Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[TCT~Phantom]

I seem to recall FD being thought of as better classified as a cp than as a starter in previous games ... But I dunno I think BF, SBF, PS2, Town, SV and FD are all ok as Starters with CPs being any of those plus Kalos, Lylat and Hollow Bastion. Fountain of Dreams hurts my eyes. But I tend to prefer a liberal stage selection.

Heavily disagree that FD should be a starter so long as North America is doing stage first then characters. It is just too polarizing. I would rather have Hollow Bastion or Small Battlefield take its place as a starter tbh.

 

[Sucumbio]

Heavily disagree that FD should be a starter so long as North America is doing stage first then characters. It is just too polarizing. I would rather have Hollow Bastion or Small Battlefield take its place as a starter tbh.

I am not familiar with the FD issues in Ultimate, are there some popular examples?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I am not familiar with the FD issues in Ultimate, are there some popular examples?

KAZUYA MISHIMA

 

[Frihetsanka]

Granted, what's the point when so many of the games are played on PS2?

I think the issue is that there are too many bans. By reducing the number of stages we could also reduce the number of bans (to 1 or 2), thus giving stronger counter-picks and people would be less likely to go to PS2 for game 2+. Three bans is too much, but if you cut it down to two in a stage list that has both Final Destination and Kalos then characters that are good on those stages will force people to spend two bans on one archetype (flat stages), such as Kazuya. One could add Yoshi's Story to balance this (and 9 stages with 2 bans would probably be somewhat viable, although zoners would likely enjoy such a stage list too much). I think it would be better to get rid of both Yoshi's Story (a stage many scenes have already gotten rid of) and Kalos, and then running either 1 ban or 2 bans (I think 7 stages 1 ban with modified DSR could actually work, and it'd give a bit more power to counter-picking, the downside is that people who hate both Town and FD might struggle a bit, and if any char hates both Smashville and Hollow Bastion that would be an issue, I don't know which characters hate Hollow Bastion though?)

Heavily disagree that FD should be a starter so long as North America is doing stage first then characters.

Game 1 is still character before stage. I think the best list of starters (assuming 5 starters) is: FD, Smashville (or Hollow Bastion, not sure), Battlefield, Small Battlefield, and Pokémon Stadium 2. Some people could make a case for swapping FD and Town and I don't think that's unreasonable. Having FD and Battlefield both as starters tend to help balance the starting list a bit, though. If we end up running 7 stages we could just run all stages as starters instead.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

I am not familiar with the FD issues in Ultimate, are there some popular examples?

It is very polarizing in terms of MUs. Kazuya, Terry, and the Shotos are all super strong there for example. It is just so much more polarizing in general than any of the other starters. It honestly is more comparable to Yoshi's Story than any of the other stages. It highly benefits some characters and constricts some of the counterplay against them.

 

[blackghost]

We do this every smash game lifespan.
step one should we have more legal stages
(ultimate added a mini step should we have hazards on or off which was quickly ended mostly due to dumb arguments winning)
step two everyone says stage list is fine in games early life meanwhile others claim that long term small stage lists strictly benefit high tiers

3. small dissatisfaction with stage lists grows mostly as dlc comes out.

4. Stage list forms which SHOCKINGLY favors the top tiers steve and kazuya being the extreme cases in this game.

i dont even bother anymore. more choices is a good thing NOT a bad thing at the end of smash 4 miis and customs were given real chances in some places and they were found to be good additions that many people later voiced regrets on banning.

smash ultimate competitive scene refusal to have a larger stagelist, adapt hazards on, or even stage transitions (bet some of yall even forgot that was in the game) will hurt its long term and then maybe a year or two from now when all tats left are the players that truly love the game (as we see some scene die as soon as its is made clear that yes there is a best character and our players will quit or ban him) we will see these other lists tried.

SF6 and project L gonna be lit.

 

[Aligo]

How would a hazards on stage list work exactly? LSome stages currently on the existing stage list such as kalos and PS2 wouldn't work with it ( and it would mean no warioware too, I think it would be pretty good).

 

[Frihetsanka]

How would a hazards on stage list work exactly? LSome stages currently on the existing stage list such as kalos and PS2 wouldn't work with it ( and it would mean no warioware too, I think it would be pretty good).

It would be Smashville, Town & City, Final Destination, Hollow Bastion, Battlefield, Small Battlefield, maybe Northern Cave. WarioWare hasn't been legal since early 2019 in some scenes, almost four years ago. The side blastzones made some things really silly (like Charizard backthrow to backair to kill at like 30%).

 

[Aligo]

Oh I see, thanks. Is there any major difference between it and the current stage list overall?

 

[Frihetsanka]

Oh I see, thanks. Is there any major difference between it and the current stage list overall?

Right now, there is no single universal stage list. Currently, we have:
Near universally legal: Battlefield, Final Destination, Smashville, Town and City, Pokémon Stadium 2, Small Battlefield
Fairly often legal: Kalos Pokémon League, Hollow Bastion
Occasionally legal: Yoshi's Story, Lylat Cruise, Northern Cave

On hazards on, you lose Pokémon Stadium 2 from the "Near universally legal" list. Smashville and Town and City both change. Hollow Bastion would definitely be added on such a list. Kalos, Yoshi's Story, and Lylat would not be used on hazards on. Northern Cave might be used, although it has the same issue as Kalos does now when it comes to being similar to Final Destination, so it probably wouldn't be added if you're concerned with balance.

The "Occasionally legal" stages don't see much use right now. Northern Cave is probably a better stage than Kalos, but some people really don't like the background. Lylat Cruise is used in France and not in many other places (I think it should probably be legal but at this point it's going to be hard to convince people to add it back to the list). Yoshi's Story is used in some regions, most notably many (but not all) EU regions.

So here's something to keep in mind: Yoshi's Story share a lot of overlap with Battlefield. They're not identical, but as a rule of thumb a character who likes Battlefield will also like Yoshi's Story. This means that if your character doesn't like Battlefield, then you would likely also want to ban Yoshi's Story. The same is true for Final Destination and Kalos. The stages may look a bit more different, but at the end of the day the side platforms won't affect how neutral is played all that much in most matchups (but it will affect advantage and disadvantage quite a bit). There are also other issues with Kalos (and Yoshi's Story, mostly the slants), see Dabuz's video for some of those reasons.

I also believe it would be good, in general, to keep the number of bans low, that way the counter-picker will be able to choose a strong stage for their character. 1 or maybe 2 bans at most.

With all this in mind: We keep all the near universally legal stages, drop the occasionally legal ones (maybe add Lylat), and drop Kalos. One could argue that both Hollow Bastion and Smashville shouldn't be legal since they are somewhat similar, although I'm unsure how similar they are in practice (my local scene does not run Hollow Bastion at the moment so I don't have a ton of experience on that stage personally). So we would end up with 6-7 stages and 1 ban, maybe 2 bans. With fewer bans I would expect to see more stage diversity. If we run 7 stages I would imagine we run all starters, if we run 6 stages one stage would have to be counter-pick (either Final Destination or Town & City).

 

[NotLiquid]

Oh I see, thanks. Is there any major difference between it and the current stage list overall?

The big argument against a hazards-on stage list is that it would jettison Kalos and Pokémon Stadium 2. The latter is perhaps singlehandedly preventing the adoption of it since it’s the most popular competitive stage in the game. It’s going to be a hard sell for people to get rid of just on principle, but I feel that some players have started to pick up on the fact that the stage is part of the reason some of these top tiers are as high rated to begin with; most notably a stage list without PS2 would be an indirect nerf against Steve. It would also not be too big of a fundamental loss since Small Battlefield covers its two-platform niche while carrying some benefits of its own. If people can set aside the optics then this isn’t that bad of a compromise.

I think Kalos is the greater casualty of a hazards on list, even if that stage is more divisive. Its two-platform pillar layout is wholly unique and its layout can compensate for characters with bad ledge options by having the platforms double as a safety zone, on top of being able to be used for advantage. Couple that with its large size and you have a stage that is a perennial favorite for many non-top tiers. The only stage that could cover its void in this regard is Town & City, and that’s only in the most esoteric comparisons.

As for the hazards on side of things, triplats would probably see a renaissance. Yoshi’s Story would probably be run more frequently and Fountain of Dreams feels like a stage that’d be right back on the docket because they offer new twists. I fear hazards on Yoshi’s Story might be an indirect buff to Steve but that it’s overall less of one than PS2 would be. Smashville and Hollow Bastion will now have more tangible reasons for being run in tandem, and against characters who love single platform layouts like Kazuya, it’d most likely free up an immediate banning option for counterpicking since his consistency would take a hit on the stage.

Ultimately I wouldn’t say no to a Hazards On stagelist that’s still tailored according to the needs of the cast. A Hazards Off list made a lot more sense at a time when we didn’t have Small Battlefield, when we still ran stages like Yoshi’s Island, and when we entertained conversations on whether to allow stages like WarioWare, Mementos, and Frigate Orpheon. With those inhibitions gone, I think tradition is the only real consideration at play. People who play multiplayer games have gotten so conditioned to expect balancing to come in the form of meta-changing patches like competitive shooters and some FGC titles treating balancing as massive seasonal shakeup events, but for the people who might actually wait for the meta to change, the power is in their hands when it comes to Smash.

Maybe at some point players might relitigate Lylat too.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think Kalos is the greater casualty of a hazards on list, even if that stage is more divisive. Its two-platform pillar layout is wholly unique and its layout can compensate for characters with bad ledge options by having the platforms double as a safety zone, on top of being able to be used for advantage.

I mean, Northern Cave is basically less problematic Kalos already, so if you really want that layout Northern Cave would probably be better. Less campy too since the platforms are lower so more characters can't contest people who camp the platforms. That being said, I find it highly unlikely that scenes will pick up hazards on at this point, that ship has most likely sailed.

Anyways (for hazards off): If we keep Kalos then we should also run Yoshi's Story for balance reasons. If we drop Yoshi's Story then we should drop Kalos, or else the stage list will be very unbalanced. Personally I think it would be better to drop both and reduce the number of bans, but running both is viable enough (and that's the EU ruleset, although I thinkt he EU ruleset should probably change to 2 bans instead of 3, 3 bans is quite a big hit to counter-pickers).

 

[blackghost]

The big argument against a hazards-on stage list is that it would jettison Kalos and Pokémon Stadium 2. The latter is perhaps singlehandedly preventing the adoption of it since it’s the most popular competitive stage in the game. It’s going to be a hard sell for people to get rid of just on principle, but I feel that some players have started to pick up on the fact that the stage is part of the reason some of these top tiers are as high rated to begin with; most notably a stage list without PS2 would be an indirect nerf against Steve. It would also not be too big of a fundamental loss since Small Battlefield covers its two-platform niche while carrying some benefits of its own. If people can set aside the optics then this isn’t that bad of a compromise.

I think Kalos is the greater casualty of a hazards on list, even if that stage is more divisive. Its two-platform pillar layout is wholly unique and its layout can compensate for characters with bad ledge options by having the platforms double as a safety zone, on top of being able to be used for advantage. Couple that with its large size and you have a stage that is a perennial favorite for many non-top tiers. The only stage that could cover its void in this regard is Town & City, and that’s only in the most esoteric comparisons.

As for the hazards on side of things, triplats would probably see a renaissance. Yoshi’s Story would probably be run more frequently and Fountain of Dreams feels like a stage that’d be right back on the docket because they offer new twists. I fear hazards on Yoshi’s Story might be an indirect buff to Steve but that it’s overall less of one than PS2 would be. Smashville and Hollow Bastion will now have more tangible reasons for being run in tandem, and against characters who love single platform layouts like Kazuya, it’d most likely free up an immediate banning option for counterpicking since his consistency would take a hit on the stage.

Ultimately I wouldn’t say no to a Hazards On stagelist that’s still tailored according to the needs of the cast. A Hazards Off list made a lot more sense at a time when we didn’t have Small Battlefield, when we still ran stages like Yoshi’s Island, and when we entertained conversations on whether to allow stages like WarioWare, Mementos, and Frigate Orpheon. With those inhibitions gone, I think tradition is the only real consideration at play. People who play multiplayer games have gotten so conditioned to expect balancing to come in the form of meta-changing patches like competitive shooters and some FGC titles treating balancing as massive seasonal shakeup events, but for the people who might actually wait for the meta to change, the power is in their hands when it comes to Smash.

Maybe at some point players might relitigate Lylat too.

My ideal solution is smash forcibly create its own "seasons" by rotating thergal stage list. We have a mutiittude of options in the game that are ignored rather than experimented with.
It will never not be ironic how the platform fighter with the biggest playerbase refuses to learn how to platform.

 

[Slime Master]

If our goal is to get the biggest stage list possible, I remember reading a suggestion a while back (I think on this thread) that you make a mixed hazards options by making each stage a ruleset, with the stage selection set to random and only the one stage as the option. That way you could turn hazards on for the stages that need it to justify their existence, and turn them off for those that need it off. The obvious argument against this is it creates more work for the TOs during setup, and knowing nothing about TOing I can't really speak on how much of an issue that is, but I imagine it would be ~1 minute per stage per setup.

 

[Frihetsanka]

My ideal solution is smash forcibly create its own "seasons" by rotating thergal stage list.

France tried something like this, or rather, letting people strike for the final counter-pick stage. Apparently the end result was that the stage just didn't end up being played. I imagine off-season stages would often get banned. Even for tournaments where Lylat is legal you'd rarely see people pick it these days, and if it's a temporary stage then people would be even less likely to pick it.

If our goal is to get the biggest stage list possible[...]

Our goal should be to have a balanced stage list that avoids bad stages while still allowing for some variety. Having a big list has no inherent value. If it helps balance without sacrificing other things (like adding bad stages like Yoshi's Island or Castle Siege) then having a bigger list could be fine. If not, then we shouldn't expand the list.

Something to keep in mind is that, ironically enough, bigger lists tend to lead to people defaulting to the same stages more often, since the number of bans also increase. Why is Pokémon Stadium 2 played so often? Multiple reasons, but one of the main one is that players have so many bans so it'll be harder for the loser to actually get a proper counter-pick stage. Oh, and sometimes Small Battlefield isn't a starter for some reason (it should be), usually people default to either Small Battlefield or Pokémon Stadium 2 as the starter.

If you want to run mixed hazards, the easiest way to do so would be to set the default ruleset to hazards on, and then make a ruleset with random stages only and hazards off Pokémon Stadium 2 as the only stage. I don't think this is a good idea though, it's too easy to mess up, harder for TOs, and harder to practice online (and offline to a lesser degree). If you want hazards on, just go hazards on and drop Pokémon Stadium 2.

 

[Slime Master]

France tried something like this, or rather, letting people strike for the final counter-pick stage. Apparently the end result was that the stage just didn't end up being played. I imagine off-season stages would often get banned. Even for tournaments where Lylat is legal you'd rarely see people pick it these days, and if it's a temporary stage then people would be even less likely to pick it.

Our goal should be to have a balanced stage list that avoids bad stages while still allowing for some variety. Having a big list has no inherent value. If it helps balance without sacrificing other things (like adding bad stages like Yoshi's Island or Castle Siege) then having a bigger list could be fine. If not, then we shouldn't expand the list.

Something to keep in mind is that, ironically enough, bigger lists tend to lead to people defaulting to the same stages more often, since the number of bans also increase. Why is Pokémon Stadium 2 played so often? Multiple reasons, but one of the main one is that players have so many bans so it'll be harder for the loser to actually get a proper counter-pick stage. Oh, and sometimes Small Battlefield isn't a starter for some reason (it should be), usually people default to either Small Battlefield or Pokémon Stadium 2 as the starter.

If you want to run mixed hazards, the easiest way to do so would be to set the default ruleset to hazards on, and then make a ruleset with random stages only and hazards off Pokémon Stadium 2 as the only stage. I don't think this is a good idea though, it's too easy to mess up, harder for TOs, and harder to practice online (and offline to a lesser degree). If you want hazards on, just go hazards on and drop Pokémon Stadium 2.

Sure, I meant biggest within reason, things like having FoD and Lylat at the same time. Hell, you could probably reasonably run hazards on smashville and hazards off smashville as separate stages. I'm just thinking a large number of (not polarizing, not too similar) stages and appropriately large number bans theoretically should mean no character is forced to go to a bad stage, or at least not as much.

There are a bunch of implementation details I'm glossing over of course. If most of the added stages are counterpicks things might not work out so cleanly. And that's already operating under the assumption people would be willing to play on some of the new options, which is always a hard sell.

As for people always going to PS2, that's an interesting point, but I guess I just don't see it as a serious problem? Sure, it's boring, but as a viewer I'm not likely to stop watching because of that, and as a player you could always just not gentleman to PS2. At least if we're defaulting to PS2 we're not being forced to take Kazuya to FD, or something like that.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I wonder how hazards on PS1 would play out. I know people always say "We have better options nowadays" but I mean, it worked (albeit it did have jank) for Melee.

 

[Arthur97]

Other things were tried too like hazard Halberd and Delfino Plaza I think. Yet now they will hardly use Lylat.

Tell me though, is there anything actually wrong with hazardless Castle Siege other than slopes?

 

[Diddy Kong]

Their biggest mistake was probably nerfing Pichu super hard, that character went from top tier to mid tier. He later got buffed which helped but it's unclear whether he's still mid tier or high tier now, regardless he's a shell of his former self, and counter-play was being developed anyways when the buffs arrived.

Hard agree there, as Pichu was also a very cool and entertaining character to watch, and a character that frail and technical kind of deserves to be good I feel.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Other things were tried too like hazard Halberd and Delfino Plaza I think. Yet now they will hardly use Lylat.

Tell me though, is there anything actually wrong with hazardless Castle Siege other than slopes?

There's some camera jank where it's hard to see what's happening offstage on the sides.

 

[Rizen]

I'm bored so I'm going to give a brief overview of the characters I play and their MUs competitively.

Solid high tier but gets overshadowed a lot by better, easier characters. He has THE best neutral in the game and good combo trees but a pretty average recovery and disadvantage state, light weight and bad kill power. He can be good against characters who give a lot of the cast trouble like the rats and other vortexers, fighting game characters and a few top/high tiers like Peach and Pokemon trainer. This is due to amazing projectile zoning and f4 Nair and Dair covering him well vs characters without disjoints. However he has a bad disadvantage state vs characters with big disjoints due to all his projectiles losing to hitboxes, small hitboxes on his attacks and average mobility with no escape burst options. Curiously he does pretty well vs reflectors since most of his projectiles have little cooldown and he can sheild if they get reflected or angle them so they don't return to him. YL's worst MUs end up being swordies like Aegis, Hero due to bounce and accelerate, Cloud etc as well as some characters who just outclass him like Wolf and Joker.

another solid high tier. Byleth has great kill power off a strong advantage state with big hitboxes but a mediocre neutral due to slow attacks. She usually wins MUs by having higher reward for landing reads than the opponent. She struggles the most vs vortexers who can slip past her midrange zoning and stay on top of her like the rats and Inkling.

Although he's bottom tier he's still a very threatening character due to high damage and kill power on hit. Proof that Ultimate has no truely bad characters, just characters who are worse than others. With that said he does have to outplay pretty much everyone to win. If his recovery wasn't complete trash he'd be able to hang with other heavyweights like Incineroar but he gets gimped so easily. His worse MUs are probably characters like Minmin who can keep him away safely.

Always an underrated character, upper mid tier. KRool is the second best super heavy after Bowser imo. He is extremely heavy and has a lot of clutch factor moves to steal games. Unfortunately he suffers from having the second biggest hurtbox in the game and relatively small hitboxes. IMO he actually beats several lower ranked characters but gets outclassed by top tiers who don't have these huge weaknesses. His worst MUs tend to be weird CP characters who have specific tools that destroy him: Belmont keeps him in disadvantage forever and Villager steals his crown with pocket, zones him with sling shot F/Bairs and destroys his recovery with bowling ball Fsmash. ROB is really bad too.

To be continued...

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Upset thread for the Ludwig Invitational LCQ
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/ya49pr

 

[StrangeKitten]

Always an underrated character, upper mid tier. KRool is the second best super heavy after Bowser imo. He is extremely heavy and has a lot of clutch factor moves to steal games. Unfortunately he suffers from having the second biggest hurtbox in the game and relatively small hitboxes. IMO he actually beats several lower ranked characters but gets outclassed by top tiers who don't have these huge weaknesses. His worst MUs tend to be weird CP characters who have specific tools that destroy him: Belmont keeps him in disadvantage forever and Villager steals his crown with pocket, zones him with sling shot F/Bairs and destroys his recovery with bowling ball Fsmash. ROB is really bad too.

To be continued...

Imo, Incineroar is better. He's not quite as huge and has a better disadvantage thanks to Revenge, in addition to having absolutely explosive damage and kill potential. Also might have the best recovery of any superheavy, between up b armor getting him through things, and the sheer distance you can travel between up and side b. K Rool usually has a serviceable recovery but it's a rough time when facing certain characters (swordies who have long-ranged down airs don't care about the propeller, certain projectiles such as turnip and thunder jolt can just keep intercepting it, and there's also everyone bar Little Mac where going down and bairing from the side also works. Mac can probably do it too but I would not want to try that with how weak his bair and recovery are lol)

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

I'm bored so I'm going to give a brief overview of the characters I play and their MUs competitively.

Solid high tier but gets overshadowed a lot by better, easier characters. He has THE best neutral in the game and good combo trees but a pretty average recovery and disadvantage state, light weight and bad kill power. He can be good against characters who give a lot of the cast trouble like the rats and other vortexers, fighting game characters and a few top/high tiers like Peach and Pokemon trainer. This is due to amazing projectile zoning and f4 Nair and Dair covering him well vs characters without disjoints. However he has a bad disadvantage state vs characters with big disjoints due to all his projectiles losing to hitboxes, small hitboxes on his attacks and average mobility with no escape burst options. Curiously he does pretty well vs reflectors since most of his projectiles have little cooldown and he can sheild if they get reflected or angle them so they don't return to him. YL's worst MUs end up being swordies like Aegis, Hero due to bounce and accelerate, Cloud etc as well as some characters who just outclass him like Wolf and Joker.

another solid high tier. Byleth has great kill power off a strong advantage state with big hitboxes but a mediocre neutral due to slow attacks. She usually wins MUs by having higher reward for landing reads than the opponent. She struggles the most vs vortexers who can slip past her midrange zoning and stay on top of her like the rats and Inkling.

Although he's bottom tier he's still a very threatening character due to high damage and kill power on hit. Proof that Ultimate has no truely bad characters, just characters who are worse than others. With that said he does have to outplay pretty much everyone to win. If his recovery wasn't complete trash he'd be able to hang with other heavyweights like Incineroar but he gets gimped so easily. His worse MUs are probably characters like Minmin who can keep him away safely.

Always an underrated character, upper mid tier. KRool is the second best super heavy after Bowser imo. He is extremely heavy and has a lot of clutch factor moves to steal games. Unfortunately he suffers from having the second biggest hurtbox in the game and relatively small hitboxes. IMO he actually beats several lower ranked characters but gets outclassed by top tiers who don't have these huge weaknesses. His worst MUs tend to be weird CP characters who have specific tools that destroy him: Belmont keeps him in disadvantage forever and Villager steals his crown with pocket, zones him with sling shot F/Bairs and destroys his recovery with bowling ball Fsmash. ROB is really bad too.

To be continued...

I’m also quite bored, so I might as well do my opinions on the MU’s as Hero.

Vs. : Quite an odd MU. While it is quite clear that Hero should win on paper, Hero can have some struggle with Young Link. The main objective for Young Link is to smother Hero at mid range projectiles and box him most of the match in order to prevent Hero from buffing. Hero on the other hand is mainly trying to fish for bounce and approach/bait aerials, spacing with forward air and getting early edge guards with acceleratle. The main issue is fire arrow. It can reliable force Hero out of menu, and it is possible to get bounce in menu, but fire arrows interrupt you before you can identify bounce is there. This leads to Hero needing to win neutral at least once or twice to get his buffs, but as you said, Yink has the best neutral in the game so it can be a tall order for Hero if he doesn’t wanna eat all his mana. Not to mention that when Hero does get a chance to obtain buffs, he has a tough choice. Obtain buffs, or edge guard? Hero is excellent at edgeguarding Yink, with giant disjoints beating up B like fair, bair, dair, and zap spells. He also could do ledgedrop kaswoosh at like 50% and kill Yink. Yet that’s also risky. If the Yink mixes his recovery, Hero gets a net MP loss due to needing to recover and also dealing with ledge traps. But when hero gets going, he gets going. Hero can reliably camp him when he has the lead with excellent projectiles and menu spells, Yinks approaches are very predictable in general and Hero has one of the best anti-approaching tools in the game (Frizzle, zap, zapple, forward tilt, jab, retreating bair and fair). He is also quite capable of making a comeback. Due to Yinks struggle with killing, and Heros ridiculous kill power, Yink will often get Hero to the late 150%’s to 170%’s, forcing them kill with weak nairs and forward throws. Hero can start killing Yink as low as... 30%? If Hero can get both damage buffs he can easily condition shield. Forcing a Young Link to leave shield is extremely powerful, and it leads to Hero being able to just spam fair and bair since they will kill at 50%. That’s not even mentioning the million other kill options Hero will have against Young link, (decently easy edgeguards. Kazan reads, snooze, half of menu in general).

There’s not even a point going over acceleratle. With it active he is the best character in the game...


Vs.: This one is quite easy to explain in one sentence. “Onstage good, offstage bad.” Hero has a decent neutral against Byleth, surprisingly. While he has much less Sword reach than Byleth, zapple and projectiles easily beat areadbhar moves. Hero still does have the range to space out Up B as well. Hero also has decent speed, so he can run into Byleth and shield to mess with his spacing, forcing Byleth into an unfavorable scrapping situation. Not even nair can save Byleth, as it is punishable by woosh, (Nair is -10, woosh is frame 7) Once Hero is offstage Byleth can easily edge guard kaswoosh, though not zoom. Hero on the other hand struggles with traditional edge guarding. Instead, he can ledgedrop kaswoosh and confirm into a Bair for an easy kill. However Byleth can wait offstage and reel in once kaswoosh finishes. Hero can instead read this with swoosh, which will hit Byleth as swoosh falls. There is still more to be said, but it generally falls along normal MU stuff (ie. How well can Byleth ledge trap Hero, can Byleth kill Hero early, etc...)


Vs. : This is probably one of the worst MU’s for Ganon, period. Hero can spam zap almost comically easily. I do not joke when I say that it is possible to beat Ganon with only zap, throws, and fair, without even breaking a sweat. Zap beats EVERYTHING. I am not exaggerating. Ganon has no option that can beat it, nor can he punish it OOS. Ganon simply can’t get it. If he does get in however, Hero can lose very quickly. Ganon can ledgetrap and edge guard Hero reliably with Down tilt and fair, barring zoom. But... that’s about it. Hero can also do that, alongside every character in the game. He can ledgedrop kaswoosh and kill ganon at 20%.

Acceleratle.

I don’t really know what to say about this beyond just, it’s Ganon. Beating Ganon is just something that nearly everybody does.

Vs: Another decently easy MU. One of the few characters Hero can straight out frame data and combo, Hero hits K rool and doesn’t let him go. Neutral is quite easy for Hero, since crown armor, a usually good tool, is entirely beaten by Zapple and frizzle, some of the most common spells thrown out. When the King does get his mitts on Hero though, he can really dig in and beat on Hero. Heros poor options from ledge allows K rool to abuse him at ledge. However, Hero can do so as well, and edge guard him better. Down air cleanly beats up b, ledgedrop kaswoosh is ridiculously easy, and ledge trapping K rool is predictablely easy.

Bounce is decently easy to find and abuse, krippling the poor kremlin king and his neutral. Acceleratle. Oomph and psych up can be big trouble for K rool due to up air combos. Hero can do a down throw up air, up air, up air, up air for something like 40% base.

Acceleratle

Overall a pretty good MU for Hero, but with some frightening moments.

Thoughts?

 

[TCT~Phantom]

I do feel the best end game situation is to just incorporate mixed hazards at the end of the day. As much as I may have beef with PS2 being seen as completely balanced, you will not have the community get rid of it. People will ride or die for that stage. Here would be my mixed hazards stagelist and ruleset.

3 stock
7 Minutes
Best of 3/Best of 5 (depending on what stage of the tourney)
RPS for Stage Striking for Round 1
Modified DSR (You can not CP a Stage you already won on that set unless both players agree to gentleman's there)
Winner Bans three stages for the next round.



Starters
Hollow Bastion
Battlefield
Pokemon Stadium 2 Hazards Off
Town and City Hazards On
Smashville Hazards On

Counterpicks
Final Destination
Small Battlefield
Fountain of Dreams Hazards On
Yoshi's Story Hazards On
Lylat Cruise Hazards Off
Kalos Pokemon League Hazards Off

All Omega and BF Forms are allowed except for the following (Hanenbow, Dream Land GB, Mute City SNES, Flat Zone X, Duck Hunt, Pac Land, Super Mario Maker, Windy Hill Zone, Gamer, 75M)

 

[Arthur97]

I do feel the best end game situation is to just incorporate mixed hazards at the end of the day. As much as I may have beef with PS2 being seen as completely balanced, you will not have the community get rid of it. People will ride or die for that stage. Here would be my mixed hazards stagelist and ruleset.

3 stock
7 Minutes
Best of 3/Best of 5 (depending on what stage of the tourney)
RPS for Stage Striking for Round 1
Modified DSR (You can not CP a Stage you already won on that set unless both players agree to gentleman's there)
Winner Bans three stages for the next round.



Starters
Hollow Bastion
Battlefield
Pokemon Stadium 2 Hazards Off
Town and City Hazards On
Smashville Hazards On

Counterpicks
Final Destination
Small Battlefield
Fountain of Dreams Hazards On
Yoshi's Story Hazards On
Lylat Cruise Hazards Off
Kalos Pokemon League Hazards Off

All Omega and BF Forms are allowed except for the following (Hanenbow, Dream Land GB, Mute City SNES, Flat Zone X, Duck Hunt, Pac Land, Super Mario Maker, Windy Hill Zone, Gamer, 75M)

Wait, what's wrong with Windy Hill Zone, Gamer, and 75M battlefield and Omega versions from a competitive angle? The others I can get for being 2D model stages, but why those three?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Wait, what's wrong with Windy Hill Zone, Gamer, and 75M battlefield and Omega versions from a competitive angle? The others I can get for being 2D model stages, but why those three?

I know that Windy Hill Zone has the problem of the stage floor being able to camouflage certain stuff, most infamously Villager's sapling. Gamer has the problem where if you go towards the side blastzones, the characters will visually phase through the wall which camouflages what you are doing there.

Not sure about why 75m Battlefield/Omega would be banned though.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

Wait, what's wrong with Windy Hill Zone, Gamer, and 75M battlefield and Omega versions from a competitive angle? The others I can get for being 2D model stages, but why those three?

Echoing what Bookworm said, but the stage floor on Windy Hill is dumb. Hiding stuff like C4, Sapling, and what have you is really stupid. Gamer also has funky blastzone shenanigans.

I know that Windy Hill Zone has the problem of the stage floor being able to camouflage certain stuff, most infamously Villager's sapling. Gamer has the problem where if you go towards the side blastzones, the characters will visually phase through the wall which camouflages what you are doing there.

Not sure about why 75m Battlefield/Omega would be banned though.

It was specifically banned from Genesis' stagelists, so I figured something was up with it. I could not find out what on the Wiki but it was better safe than sorry to include imo.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

75m and other “2D” stages are banned because they mess with the Z axis, which changes how hitboxes and hurtboxes work.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

75m and other “2D” stages are banned because they mess with the Z axis, which changes how hitboxes and hurtboxes work.

75 M is not included with the 2D stages traditionally banned on the wiki. It also was specifically singled out as an Omega for the Genesis stagelist, which only mentioned one other Omega that does in Duck Hunt. Whatever reason it is, it could go beyond just that, if that even is a factor.

 

[Arthur97]

Hmm, yes, I could find info on the others, and even two that were patched (Fountain of Dreams and Garreg Mach Monastery), but nothing on 75m. I see no reason to exclude it without any proper reasoning.

 

[Rizen]

I'm bored so I'm going to give a brief overview of the characters I play and their MUs competitively.

Solid high tier but gets overshadowed a lot by better, easier characters. He has THE best neutral in the game and good combo trees but a pretty average recovery and disadvantage state, light weight and bad kill power. He can be good against characters who give a lot of the cast trouble like the rats and other vortexers, fighting game characters and a few top/high tiers like Peach and Pokemon trainer. This is due to amazing projectile zoning and f4 Nair and Dair covering him well vs characters without disjoints. However he has a bad disadvantage state vs characters with big disjoints due to all his projectiles losing to hitboxes, small hitboxes on his attacks and average mobility with no escape burst options. Curiously he does pretty well vs reflectors since most of his projectiles have little cooldown and he can sheild if they get reflected or angle them so they don't return to him. YL's worst MUs end up being swordies like Aegis, Hero due to bounce and accelerate, Cloud etc as well as some characters who just outclass him like Wolf and Joker.

another solid high tier. Byleth has great kill power off a strong advantage state with big hitboxes but a mediocre neutral due to slow attacks. She usually wins MUs by having higher reward for landing reads than the opponent. She struggles the most vs vortexers who can slip past her midrange zoning and stay on top of her like the rats and Inkling.

Although he's bottom tier he's still a very threatening character due to high damage and kill power on hit. Proof that Ultimate has no truely bad characters, just characters who are worse than others. With that said he does have to outplay pretty much everyone to win. If his recovery wasn't complete trash he'd be able to hang with other heavyweights like Incineroar but he gets gimped so easily. His worse MUs are probably characters like Minmin who can keep him away safely.

Always an underrated character, upper mid tier. KRool is the second best super heavy after Bowser imo. He is extremely heavy and has a lot of clutch factor moves to steal games. Unfortunately he suffers from having the second biggest hurtbox in the game and relatively small hitboxes. IMO he actually beats several lower ranked characters but gets outclassed by top tiers who don't have these huge weaknesses. His worst MUs tend to be weird CP characters who have specific tools that destroy him: Belmont keeps him in disadvantage forever and Villager steals his crown with pocket, zones him with sling shot F/Bairs and destroys his recovery with bowling ball Fsmash. ROB is really bad too.

To be continued...

Continuing ^this:

is upper mid tier imo. He can be hard to beat but also loses to most of the high and top tiers except for Peach and Pacman. Link suffers from being a jack of all trades but master of none. This means he gets beaten out by characters who specialize in a particular thing. His projectiles aren't fast enough to keep up with projectile zoners like YL and TL and he can really struggle to approach them. Similarly he loses CQC to swordies with faster swings and better hitbox coverage like Roy. All link's aerials poke out at one direction instead of swinging in an arc like Lucina and that can give him blind spots. Link has fairly slow attacks and needs to keep opponents out. A lot of what I do with him is zone with Fair similar to how Roy and Lucina's Nairs work. With that said Link can do several things to make himself scary if the opponent can't force their preferred game on him. His projectiles are amazing off stage. He has a great FF that accelerates him more than most characters and low landing lag on Nair and Bair. He also has good power behind his attacks and a very good Utilt. After the buffs he can true combo Dtilt into jump>upB for kills. If Link can hop around and zone with Fair and projectiles he can be hard to deal with. He probably beats most of the characters under him slightly while slightly losing to most of the characters above him, with several even MUs too. His worst MU imo is Joker. Joker dances around his hitboxes, combos hard and kills him early.

low tier. Ridley plays like a sword zoner with extra jumps. The problem is he's lighter than Samus and has a hurtbox almost as big as K.Rool's. His projectile's best in advantage due to being slow and not great in neutral. DownB's more a gimmick than anything. He can be scary in advantage but not as much as higher characters who don't share his crippling weaknesses. He's underwhelming to sum it up. Ridley might beat bad characters like Ganon and a few others but not many. His worst MUs tend to be characters who can keep him at a distance like ROB, Samus, Min and Belmont. If he can't get in to zone with his tail/sword he struggles a lot.

Lower top tier. He has great airspeed, a DA that can cross up shields, F/B/Uairs and Ftilt are like sword swings, a transcendent blaster that can deal about 9% and good power. His midrange game is amazing. There are a handful of characters who are even more outragious than him but not many. He probably beats most of the cast with several even MUs too. His bad MUs I've found tend to be characters who can slip past his midrange options and vortex him like the rats, Mario, Inkling, maybe greninja but Wolf hits so hard it might be even. IMO he loses to Terry and Kazuya too. That have better reward off close range options and have to win neutral a lot less than Wolf, although he has the better neutral. Joker's probably Wolf's worst MU for the same reasons Joker destroys Link.

 

[Arthur97]

Actually to that end, what are your thoughts on size and asymmetrical design? I think we could use more of the latter, and a good example would be Mushroom Kingdom U. Hazardless, the only thing I think could really be levied against it is size. People seem to want really small stages, but otherwise it seems like a good layout. So, for the former, what do you consider too big?

 

[StrangeKitten]

Actually to that end, what are your thoughts on size and asymmetrical design? I think we could use more of the latter, and a good example would be Mushroom Kingdom U. Hazardless, the only thing I think could really be levied against it is size. People seem to want really small stages, but otherwise it seems like a good layout. So, for the former, what do you consider too big?

I've seen circle camping potential as the reason given for MKU being banned

 

[Arthur97]

I've seen circle camping potential as the reason given for MKU being banned

Yes, hence the too big thing. Question is, when is big too big?

 

[Cheryl~]

Ice Climbers when gifted a pretty good bracket are the scariest characters known to man. Big D is a monster, can't wait to see how the rest of his run turns out tomorrow.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I'm unfortunately out at Ludwig going 2-3 in pools losing close sets to Acola Gluto and Asimo. Wins over Zackray and Goblin. Pretty good weekend overall I just got to work on some things. I'm glad I could finally compete at the highest level.

— Quandale Dinglelingleton (@BtDdog) October 23, 2022

He did really well against Gluto, but Gluto got three waft kills in the last two games. Overall though DDog's run was surprisingly solid. And while this was going on Jake apparently qualified for the Panda Cup Finale online over ESAM in the Panda Cup Southeast Qualifier.

Oh, and Onin and acola doing fairly well in general, unsurprisingly. Onin did lose to Sonix's Sonic though, getting timed out in game 5 (I think that was partly on him since he didn't really approach enough in the last two minutes, but the matchup could be potentially tricky for Steve if the Sonic has a lead and goes for a timeout, even if Steve gets infinite materials he'll lose if he can't land enough hits).

Ok I made it out of pools beating jakal, onin and maister, only losing to shuton yay. I think I’m playing good but I probably need to start trusting more in my aegis (yes I hate them but solo cloud is too hard 😭😭). Feeling good for tomorrow!

— FaZe Sparg0 (@Sparg0ssb) October 22, 2022

Just as I was starting to say that I think Aegis is slightly overrated (on the lower end of top 5 or just outside of top 5) Sparg0 is talking about picking them up again. Hmm... Cosmos barely didn't make it out of pools, MkLeo seems to have mostly dropped Aegis in favor of Byleth and Joker, and Shuton uses a mix of Aegis and Olimar. The character does not seem as consistent as people originally thought, nor as dominant, but it's still clearly a very good character, with lots of mid/high level representatives (and #5 on OrionStats) and a few top players (with Cosmos being the only solo main). Well, Cosmos has been trying Corrin lately versus Tea, so he might not even be a solo main anymore (though mixed results, he got 3-0 at Ludwig vs Tea).

I think MkLeo is going to win this tournament, he seems to be really motivated to win right now, and everyone else with a good shot for the #1 placing has been underperforming a bit.

Both Riddles and Light are somewhat underperforming right now but both made it out of pools. We'll see if they'll do better today.

Kurama (formerly known as Prodigy) is doing so well right now. Dark Wizzy tweeted that Kurama is definitely the best Mario right now, and given this performance I think it's fairly safe to say that he's right. I could see this motivating Dark Wizzy to step up his own game and becoming a top level threat once again. He did get 5th at The Big House 10 recently, showing that he still has it in him to top 8 majors.

 

[NotLiquid]

Ludwig Smash Invitational Top 16

Winners Side
Shuton - Big D
Kola - Kurama
Riddles - Acola
MkLeo - Sonix

Losers Side
Glutonny - Tweek
Dabuz - Sparg0
Zomba - Light
Asimo - Onin

Notables who didn't make it out of contention include Cosmos, Marss, Maister, and KEN. Zackray also fell 1-3 in his Swiss Pools, which follows his massive underperformance from Maesuma TOP 10. The hiatus hasn't been kind to him. Conversely, Big D and Kurama have been on incredible runs. Big D in particular took sets off of Riddles and Light. The Ice Climbers matchup looked to be so completely unwinnable for Kazuya (and Big D argued after the set that Icies are an Achilles heel for the FGC cast) that Riddles dug his old Richter back out for a last ditch attempt to turn the tide.

It's interesting that we've been talking about stages for the last few days since Ludwig (who isn't particularly versed in Ultimate compared to Melee) asked the commentators what effect that stages have on counterpicks and characters in this game. The only thing that the commentators could really muster up as a response to this is that Kalos and Final Destination are more or less the only stages that dramatically influence certain matchups, and that even then it's limited to the most fringe sentiment of "don't take Kazuya to FD". Whether or not there's any truth to those beliefs, it's somewhat reasonable to assume that this is the general community thinking as of present; stages don't matter that much holistically outside of a select few characters, and those that do can be expected to get taken out of contention by the banning process.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Whether or not there's any truth to those beliefs, it's somewhat reasonable to assume that this is the general community thinking as of present; stages don't matter that much holistically outside of a select few characters, and those that do can be expected to get taken out of contention by the banning process.

I think this is very incorrect but it would explain why so many stage lists don't seem to care about balancing stage archetypes (thus ending up with situations where character that benefit from FD and Kalos have an advantage). Something that also matters quite a bit is whether it's character before stage or stage before character, EU players seem generally happy with character before stage, yet many US scenes still play stage before character for some reason. Dabuz used that to his advantage versus acola game 5, where he pulled out Min Min on FD. Had acola known that Dabuz would pull out Min Min he probably would have banned FD. That being said, acola still won the set.

Posting this again, for those who haven't seen it yet (if you want to rewatch it that's fine too, of course):

 

[StrangeKitten]

I'll jump on the trend and do some of the characters I've been playing as of late:

: I've been saying this character was mid tier for years, when everyone else was saying he was bottom 10. Then Skyjay flipped the script, and now he, Esam, and I think the character is high tier! Great range and frame data, not a single bad move, craps out damage once you get good at using Revenge. However, he is definitely at the bottom of high tier. The slowness, Revenge getting taken away if he gets grabbed, and the good-but-not-great recovery all hold him back heavily. While a single Revenge into Alolan Whip is enough for him to turn bad matchups around and still win, I'd say most of the characters above him are losing matchups, though I am optimistic on all 4 of the FG characters, and Steve. I also think Incin is one of Little Mac's worst matchups. Incineroar is all about high base knockback, so he's among the best at getting Mac offstage, which a lingering Darkest Lariat (neutral b) easily robs Mac of all recovery options. Additionally, since Mac will mostly be throwing out powerful attacks, Revenge will be more potent than usual. I know Little Mac is a bad character, but he's fast and very scary to fight against. I suggest picking up the cat if you ever run into a Little Mac that you have trouble beating.

: Insanely fast and powerful, with excellent moves and armor. I find myself having little to say that hasn't already been said. This is the most viable version of Bowser (though not my favorite, that honor goes to the original Melee version), cementing him as a solid high tier. He's definitely still held back by the weaknesses of being a superheavy, and also having a good-but-not-great recovery. Game & Watch and the chus are his worst matchups, and King Dedede of all characters is probably also slightly losing.

: Still one of the best in the game. Super fast, great combo game, great range, just heavy enough to live for a long time. Gun and Arsene go brr lol. Only weakness is that his kill power is very poor without Arsene, which isn't that much of a weakness. If Leo fights Onin again, I wanna see him use Joker. I think Joker fares a lot better against Steve than Byleth does.

: Absolutely insane character. Absolutely top 10, maybe even top 5. I play him differently than most top Sonics play him, using a lot more normals and going for an aggressive style over camping. The ease with which he can mow down opponents is staggering. He also doesn't have many losing matchups; I've heard Roy is the most troublesome one. It's no wonder why there are many Sonics consistently getting top 8s.