperience and relative lack of preparation beforehand.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Since the VoD uploaded, I finally got the chance to see Chag vs MinMain.

Chag definitely could've been more aggressive dealing with Sora at the ledge, whether it is through spaced down tilts, down air attempts on regrabs, or ledge trumps.

However, Chag also had the commanding lead throughout most of the set, so there was pretty much no obligation to approach Sora at ledge.
It pretty much boiled down to "Ok, do your thing over there at the ledge. I am winning, so I don't need to approach you, so I won't."

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Chag 3-1 Sparg0 .

Likey the most notable upset at Mainstage so fsr


Sparg0 kinda seems a bit off today. He just managed to barely clutch it out vs Fatality only to lose too his fellow countrymen

 

[Goodstyle_4]

Is it me or is Gluto landing less Wafts, but has a way better neutral?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Some notable sets:

Sparg0 3-2 Fatality
Fatality nearly got the reverse 3-0, but Sparg0 managed to clutch it out. Sadly for Fatality, he would fall 3-0 to MVD in loser's to be out at 33rd.

ESAM 3-1 Skyjay
Skyjay nearly brought it to game 5, but he was panicking way too hard, throwing out random Revenges that ended getting punished hard. Skyjay was also not really doing much vs Pika's nair loops and up air chains, which got ESAM so many stocks this set.

Glutonny 3-0 ESAM
It was kinda close game 1, but then Glutto destroyed him game 2. Glutto joins LeoN in the "beat the counterpick Brawler at Yoshi's" club as well.

Peanut 2-3 Ned
Peanut didn't win, but the fact that he was very close in defeating the best Sephiroth in world with Mac is impressive in itself. He goes out at 49th.
Ned would then lose 3-0 to Skykay, eliminating him at 33rd.

VoiD 0-3 naitosharp & 0-3 Big D
VoiD's return to tournaments post-quarantine didn't pan out the way he was expecting.
However, both loses can be kinda understandable, as naitosharp was a former Sheik player, so he knows the ins and outs of the character, and I can imagine Sheik vs ICs being an awkward matchup to learn and deal with on the fly. He is out at 33rd.
naitosharp would fall 3-0 to Tweek, while Big D would fall to AC 3-1 to be out at 25th.

MVD 0-2 Jake
Two characters building forts. Nothing more to say. Probably the most notable upset of pre-top 64 outside of Goblin vs T3 DOM and Machu vs yonni.

MVD 2-1 ven
The set looked so promising for ven, but MVD clutched game 2 and ran away with game 3.
MVD is currently on a tear in loser's bracket despite this loss vs Jake.

Elegant 3-0 Jake
Elegant's dominant record against top level Steve players continues.
Jake would fall 2-3 to Kurama, a very close set, ending at 33rd. yonni enters top 64 already in the loser's bracket, so we will see if he can push Steve through.

Elegant 3-0 Light
I tuned into the set at the start of game 3, so the fact that Elegant forced Light to counterpick to Sora indicates to me that Light got destroyed at least at game 2. The Sora wasn't really working either.
Light is now working from loser's yet again, while Elegant gets another guaranteed high tournament placing yet again.


In loser's of pool K1, ESAM vs Kurama currently strikes my interest the most. That one can be volatile.
Lowkey think Skyjay vs Light may as well be interesting depending on how Light plays today.

 

[Goodstyle_4]

Byleth's up B having frames shaved off its start up is maybe the most consequential single buff in Smash Ultimate's history.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Lui$ 3-2 Marss .

Not really an upset considering ow consistently well Lui$ has been placing in recent majors. But this means that there are 2 Palu's going into winners side Top 16 and are will get 9th placings at worst.


It looks like Palu can never get beat down for too long no matter how many times you nerf her

 

[Nekoo]

It looks like Palu can never get beat down for too long no matter how many times you nerf her

When you nerf her in anyway, but where it matters, and where the MU get played 80% of the time
Aka, Bair/Dash attack beating every moves in the game for free, with Bair being on top of that fast and stupidly strong and having confirm out of a throw/D-tilt

It's hard to really see a nerf mattering on her. Her nair get barely touched, but in the end, the play can still just cruise around and follow around for a neat 40-60%

It's been my issue with Ultimate Balances overall, it buffes characters in places that sometimes don't need buff and nerf characters while sometime dancing around the issue.
For exemple, I think the only real nerf of a character in Ultimate was Joker's gun down, and thanks god it did.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Mainstage 2021 Top 16

Winner's
MkLeo vs Lui$
Kola vs Tea
Chag vs Glutonny
Tweek vs Elegant


Loser's
Cosmos vs MuteAce
Maister vs Dabuz
Sparg0 vs ESAM
naitosharp vs Light


This has been an excellent tournament for Palutena.
Tea and Glutonny being the lone representative of Japan and Europe, respectively, in winner's top 16 is intriguing to watch.
The loser's bracket is going to be a bloodbath.
Also, how many times is Tweek and Elegant going to run into eachother in bracket?

Funnily enough, naitosharp has been playing pretty much just ZSS today, so he is already the highest placing ZSS player in this event over Marss.

 

[NairWizard]

ROB is big, but apparently not big enough to make top 32 this time.

 

[The_Bookworm]

ROB is big, but apparently not big enough to make top 32 this time.

R.O.B. presence at this tournament was not as large (no joke intended) as normal.

WaDi pretty much went solo Mewtwo this tournament. Either way, he lost to Chag in winner's and Peabnut in loser's for 33rd.
Grayson lost to Marss in winner's, then had an unfortunate controller malfunction vs NAKAT to eliminate him at 65th.
BigBoss, the man who got 4th with solo R.O.B. at a major, lost to naitosharp in winner's and then to Zinoto in loser's for 49th.
Finally the Canadian R.O.B./Banjo dual main (who pretty much went solo R.O.B. for this event) Machu lost to Dabuz in winner's and then to Quidd in loser's.

Competition in tournament is very stacked. Look at who's in loser's top 16 as an example.

 

[blackghost]

en occcasionally.

ROB is big, but apparently not big enough to make top 32 this time.

In ultimate ROB doesn't do well in events with deeper and stronger players. Top level players beat robs consistently. There were matches in top 64 between players that run their respective regions in this event.

 

[Rizen]

Byleth's up B having frames shaved off its start up is maybe the most consequential single buff in Smash Ultimate's history.

's upB is among the best in the game and an underrated move on an underrated character. MKLeo really showed it to be much more versatile than I first expected. However, a lot of characters got substantial buffs. Diddy's recovery comes to mind.

Another buff I'd like to talk about since I play is his jab going from f6 to f4. This has been huge. A f6 jab is what Hero has and is worse than average for a sword jab. F5 is what Chroy has so going from slower than Chroy's to faster has a significant impact on games when YL ends up right next to the opponent. This happens fairly frequently and jab gives YL a fast button to push upon landing. Before the buff he was forced to pick a defensive option like dodging. Now he can match the speed of several more characters like Robin, Byleth and Banjo (all with f4 jabs) and is much closer to fast buttons like Fox's jab and ROB's Dtilt. Jab is twice as fast as YL's Dtilt at frame 8 and YL can cancel jab 2 with the same amount of shield disadvantage -7f, which is very hard to punish.
Lately I've worked jab>jab>grab into my game. Technically the opponent can mash jab to interrupt this but no one ever does that. When you're jabbed you try to DI out and hold shield so YL's tether grab works wonders in this situation. Since YL's grab to Dthrow combos into Uair at low %s and Fthrow kills at the ledge around 140% this gives YL a lot more reward off jab.

 

[Sucumbio]

Cosmos makes me want to solo mytyra for a few months after I've been solo Pyra for so long great set

 

[blackghost]

i gotta say lima has some of the worst bracket luck ive ever seen. he is a magnet for awful matchups and top players in bracket.

 

[Hippieslayer]

i don't really get why tweek insists on maining diddy, the character really doesn't look that good, a lot of the time its obvious that tweek needs to outplay his opponent by quite a lot in order to squeeze out a win, seems really mentally taxing too

imo theres more reason to doubt the potential of diddy than that of byleth

also: glutto is so damn impressive, its like he never gets shook, the consistency man

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Elegant 3-2 Tweek

Chag 3-1 Gluttony.






Dang Chag's pop-off after that set..lmao

Both Elegant and Chag now both qualify for the next Smash Summit and they definetely deserve it. They both have leveled up his game immesnely during the pandemic

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Dang Chag's pop-off after beating Gluttony 3-1 .

Which mean qualifies for the next summit. The guy deserves it. He has obviously leveled up his game immesnly during the pandemic.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

A thing to consider with ROB as well is how many players who are usually suspects to get to top 32/16/8a use ROB? Our top 16 this time consists of all the names you usually see this far in bracket. How many ROB players are even in the top 20 or so players worldwide? The ones you can expect to go super deep im bracket? Wadi plays M2 often as well because he enjoys using M2 and Zackray uses pretty much any character he wants at this point.

A big factor in why we don’t see many ROBs super deep in bracket is they simply aren’t strong enough as players to make those deep runs consistently like the usual suspect do. I mean Elegant consistently gets top eights with Luigi of all characters and no other Luigi player comes even remotely close to that level of consistency with solo Luigi.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Mainstage 2021 Top 8


Winner's
MkLeo vs Tea
Chag vs Elegant


Loser's
Tweek vs Dabuz
Sparg0 vs Light


The players in winner's are guaranteed a spot in Smash Ultimate Summit 4, although I assume MkLeo is already invited to it (I don't know where the list of those invited are).
The players in loser's have to win their respective sets in order to make it to Summit (again, I don't know who is already invited).

 

[Goodstyle_4]

Is it me or is Gluto landing less Wafts, but has a way better neutral?

Boy was a I wrong about this lol. Gluto's neutral was a joke. Clearly behind the top-top level players. He's gotta step it up, or he's cooked.

 

[Nekoo]

Boy was a I wrong about this lol. Gluto's neutral was a joke. Clearly behind the top-top level players. He's gotta step it up, or he's cooked.

???

So, you're telling me, the guy who arrived 9th without dropping a single game, is "Cooked" and "Behind top-top level players" and he needs to "step it up" after stomping his way in here, and loosing to two great players, with one of them, being probably the master of Neutral that is Dabuz.

You realize that was Glutonny's first international major since the pandemic right? In the most stacked tournament of 2021 right? And that he still arrived 9th barely breaking a sweat until today, over most of the "top top level players".

 

[NairWizard]

Agree with the sentiment, but it's worth noting that Gluttony himself tweeted that he felt that top-level NA just has better conditioning, and if he's going to improve in that area he'll need to travel outside of Europe. He does have fantastic neutral, but man Dabuz and Mexico are on a different level here. Chag/sparg0/Maister/Mexico in particular play with Leo-style reactive neutral these days; they are surging ahead of the meta.

9th is great though, and Tea's performance getting 4th is even more impressive relative to seeding, only losing to #1 and #2 and beating #3.

 

[Idon]

Yeah MKLeo is...

a monster.

 

[Nobie]

Watching MKLeo’s Byleth and its success, I think it's clear that Byleth is definitely not top tier, but Leo’s strengths as a player help to mitigate the character’s weaknesses while giving him something extra as a reward. Leo’s neutral is so good that it more than makes up for Byleth’s lack of mobility, and the way he’s able to capitalize on each hit means that every neutral win comes with a ton of reward.

Perhaps it's why he's not as great with Pyra/Mythra, as Mythra in particular is very much a neutral monster, such Leo needs little help with.

In a similar vein, Esam is very good at complementing Pikachu’s weaknesses because he thrives on refining his precision.

 

[NotLiquid]

Spargo panicking and burning his double jump at the very end while Leo wasn't done pushing advantage more or less cost him that set. He'd still have to deal with a potential ledgetrap situation, but Leo wasn't really killing through those quite as often as Byleth usually does. With the amount of neutral exchanges that Mythra has to win in order to take stocks, the fact that Spargo pushed things this far and even scored a 3-1 before the reset is a testament to how much Leo was consistently getting outplayed whenever he wasn't the only person standing on stage.

Simultaneously it also felt particularly indicative of where Ultimate is at right now; as both Leo and Elegant's breakout performance showcase two players who placed in top three off of the back of their extremely suffocating capacity to play in advantage.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Mainstage 2021

1st: MkLeo
2nd: Sparg0
3rd: Elegant
4th: Tea
5th: Chag
5th: Tweek

Spoiler: Top 16

7th: Light
7th: Dabuz

9th: Lui$
9th: Glutonny
9th: MuteAce
9th: Kola

13th: Maister
13th: Cosmos
13th: naitosharp
13th: ESAM

Spoiler: Top 32

17th: moxi
17th: Lima
17th: NAKAT
17th: Marss
17th: MVD
17th: Kurama
17th: Skyjay
17th: AC

25th: Stroder
25th: Quidd
25th: Riddles
25th: Chase
25th: Peabnut
25th: Big D
25th: TonyZTank
25th: Jakal

Spoiler: Top 64

33rd: T3 DOM
33rd: ShinyMark
33rd: LingLing
33rd: Kobe
33rd: varun
33rd: Machu
33rd: Osiris
33rd: BassMage
33rd: Larry Lurr
33rd: Jake
33rd: WaDi
33rd: Yez
33rd: VoiD
33rd: Zinoto
33rd: Fatality
33rd: Ned

49th: Captain L
49th: Cless
49th: VaLoR
49th: yonni
49th: Uncivil ninja
49th: Goblin
49th: Javi
49th: Myles
49th: Ty
49th: Razo
49th: pokepen
49th: Klaatu
49th: Peanut
49th: BigBoss
49th: MinMain
49th: Mugen

How is MkLeo so clutch?
This is the 4th post-quarantine Byleth major win (the 3rd with solo Byleth). Sparg0 had a chance to get it, but MkLeo played the last stock with such ferocity and dropped the axe on Mythra.
Sparg0 had an insane loser's run with Aegis and Cloud, claiming souls left-and-right with both characters.

Outside of that, other notable stuff:

• After the double 4th place finishers in Riptide and Low Tide City, Elegant slowed down a bit with 17th at both Smash Con and Port Priority. Still good placements, but not the height placing 4th twice. Now Elegant has placed 3rd here at the biggest event so far this season. Has ran into notable troubles with MkLeo and Sparg0, but he handled everything else nicely. He is now 2-2 in sets vs Tweek. Ultimate Luigi at this point has pretty much met, if not exceeded, his SSB4 self in terms of consistent high placements.
• We got some hot action this weekend, with Chag and Lui$ placing very high in this event, with MuteAce also using her in some of his sets. Chag played some of the best Palutena I have seen ever yesterday, but I felt that the fire he had yesterday kinda died out today. Still amazing performances.
• Skyjay scored himself another high placement for the character, defeating players like Ned and Jakal in order to get this far. He made the set with ESAM fairly competitive, although he did kinda got destroyed by Light. BassMage isn't nearly as successful, getting 33rd while beating not really anyone notable (from my memory). Still solid.
• Peabnut is able to breath a little bit of life into the character with his 25th placement while beating WaDi and nearly beating MVD. He and Japan's Repo are the only ones left holding the fort for the character as he remains rather stagnate.
• High amount of action this weekend as well, with moxi (formerly known as Pandarian) and Quidd placing 17th and 25th, respectively with the character. The former defeated BassMage and Riddles, while the latter has taken beaten Ronnichu and uncivil ninja. Obviously not the same high level of presence of Palutena, but Palu continues to be an omnipresent character while Trainer, while still common, definitely has seen better days.
• Outside of Zackray's win at Kagaribi 5, hasn't really seen much presence outside of that. In this event, we got.... something. NAKAT and Stroder got 17th and 25th, respectively, with the character. However, they used many different other characters in the event alongside him, with NAKAT using Pichu and Joker, while Stroder used Greninja, Mario, and Roy. So still nothing too notable. We have Light and Tweek showing him off at locals, but that hasn't come to the big stage. Light used him in a desperation attempt vs Elegant, but that didn't work at all. Elegant tried it vs MkLeo in desperation, but that ended even worse. Still too early to tell, but this character's presence in tourneys is extremely disjointed.
• Both and didn't have the best weekends. Ok, ESAM getting 13th and ShinyMark getting 33rd are still pretty good placements, but considering the very high bar people put on Pikachu. I am starting to see more players applying better maneuverability and SDI vs Pikachu. For Steve, the character straight didn't do well in this event. We got Jake beating MVD, a fairly notable upset, but then Jake would fall immediately afterwards to Elegant and Kurama for 33rd, while yonni straight up underperformed for 49th.

And overall as NairWizard says, Mexico is ahead in the meta. The fact that the only players really consistently challenging Mexican players is other Mexican players is telling.

 

[PK Gaming]

Hopefully we're beyond the "Mkleo is so good he's making a Mid Tier look strong!!" rhetoric, because that's simply untrue at this point. Oh, Mkleo is by far the single best player in Smash, but Byleth is no slouch either.

Byleth is very solid, albeit unexplored by everyone but Mkleo. His Up B alone is just so ridiculous and useful (OoS option, recovery, punish tool). He's got high damage and kill setups, and an acceptable neutral. The character is high tier minimum, and certainly a lot better than people give credit

I also don't think Joker is the "in case of emergency" character. He's pretty much a rare counterpick option now that Mkleo has fully acclimated to the character. Unfortunate for Joker fans, but I have no regrets. He had an amazing run at top level

 

[NairWizard]

Byleth is good, it's true, but man that matchup looks abysmal. Mythra just dash attacks any commitment Byleth goes for in neutral for free, then Pyra ledgetraps him for eons. I have no idea how Leo wins consistently vs. Pyra/Mythra; it feels much worse than the Pikachu matchup when I watch it played out (ESAM rocked his Byleth, but Leo also clearly didn't know the matchup given some of his DI routes, whereas it's very clear that he knows the Pyra/Mythra matchup and it still looks impossible).

Unless Pyra/Mythra really do get nerfed in the next patch, I'm expecting that Leo will eventually have to counterpick the MU against sparg0 if he wants to keep winning.

Though before people start saying that Pyra/Mythra are overpowered, I mean, they didn't/couldn't do it alone--sparg0 used Cloud for 3 of his most important matchups today. Meanwhile we have solo Byleth winning the whole thing.

 

[blackghost]

Agree with the sentiment, but it's worth noting that Gluttony himself tweeted that he felt that top-level NA just has better conditioning, and if he's going to improve in that area he'll need to travel outside of Europe. He does have fantastic neutral, but man Dabuz and Mexico are on a different level here. Chag/sparg0/Maister/Mexico in particular play with Leo-style reactive neutral these days; they are surging ahead of the meta.

9th is great though, and Tea's performance getting 4th is even more impressive relative to seeding, only losing to #1 and #2 and beating #3.

if gluttony feels that then there is a real case that Europe is heavily behind NA and japan. I felt like that since watching bloom4eva take some larger events in europe. but at this point mexico is the best in the world at this game. Mexico's rise in smash really reminds me of Pakistan's rise in tekken. TO catch up players in korea, japan, and US went to pakistan to play in their locals and level up.

also it hurts my heart but spiroth prob aint it. he's [rob more of a less viable ROB at this point. he's by no means bad but if you are out here trying to win top level events he shouldnt be your character of choice.

trainer imo is slowly dying reminds me a little of inkling earlier in this games lifespan i just dont think the character brings enough to threaten top players and elite characters. early in the game's life squirtle combo game and ivysaur absurd hitboxes were simply beyond other characters after nerfs and more charatcers added that is no longer the case. trainer is a closer to being an honest fighter than an oppressive one.

Special shoutouts to big d, skyjay, and lima for bringing characters to good heights in an event this stacked. please dont drop characters ya'll love.

i hpope we dont have to go through the cycle of people calling for nerfs on pyra. the character has clear weaknesses.

 

[Kokiden]

also it hurts my heart but spiroth prob aint it. he's [rob more of a less viable ROB at this point. he's by no means bad but if you are out here trying to win top level events he shouldnt be your character of choice.

Kinda sucks since I really wanted Sephiroth to be viable.

One of the most hype editions, yet the balancing did such a weird job with him.

Terry's GO basically stays until he dies, but Seph's wing goes away. Min Min has great range yet they didn't feel the need to make her lightweight to hell and back like they did with him. Honestly, his balancing just makes me scratch my head at times.

Joker is already out of the equation for the most part now since Mkleo isn't playing him much, if at all now, so I don't really have characters that I am hyped to watch.

Maybe except Spargo's Cloud, but he uses Pythia most of the time (who I just find very obnoxious to watch and go against)

i hpope we dont have to go through the cycle of people calling for nerfs on pyra. the character has clear weaknesses.

No one in Ultimate is OP or broken, but if she gets nerfed, it's probably due to how she just prevents certain characters from playing the game due to her speed.

To elaborate on my point above about strange balancing, her nair is good yet they made Cloud's nair terrible.. I just don't get it sometimes lol.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

j

Byleth is good, it's true, but man that matchup looks abysmal. Mythra just dash attacks any commitment Byleth goes for in neutral for free, then Pyra ledgetraps him for eons. I have no idea how Leo wins consistently vs. Pyra/Mythra; it feels much worse than the Pikachu matchup when I watch it played out (ESAM rocked his Byleth, but Leo also clearly didn't know the matchup given some of his DI routes, whereas it's very clear that he knows the Pyra/Mythra matchup and it still looks impossible).

Unless Pyra/Mythra really do get nerfed in the next patch, I'm expecting that Leo will eventually have to counterpick the MU against sparg0 if he wants to keep winning.

Though before people start saying that Pyra/Mythra are overpowered, I mean, they didn't/couldn't do it alone--sparg0 used Cloud for 3 of his most important matchups today. Meanwhile we have solo Byleth winning the whole thing.

I think Pyra/Mythra are right now...exactly... as Sakurai and the balance team... intended them to be...


Yep....


Min-Min got nerfed twice for far less than what Pyra/ Mythra are accomplishing right now, and the plsyer responsible for those results also had to depend on another character to do as well as he has..

 

[Damned1]

This and other latest tournaments make more and more certain that two characters are most likely overrated: and . Feel free to disagree, since im NOT using math and science for this (HERESY).

1. As someone who believed and wanted to be absolute top tier, i have been starting to doubt it even since offline tournaments' return. There has been the whole discussion on that topic (and some other, which was part of the reason i decided against writing my thoughts...), with counterarguments being that Pika is demanding and takes time to learn or offline has been back only for a relatively little time.
   But by now, those point seem to be invalid. has been in game for 3 years, not only unchanged, but also still being very similar to (although the changes in transition were significant). Yet even ESAM, who is both dedicated to the character and labs like no one else, can't make Pikachu work reliably. Yes, he has good results, but you would expect the supposedly UNDISCUSSED BEST AND BUSTED CHARACTER to dominate or at least have notable presence in the metagame. In other words: the top 1 character should be THE character to beat.
   
   Not saying that Pika might not turn out to be top 3 or even top 1 in the future. But is definitely not it now.
   
   
2. Sephiroth is in pretty similar boat: i had high hopes for him. But the reason why i was thinking for months that he might not be top tier (or even high, but that was going too far... or so i thought) is... well, i was not impressed with him at tournaments. And im not talking about results, but actual matches. I know, pretty biased, but hear me out.
   At first i assumed im just watching players who has just started learning , but neither Ned, nor Naitosharp, nor any other player made me think "wow, this character is good/busted". Which is weird because everyone - even the lower tier - usually have something that looks impressive, whether it is 's recovery, evasiveness and combo game, survivability, power, OoS options and movement speed, or some of confirms and frame data. Here, im just not seeing much. His range is impressive, but would be more so if we didn't have , Belmonts and even . One Wing is arguably better than Arsene (at least ppl convinced me to think so)... except it's not because can get Arsene faster at times, whereas Seph's ability to get his boost (leave alone use it) is undercut because of his light weight. And yeah, im not even gonna talk about his survivability - it's bad and we all know it. And other than that, im not seeing either combo game, advantage, recovery, even kill power etc. that would make Seph busted.
   Who knows, maybe, in the future, Seph will be optimized to become a menace. But, again, for now looks underwhelming for "top tier".

As for , i wonder if it's less the case of the character being actual high tier, and more the combination of MKLeo being incredibly good and Byleh fitting his style perfectly. Basically a typical "low/mid tier hero" story, except with the undisputed best player in the world.