Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Thinkaman]

I dunno about absolute terms, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about which of my excessive-and-poorly-focused character pool I would play against various opponents. So I'll answer the question from that angle, probably in a rambling way.

I play against a slim majority of characters including unknown, but definitely pick (and stay) him against and anyone with a sword.

I prefer against and surely quite a few more. Slow, projectiles, tall; all great things to abuse. For context, I never tried or wanted to get good with Isabelle and have no idea how it has ended up that she is in contention for my best character.

I specifically play into and . I also consider him if it's FD and I think the opponent just doesn't know how to play against rushdown well. If Incineroar fails against someone, I probably have an idea which of the Isabelle/Mac opposite extremes will mess with them more.

I also specifically play against . No idea why it works so much better, maybe it was just the one Mewtwo I explored a lot of matchups with, but it clearly worked better than any other character I played. Ness would likely prove ideal in more matchups, including , if I tested that more.

I like and do well enough with her, but haven't found matchup scenarios where I wouldn't be more effective someone else. It's close; I'm sure if I experimented more, I would find weird specific matchups she works best for me for, like with Mac and Ness.

I am never sure who I prefer against . Fast people who grab a lot and kill vertically are a big Dislike for everyone I play.



I enjoy quite a bit, but am not proficient in them enough to outperform all of my other characters in a matchup. (Like Jiggs, but more obviously due to a lack of general skill/mastery rather than a lack of matchup exploration.) PT in particular is a great character that feels powerful to use, but it feels like everyone knows how to play against PT and I'm late to the party.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I mean, it's probably more of a meme than anything to say that is a character's best matchup, but all needs is a single offstage nair/Darkest Lariat... same goes for , they're very hard to approach, but once you do and get them offstage, it's curtains. isn't as easy as "just edgeguard", but he hates characters that kill early, and Incin kills stupidly early. And Revenge is a huge boon vs all four. As for more meta-relevant stuff, the cat apparently does decently against and . I doubt they're truly winning, but I can see how Incin does better than other mid-tiers and maybe even some high tiers. I personally think Incin does well against if the Incin player knows how to exploit the matchup: let Olimar attach that Pikmin to you, you can get a Revenge stack each time the Pikmin whacks you. It's a super volatile matchup on both ends, which makes it one of the most fun imo.

In my opinion, 's worst matchups are ,, ,, and . Projectiles in general are rough for a character with such low mobility (Revenge of course helps) and the Samuses are the worst of the bunch in my opinion. Very heavy (109!) so Incineroar's early kill power is muted somewhat, hard, maybe even impossible to edgeguard since the cat can't go too deep (they have a far-reaching tether as an option, to boot), and the worst part of it all: the tether grab. Revenge is so much more helpful against other projectile users - here, the tether grab gets rid of Revenge for practically free. Approaching from the ground? Grab outranges everything. Approaching from the air? Samus gets to dash/roll back and grab that whiffed aerial. Joy.

and combo and edgeguard Incineroar for days, and probably have the best non-tether grabs after Palutena (rip Revenge). Though, the chus being light is at least a bit of a saving grace with Incin's excellent kill power. similarly loves combos and grabs, but I feel like the real issue with him is where is the lag?? Incineroar is a bait and punish character, I can't even punish the dang smash attacks save maybe down smash, which Mario doesn't really need to use. 's excellent combo game is ezpz on big-body Incineroar, his gameplan of camping to get Waft works very well with his great airspeed vs Incin's limited mobility, and he's like, a unit or two lighter than the Samuses, so less easy to get a cheese kill here as well. And yeah, Waft is the big thing that sways this matchup heavily in Wario's favor. You'd rather be a small, light character during Waft combos to be honest; big bodies make the combos easier and don't die to it noticeably later to be worth it.

was just a pocket character for me, but I bumped him up to co-main for the matchup. I checked some matchup charts made by Wario mains and asked around in the Wario Discord, and Joker seems like my best bet among characters I had already been playing. I don't think Wario is one of Joker's best matchups or anything, but simply, Joker does better than a lot of the cast. I'll probably stick to Joker for this MU, though anyone with Wario experience is free to recommend other characters. This was back before one of the secondaries I've put the most time into, , received buffs, so now I'm a little unsure who does better vs Wario. It wouldn't surprise me if it's still Joker, though.

As for his best matchups, Joker loves big bodies. combos for days (though Bowser might be a bit worse of a matchup for Joker since Bowser is much more fleshed-out of a character). I like using Joker against and , all of whom have somewhat slow mobility compared to Joker, projectiles help keep them at bay, and Joker weaves around/Rebel's Guard's their projectiles well. They combo well, too.

Honestly, none of Joker's matchups feel that bad. I think he's a well-balanced top tier in his current state - very good vs the cast, but not overwhelming like or . I don't think he needs any more nerfs - keep in mind that despite the early kills with Arsene, base Joker will have to wait till like 180 to close out a stock sometimes. That's not inexperience on my part; it happens to MkLeo all the time and he's a far better player than me. I wouldn't be completely against toning down Arsene and buffing base Joker's kill power a bit to compensate, though.

That tangent aside, I know Leo has said that and are rough MUs. I can agree with that, both characters have good tools vs Joker. Joker's been said to have a rough time with shorter characters, particularly ,, and maybe . I'm not sure if those are too bad; I've found projectile camping vs them can alleviate a lot of the difficulty with hitting them. They're probably more difficult than most, though.

I'll leave this at just my two mains since I've already written a dang college essay here, lol.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Just a head's up, I promise not to doompost too terribly often about Dedede here, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut

Q for the thread: what's your character's best and worst MUs?

Best is , although the buffs might have changed that.

I think you're good, tbh. The buffs that Dedede got involve closing out stocks sooner, nothing that really elevates him and pushes him past his own innate weaknesses. YL still puts Dedede through the paces in neutral. He's not quite as thorough about it as, say, Megaman, but YL can play the mid-range game pretty well between boomerangs and bombs. He's also small, relatively quick, and combos Dedede to hell and back. You might have to watch out for Inhale timings now (all instances of recovery/endlag for the move, from whiff to shooting projectiles, have dropped a few frames) but YL can get out of it.

fwiw I don't think the MU is a terrible-terrible one for Dedede (I leave that to the Megamans of this game, perhaps also the FALCOS now), but it's not a winning one, either.

Smooth Criminal

 

[StrangeKitten]

Just a head's up, I promise not to doompost too terribly often about Dedede here, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut



I think you're good, tbh. The buffs that Dedede got involve closing out stocks sooner, nothing that really elevates him and pushes him past his own innate weaknesses. YL still puts Dedede through the paces in neutral. He's not quite as thorough about it as, say, Megaman, but YL can play the mid-range game pretty well between boomerangs and bombs. He's also small, relatively quick, and combos Dedede to hell and back. You might have to watch out for Inhale timings now (all instances of recovery/endlag for the move, from whiff to shooting projectiles, have dropped a few frames) but YL can get out of it.

fwiw I don't think the MU is a terrible-terrible one for Dedede (I leave that to the Megamans of this game, perhaps also the FALCOS now), but it's not a winning one, either.

Smooth Criminal

Tried out Dedede recently. He's not a character I play often, so my experience is limited, but goodness his neutral felt slow and rough around the edges, and this is coming from someone who mains the slowest character in the game. I think the deal with Dedede is, he lacks good frame data and burst options. I'm glad they buffed his kill power to be more in-line with the other heavies, but now he needs faster frame data on a lot of his moves

 

[Smooth Criminal]

And this is where I would usually reply with "what neutral?" However, that's my Smash 4 answer. Dedede does have the ability to play some semblance of neutral in this game, but it's like a "there but for the grace of God, goes King Dedede" kinda thing. The universal changes to jumpsquat, airdodges, and shielding helped out, and it keeps him from getting totally smothered by everyone with a button to press.

But yes, I'm in full agreement. He needs slightly better frame data and some hitbox tweaks on his normals (sighs @ jab), maybe a little more airspeed to go with it. This is our lot, though.

Smooth Criminal

 

[DougEfresh]

So, best and worst MUs for our characters? I'll share my thoughts:



Best: . I'm not yet sure how the 8.0 buffs really change Bayo and the MU, but I certainly know that in 7.0 and prior, her severe lack of ability to take stocks at an early/reasonable percent allowed Lucario to consistently live to at least 150% and frequently up to 190%+ where max aura is a thing. It's generally been all to easy for him to just go "lol no u" and take her stock at early mid percents with an fsmash call out/read. I think she'll still be a pretty decent match up overall for Luc even if Bayo becomes a stronger character as a result of the recent patch (may go down to +1 from +2, but that's it).

Worst: . His entire character design is the perfect counter to Lucario's. Big, active hitboxes that linger for a while to throw out in neutral to keep Lucario on the back foot and likely start a lengthy combo that will either do 40+ percent or kill with half/full waft. Have to watch jumps too because bair is another potent kill option Wario has. That being said, if the player understands his game plan well enough and just locks on to player-specific habits while being committed to playing VERY safe, I do think he has a chance in this MU. A highly uninteractive bait and punish playstyle, should we manage to secure the first stock from Wario before we lose ours, can work rather well since he's comparatively much better at camping to force approaches and build up waft than he is with approaching.



Best:. Pretty self-explanatory, but I'll touch on it anyway: If banjo is dedicated to camping hard against Ganon, there's no reason he should lose. Projectiles stuff him out in neutral well, our disjointed aerials either help keep a safer horizontal distance from Ganon while poking at him, or can give him hell landing with well timed up air juggles. Our edgeguarding/gimping/ledge trapping largely invalidate him so every option he does try to use, we have a good answer to.

Worst: I'm torn between and to fit this bill, and both of them have very strong cases for Banjo's worst MU, but I gotta give it to Palu for one simple reason: her invincible shield. It's absolutely DEMORALIZING trying to play a very safe neutral to minimize her comboing us to oblivion and eventually go for a WW read only to become obsolete by DA or bair. Even worse, these two moves are used with a decent amount of frequency for Palu; so it makes getting out of disadvantage very hard and extremely difficult to find a neutral win to push advantage.

Fwiw, Pika has everything Banjo hates too: small frame and great pancaking ability, good speed, combos, edgeguarding and a projectile that's easily spammable to take grenade egg out of play in neutral. Imo though, the lack of range in hitboxes Pika has (at least compared to Palu) give us just a bit more room to breathe. We can try to use our disjointed aerials and tilts rather than projectiles and that can help a bit, as well as using grenegg more in advantage than neutral being a somewhat valuable adaptation for the MU to make resetting to neutral just a smidge harder for Pika.



Best: , pretty much speaks for itself like SwagGuy said.

Worst: . This might just be Imo, and I concede to my Shulk having the least amount of hours put into him of my main characters, but the frog has a nasty advantage state that makes it pretty hard for Shulk if he can't alternate well between a more grounded and aerial playstyle. Greninja has a f5 bair to stuff out sloppy aerial approaches which doesn't help with Shulk's slow frame data and can low profile aerials to whiff punish him on the ground with dtilt or DA to get a combo, tech chase or juggle if we're not careful with art management and general strategy of when, where and how to throw out hitboxes. Common arguments for his worst MUs often seem to point to and possibly , and I understand the reasoning for those, but I think I've personally struggled more with as since it's generally considered to still be a harder MU and it requires you to be on your A game as Shulk.

I've also recently taken an interest in picking up since the 8.0 buffs peaked my curiosity and I'm still just getting comfortable with his movement and kit for the time being, but Larry Lurr seems to think for best (again, obvious) and worst is, which I can also see why although apparently it still isn't awful for Falco.

While I'm at it, I'll share my own thoughts briefly on the MUs that were brought up from other people's posts with their mains.

: these 3 are either all losing (-1), or Bowser/Incin as losing with Doc barely placing in the even MU category. Except for Bowser, our mobility allows us to camp and play bait and punish well. Incineroar and Doc each have their tools to keep Lucario on his toes in neutral (revenge and also just an entire moveset full of fast fdata and rather big hitboxes to play around for Incin, pills for Doc), but if Luc knows either MU, this more defensive bait and punish playstyle tends to works well against them (edgeguarding Doc safely and baiting out Incin side b and revenge are generally going to be our safest ways of getting punishes and taking stocks). Same general strategy for Bowser, but his speed, range and kill power all just make it a more volatile and explosive MU than the other two even with that gameplan being the optimal one Imo.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

My most played character is Ridley.

Ridley is a character who excels at edge guarding. Naturally characters who have exploitable recoveries likestruggle staying alive at higher percents. Plasma Breath also gives a unique tool that can safely edgeguard characters with drag down recoveries. There's little reason to go out against when a well placed Plasma Breath will stop them in their tracks.


Ridley struggles against rushdown, but the stubby rushdown characters like aren't so bad. Yeah they hurt like hell when they get in, but Ridley's range can help keep them at a safe distance. Instead, I find myself struggling against characters who can play the rushdown game with longer limbs or disjoints like .

Zoners can be easy or hard to fight depending on the matchup. Characters with linear projectiles like can be dealt with through Ridley's multiple jumps or even Plasma Breath if the projectile is weak enough. Characters with big meaty projectiles like can hurt, but you just have to play it super safe. Really its the characters who fill the screen with projectiles that that give Ridley trouble. He's too big to weave in and out of defensive walls. Once he's in, Ridley can usually go ham, but otherwise its a miserable experience. The more physical zoners like just seem to do their thing while Ridley does his. Really just up to player experience there.

If I had to pick Ridley's worst matchup, it'd be . She's fast, has insane combos and has enough range to poke through Ridley's defenses. Ridley needs reads to win. is another terrible matchup for him. Ridley's size allows him to get clipped by a stray projectile and that can lead to terrible situations.

Ridley's easiest matchup may be or . They hurt when they get in, but both are easy to combo and edge guard. Ridley doesn't have to take many risks in those matchups.

 

[Lacrimosa]

My updated tier list, it is ordered. Things can def change as we see the patch develop some characters more. Not gonna be answering questions on it though. pic.twitter.com/7HsJhn3ZS5

— Myran (@MyranSSB) July 7, 2020

 

[Eremurus]

's best match-ups tend to be heavy, slow, and large. come to mind. We can smother them with projectiles, and have the frame-data and kill power with DB to compete with them CQC if we feel like an opportunity presents itself. These guys are combo food for .

's worse match-ups to be quick, fast, and small characters. , and interestingly enough, .

The first three aforementioned characters can either navigate our projectile walls, absorb them and use it against us, or reflect the projectiles. can crouch under stuff like our grabs and Ftilt/Fsmash, can combo us across the stage with ease, due to 's slow falling speed, lack of options protecting her while trying to approach the ground from above, and has excellent aerial mobility and drift. can edgeguard no problem, and again, the Bair/Fair loops will impede on your ability to safely get away, and control neutral.

Additionally, Thunder Jolts can reflect headers. are small, can constantly harass us with slingshots (this interrupts DB attempts, it interrupts sun charging, and clanks with headers.) The are small, they invalidate our projectiles because of Pocket, in particular can hide behind tree, and can make it really difficult for to approach- something we are not used to being FORCED to do. Usually likes to approach on their own volition, and then retreat back into a more defensive position until another opportunity presents itself. don't care about that, and turn our gameplay on its head.

was a difficult match-up BEFORE the buffs, so now it's probably a nightmare. is EXCELLENT at juggling- and keeping opponents airborne in a disadvantageous position. Uair is incredibly quick, and safe, and so is Fair and Bair. Utilt is a great anti-air. This sucks for . We cannot shoot projectiles all willy-nilly, because of reflector. , thanks to Phantasm, can close space, retreat, or even tech chase with it. Lasers make it difficult for us to set up HC's, they make it annoying for to get in, but additionally, we also can't really camp for reasons stated.

All of these characters are fast, small, relatively mobile, stuff out approaches with safe projectiles, and invalidate our suns and headers. They keep us trapped in disadvantage easily. Hope that helps.

 

[Nemesis561]

My most played character is Ridley.

Ridley is a character who excels at edge guarding. Naturally characters who have exploitable recoveries likestruggle staying alive at higher percents. Plasma Breath also gives a unique tool that can safely edgeguard characters with drag down recoveries. There's little reason to go out against when a well placed Plasma Breath will stop them in their tracks.


Ridley struggles against rushdown, but the stubby rushdown characters like aren't so bad. Yeah they hurt like hell when they get in, but Ridley's range can help keep them at a safe distance. Instead, I find myself struggling against characters who can play the rushdown game with longer limbs or disjoints like .

Zoners can be easy or hard to fight depending on the matchup. Characters with linear projectiles like can be dealt with through Ridley's multiple jumps or even Plasma Breath if the projectile is weak enough. Characters with big meaty projectiles like can hurt, but you just have to play it super safe. Really its the characters who fill the screen with projectiles that that give Ridley trouble. He's too big to weave in an out of defensive walls. Once he's in, Ridley can usually go ham, but otherwise its a miserable experience. The more physical zoners like just seem to do their thing while Ridley does his. Really just up to player experience there.

If I had to pick Ridley's worst matchup, it'd be . She's fast, has insane combos and has enough range to poke through Ridley's defenses. Ridley needs reads to win. is another terrible matchup for him. Ridley's size allows him to get clipped by a stray projectile and that can lead to terrible situations.

Ridley's easiest matchup may be or . They hurt when they get in, but both are easy to combo and edge guard. Ridley doesn't have to take many risks in those matchups.

What about palutena? I'm surprised you didn't list that as the worst tbh.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

What about palutena? I'm surprised you didn't list that as the worst tbh.

Palutena isn't a great matchup, but I'm not sure if I'd call her Ridley's worst one. This may just be my experience, but I don't dread the matchup like some other ones.

She definitely wins though.

 

[Nemesis561]

For

Best MU is probably . Super easy to just wall out Ganon with Bair and fair, also due to Ganons speed and size, her zoning is really effective in this matchup. Palu obviously has a ton of good matchups and invalidates a decent amount of the cast, and other candidates include , but what makes her easiest matchup is that if you ever get Ganon offstage, most times he just simply won't make it back.

Worst MU IMO is . This may seem surprising but Diddy slightly edges a few other characters. His small frame and speed make it harder to hit him and makes Palus zoning game not very effective. Palu has a really hard time dealing with banana, as she doesn't have a very good ground game outside of dash attack (which is -21 on shield so used better as a way to beat landing options/reactionary tool in neutral), therefore shes forced to use aerials, and diddys banana toss out of shield is one of the best oos options in the game. Therefore Palu doesn't have many options in the neutral vs a diddy with banana except for perfectly spaced aerials, and usually the best tactic is to platform camp and try and bait diddy to pre emptively throw the banana

Now that doesnt mean its a really hard mu or anything, I think its only a slight loss. Other candidates include . Any of these honestly could be considered her worst, asides from maybe Fox imo( yes he has things Palu really hates, but his recovery and weight make it probably an even matchup or very slight Fox favor). The things Palu hates are characters with small frames and fast, and characters who can apply a lot of shield pressure (Palus best OOS options are grab and nair (frame 8 option)).

 

[Lacrimosa]

Multiple "best" match-ups:


Worst match-ups are also there but I don't think anything is a -2 MU with the usage of techs with the phantom:



The Falco didn't really change the MU and they also didn't really make it more difficult.
However, you have to constantly use the Phantom in front of Zelda and that requires near frame-perfect inputs all the time. There are players that can do that (Meru, Samsora also has it down), but they use her as a secondary, funnily enough. The actual Zelda main (Ven) at top-level doesn't do that.
Still, the thing that makes the MU so hard are the lasers. Yes, you can reflect them but Phantom is her approach option and Falco can very easily deny that. He combos her hard but that's a given in every match-up.
ZSS is a char that focusses on rushdown and her aerials are disjointed. Flip Kick doesn't get her ledgetrapped or edgeguarded which are Zelda's strengths, you have to read this move as Zelda and that can end badly. Again, Phantom when displaced blocks her aerial approaches (there's a beautiful and close set of Marf vs. Exodia at a Canadian C-tier where this is brought to full effect).

These aren't undoable match-ups but they require the Zelda player to play frame-perfect with the Phantom tech.

I don't think other match-ups are nearly as bad as these two but there a couple chars that give her trouble. The next group probably consists of (not Chrom) and .

 

[Firox]

For

Good Matchups:

Bad Matchups:

I don't exactly know why, but Terry is the devil to me. Total silver bullet. Probably has something to do with the fact that really good Terry's have that new tech down where they can bust out power geyser and buster wolf on a dime without any telltale crouching to give away when it's coming. That, and he's got some disgusting priority on a lot of normals and every time he touches you it's an instant 40ish%.


In other news, I had a question I wanted to pose to all of you here:
Do you think that Min Min has totally power creeped Byleth or no? I really feel that she kind of just does his entire job better than him. All of his greatest strengths are hers too, plus she has a way better gimp/edgeguarding game than him and her dragon beam is infinitely better and more reliable than his arrows.

 

[Rizen]

In other news, I had a question I wanted to pose to all of you here:
Do you think that Min Min has totally power creeped Byleth or no? I really feel that she kind of just does his entire job better than him. All of his greatest strengths are hers too, plus she has a way better gimp/edgeguarding game than him and her dragon beam is infinitely better and more reliable than his arrows.

I think 's too much of her own separate thing to outclass anyone. Min's definitely better from a med-long distance but is better from her lance range. Byleth has access to much wider hitboxes in attacks like sideB and Uair so Byleth has space controlling options Min lacks. I think overall Min's probably the better character but not by too wide a margin.

One thing that hold Min back is her falling F/Bairs don't sink with gravity like Zairs or most aerials. This is a significant weakness when dealing with small opponents as when she jumps she has nothing to prevent them from dashing in. Byleth on the other hand can zone with falling F/Bair.

 

[DougEfresh]

For

Good Matchups:

Bad Matchups:

I don't exactly know why, but Terry is the devil to me. Total silver bullet. Probably has something to do with the fact that really good Terry's have that new tech down where they can bust out power geyser and buster wolf on a dime without any telltale crouching to give away when it's coming. That, and he's got some disgusting priority on a lot of normals and every time he touches you it's an instant 40ish%.


In other news, I had a question I wanted to pose to all of you here:
Do you think that Min Min has totally power creeped Byleth or no? I really feel that she kind of just does his entire job better than him. All of his greatest strengths are hers too, plus she has a way better gimp/edgeguarding game than him and her dragon beam is infinitely better and more reliable than his arrows.

I'm curious why you have so many characters listed as bad MUs for Greninja (though perhaps it's simply a personal experience thing, which is valid). I don't play the character, but the mains I've talked with seemed to think he only loses 1 or 2 MUs ( and maybe from what I've heard). Seems to have one of the best MU spreads in the game if that's the case.

About the Min Min/Byleth thing: it's possible she'll force into irrelevance from a functional standpoint (though even if that becomes the case, surely a handful of byleth mains will stay dedicated to the character); it is true that has a better neutral and edgeguarding game, probably even better ledge trapping as well (at least once optimized further down the road).

The only thing I can really see being an advantage Byleth has over Min Min is the fact that you have to be more careful edgeguarding him than her because of up b posing a threat to reverse edgeguard and spike. It may not be enough of a reason to use Byleth over Min Min though, especially with their air speeds both being terrible (0.89 for byleth and 0.85 for Min Min, respectively).

EDIT: Another thing to consider with is that her learning curve is shaping up to be quite high, which may deter a lot of people from investing in her and they might (rightly or wrongly) choose Byleth as a "close enough" choice for the 'distance demon' archetype that's relatively easy to learn.

 

[NotLiquid]

One thing that hold Min back is her falling F/Bairs don't sink with gravity like Zairs or most aerials. This is a significant weakness when dealing with small opponents as when she jumps she has nothing to prevent them from dashing in. Byleth on the other hand can zone with falling F/Bair.

This is partially incorrect. The attacks are affected by gravity up until the point she lands. This is most notable if you try to do an aerial Dragon laser, if it's active before touching the ground it will always stay out on the same vertical level, and it's not hard to land with that one since it has 10 active frames.

The reason the hitboxes work that way is pretty simple; Min Min is able to cover dash-ins with her second arm more or less with frame perfect leniency upon landing, or even before she's hit the ground (all the tilts have 14 frames of startup so anticipating this isn't all that difficult). Hell she can even jump again the moment that second arm is out.

The only thing I'd say holds Min Min back as far as this concerned is execution barrier, but in terms of option selects she still sports a pretty notable advantage here, particularly when the initiating aerials retain lingering hitboxes.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

All I’ll say is as a main, I cringe when I see or . Those pockets destroy my entire game plan

 

[Firox]

I'm curious why you have so many characters listed as bad MUs for Greninja (though perhaps it's simply a personal experience thing, which is valid). I don't play the character, but the mains I've talked with seemed to think he only loses 1 or 2 MUs ( and maybe from what I've heard). Seems to have one of the best MU spreads in the game if that's the case.

About the Min Min/Byleth thing: it's possible she'll force into irrelevance from a functional standpoint (though even if that becomes the case, surely a handful of byleth mains will stay dedicated to the character); it is true that has a better neutral and edgeguarding game, probably even better ledge trapping as well (at least once optimized further down the road).

The only thing I can really see being an advantage Byleth has over Min Min is the fact that you have to be more careful edgeguarding him than her because of up b posing a threat to reverse edgeguard and spike. It may not be enough of a reason to use Byleth over Min Min though, especially with their air speeds both being terrible (0.89 for byleth and 0.85 for Min Min, respectively).

EDIT: Another thing to consider with is that her learning curve is shaping up to be quite high, which may deter a lot of people from investing in her and they might (rightly or wrongly) choose Byleth as a "close enough" choice for the 'distance demon' archetype that's relatively easy to learn.

Agreed on the Min Min points. As far as my Greninja matchups, it really comes down to my own experience and the average level of my opponents skills. For example:

: People constantly rant about how OP Snake is, and don't get me wrong, in the right hands he can definitely be high tier, but good 's are relatively rare so people often forget about that particular matchup. In short, Snakes typically play very defensive and rely on grenade spamming to draw in their opponents. Greninja, however, doesn't have to play his game. Shuriken is fast enough to outcamp him and stun him out of Nikita while Gren's aerials and jump height negate much of Snake's air game and recovery. I can't tell you how many times snakes have tried to recover high against me only to find themselves on the lethal end of Fair in the top corner of the screen. Unless the Snake is grossly superior on the ground (which his frame data can certainly allow), I give the matchup to Greninja for the most part.

One important disclaimer about my "Good" and "Bad" MUs is that I'm not saying that Greninja definitively wins or loses against said characters. Those are just the ones I typically have an advantage or disadvantage against. I agree that actually does have a fairly good MU spread overall but the ones I listed as "Bad" are just the ones that really give me an uphill battle due to the way their kits can potentially cancel out Gren's strengths.

 

[Thinkaman]

In other news, I had a question I wanted to pose to all of you here:
Do you think that Min Min has totally power creeped Byleth or no? I really feel that she kind of just does his entire job better than him. All of his greatest strengths are hers too, plus she has a way better gimp/edgeguarding game than him and her dragon beam is infinitely better and more reliable than his arrows.

Hard disagree; I don't think the characters are that similar actually.

Byleth's favorite thing in the world is being below people, like Rosalina or such. Min Min wants horizontal distance at all cost.

Byleth has a surprisingly okay recovery; great distance, such a long tether that any anti-tether intercept options aren't a slam dunk. Min Min's recovery is pretty poor.

Arrow is mostly a fake out move used to force reactions, the projectile you don't actually have to commit to. Min Min is actually trying to hit you (or at least pressure) with arms.

Byleth is weird and distant from other characters; you'd soon compare her to what, Corrin? Whereas Min Min is outside the solar system and closest to Planet Belmont, if anything.

All I’ll say is as a main, I cringe when I see or . Those pockets destroy my entire game plan

Pocketed grenade is mean, but Wonderwing is one of the cruelest answers in the game to slingshot when you get it right. Between his d-throw options and his smashes they can't do much about, Banjo can really exploit their weak close games at kill percents. He also ends up being consistently harder to edgeguard than I expect him to be due to the sheer number of pathways.

For Isabelle specifically, Wonderwing loses to simultaneous rod but obliterates all other abuses of trap.

Overall, I put both matchups at 50:50. For some reason I talked about this specific matchup with 3 Banjos and 1 Villager/Isabelle main at Genesis 7, and that's what we all agreed.

Edit: Important context, I have a very high opinion of Banjo and believe he is rather good+underplayed.

 

[adom4]

My most played character is Ridley.

Ridley is a character who excels at edge guarding. Naturally characters who have exploitable recoveries likestruggle staying alive at higher percents. Plasma Breath also gives a unique tool that can safely edgeguard characters with drag down recoveries. There's little reason to go out against when a well placed Plasma Breath will stop them in their tracks.


Ridley struggles against rushdown, but the stubby rushdown characters like aren't so bad. Yeah they hurt like hell when they get in, but Ridley's range can help keep them at a safe distance. Instead, I find myself struggling against characters who can play the rushdown game with longer limbs or disjoints like .

Zoners can be easy or hard to fight depending on the matchup. Characters with linear projectiles like can be dealt with through Ridley's multiple jumps or even Plasma Breath if the projectile is weak enough. Characters with big meaty projectiles like can hurt, but you just have to play it super safe. Really its the characters who fill the screen with projectiles that that give Ridley trouble. He's too big to weave in and out of defensive walls. Once he's in, Ridley can usually go ham, but otherwise its a miserable experience. The more physical zoners like just seem to do their thing while Ridley does his. Really just up to player experience there.

If I had to pick Ridley's worst matchup, it'd be . She's fast, has insane combos and has enough range to poke through Ridley's defenses. Ridley needs reads to win. is another terrible matchup for him. Ridley's size allows him to get clipped by a stray projectile and that can lead to terrible situations.

Ridley's easiest matchup may be or . They hurt when they get in, but both are easy to combo and edge guard. Ridley doesn't have to take many risks in those matchups.

I disagree with Snake being horrible, it's probably one of his better high tier MUs and it's arguably even, ledge is hell but Ridley can play around nades decently with fireballs/side-B/Dtilt & Snake really really REALLY struggles to land and recovery, it's not that bad.
As for Belmonts it seems bad until you realize they have to work so hard to kill Ridley, holy water only hits him on the ledge from a very precise angle and he kills them so easily in return, it's losing but not by much.
Also the rats are generally alright for him, not being edgeguarded easily vs Pikachu & actually being able to hit him goes a long way.
Agreed with ZSS tho that matchup is straight up trash lmao.
As for his other horrible MUs are all pretty **** for him.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Talked enough about who I think does well/does poor in, so to talk about my 2nd most played character, , for a bit:

I find that I do well against characters I can force to overcommit with Limit Charge while also being able to safely whiff punish their commitments at a distance with Cloud's huge buttons (particularly FAir, BAir, Shield into Climhazzard, Cross Slash). I also find that I perform better against characters who rely more on their air movement than their ground movement, given that Cloud's ground buttons are mostly limited to Cross Slash, which is fairly committal in of itself. Weaker projectiles aren't too much of an issue either given that in my experience, it's usually not enough to stop me from camping. In that regard, I find the match-ups he does well in are:



The characters I find he struggles with the most are characters who don't have to overcommit to deal with Limit Camping (in particular, characters with safe pokes or deadly projectiles like Charge Shot), or characters with ground mobility that can keep up with Cloud's, complimented by having aerials that can completely stuff out his aerial buttons (aerials that are generally faster than his). Heavyweights are also a problem because several of Cloud's KO options are held back by either low knockback scalings (Dash Attack, USmash), or low base knockback (FTilt, BAir) The match-ups I find he struggles the most in are:

 

[DougEfresh]

Agreed on the Min Min points. As far as my Greninja matchups, it really comes down to my own experience and the average level of my opponents skills. For example:

: People constantly rant about how OP Snake is, and don't get me wrong, in the right hands he can definitely be high tier, but good 's are relatively rare so people often forget about that particular matchup. In short, Snakes typically play very defensive and rely on grenade spamming to draw in their opponents. Greninja, however, doesn't have to play his game. Shuriken is fast enough to outcamp him and stun him out of Nikita while Gren's aerials and jump height negate much of Snake's air game and recovery. I can't tell you how many times snakes have tried to recover high against me only to find themselves on the lethal end of Fair in the top corner of the screen. Unless the Snake is grossly superior on the ground (which his frame data can certainly allow), I give the matchup to Greninja for the most part.

One important disclaimer about my "Good" and "Bad" MUs is that I'm not saying that Greninja definitively wins or loses against said characters. Those are just the ones I typically have an advantage or disadvantage against. I agree that actually does have a fairly good MU spread overall but the ones I listed as "Bad" are just the ones that really give me an uphill battle due to the way their kits can potentially cancel out Gren's strengths.

That's fair. I can definitely see the list you mentioned for your personal bad MUs potentially being hard since their punish games and/or kill power generally give the cast a small margin of error. And I also acknowledge that sometimes you just don't personally have as hard a time vs a character who's said to be your main's worst MU (or among them) even if that is considered the consensus, so what you say about Snake also makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!

 

[PURGE THEM LIKE THE]

Q for the thread: what's your character's best and worst MUs?

Best is , although the buffs might have changed that. YL's projectiles all bounce back gordos, DDD has a horrible time chasing YL down and he lacks the huge hitboxes to wall him in advantage.
Worst are generally sword characters who are both faster and have much bigger disjoint than YL like . They basically create a circle around them representing their hitboxes that destroys YL. Hitboxes beat all YL's projectiles so he has a hard time crossing them up. In some cases YL's disadvantage is excellent because Nair covers him so well and has 6f landing lag. Swords completely bypass YL's Nair and Dair. YL gets destroyed in disadvantage by swords.
Best is , generally characters he forces to approach who have a hard time breaching his walling.
Worst is . Link is a strong defensive character but not very mobile and he has a lot of trouble if he's forced to approach. These characters playing passive aggressively can really nail Link down with better projectile options and exploit openings.
Best is bad characters and yes I do think he has winning MUs. K.Rool's survival ability and f4 jab give him and edge against characters with weak options. The thing is, after all these buffs who's still a bad character? I guess.
Worst is . Vill has unique tools that shut K.Rool down hard. He can pocket krown, F/Bair walls KRool and the bowling ball FSmash means any time KRool has to recover low he's going to eat a strong smash.
Belmont walls him super hard. Whip is extremely difficult to get past even with belly armor. burning moves like holy water trap KRool's huge hurtbox and burn past his armor. Axe breaches his recoveries. KRool can't land, can't approach and gets ledge trapped for a ton of damage.
Best is, idk, generally characters with bad recoveries that can't get around his sword-like tail. Like with KRool he probably wins vs bad characters but it's hard to say who's bad anymore.
Worst is . Although both the rats are terrible IMO pichu has better tools to exploit Ridley's huge hurtbox. Pichu has better air speed, his aerials launch up for better juggling and Pichu's thunder always launches the way he's facing where with Pikachu's you can airdodge behind him and get launched back on stage. Pichu is probably the best at breaching Ridley's sword zoning and destroying him in disadvantage.
basically the same as Ridley but slightly better outlook.
Ganon doesn't exactly win MUs but generally does best vs immobile characters with poor reach that he can zone like a sword character with Nairs, Uairs, FTilt and smashes.
Worst: a ganon main once told me his worst MUs were . I can see this. With little vortexing critters they can juggle Ganon for days but he has better hitboxes and only needs to make 2 or 3 reads per stock. Critters are doable. Sword characters have the same reach as Ganon but are twice as fast. They wall Ganon hard. Personally I would also include in here for the same reasons he's bad for K.Rool. Probably too.

I use Shulk. I don't know who his best matchup would be.

D DougEfresh said Greninja is his worst, which I completely disagree with. While the the frame 5 bair is a fine way to call out Shulk's jumps, it's easy for Shulk to just start shielding against it. The move is -7 on shield at best. In a match you probably will never hit a perfect bair on shield; more realistically it would be maybe something like -10, which Shulk can punish with up b. This is Greninja's only way of calling out jumps, so when a player shows that they can work around it, Greninja will have to resort to either using another aerial, which will totally get eaten by any of Shulk's, or playing grounded. None of his grounded attacks are safe from air slash, though down tilt being frame 5 with such short cooldown does mean punishing it with airslash would require a read. It having no range is a significant hindrance against Shulk; I could quite easily see Greninja getting hit for trying to land a down tilt. Then, even when Greninja does land a hit, Shulk will switch to shield art and make it irrelevant. While shield art is on cooldown, Shulk only has to keep Greninja away, as shurikens don't apply any meaningful pressure. This is particularly concerning for getting the kill on Shulk because Greninja's main kill options on stage are either reactionable combos (down tilt -> up smash, dash attack -> up air), too committal (catch a landing with fsmash), or weak kill throws. I don't think either character has a particularly notable advantage here.

I find the hardest matchups to be the ones like Pikachu, Megaman, or Banjo, where the opponent can approach behind a projectile and then mix up between using some option that discourages shielding (grabs from pika/banjo and shield pokes from megaman) or hitting me for trying to jump over it. Bonus points to Pikachu for having edgeguarding so good that Shulk can realistically die anytime he's sent offstage at an angle below about 60 degrees.

It also doesn't help that these matchups are all rare. I could very much use some more practice in them all.

 

[StrangeKitten]

So now Myran also thinks is one of the worst characters in the game? I feel like I'm missing something, because I don't play her, but I didn't think she was that bad. She seems kinda low mid to me. Is Zelda really so bad as to be bottom 5?

 

[Rizen]

So now Myran also thinks is one of the worst characters in the game? I feel like I'm missing something, because I don't play her, but I didn't think she was that bad. She seems kinda low mid to me. Is Zelda really so bad as to be bottom 5?

I personally don't think so but I don't have a high opinion of her either. She's lower mid tier imo. Zelda got some buffs but I feel like her core issues are still present. The biggest buff I'd give her is making phantom travel farther when charged. It takes a long time to charge and only goes about half of BF. Therefore it's very easy to avoid it unless she's in advantage. Zelda's a defensive jack of all trades but in this she loses to other characters who do one thing much better (like Roy being a strong swordsman). She also has trouble if she can't force an approach and several characters like the Links have a better projectile game than her. I guess there's the tech where she charges phantom in front of her to block projectiles but that leads to the problem that it barely goes anywhere and Zelda doesn't get much out of it. Not to mention her B/Fair are identical thus making her lack a good juggling aerial. She can be scary because she hits hard but she's also kind of a mess.

 

[RonNewcomb]

So now Myran also thinks is one of the worst characters in the game? I feel like I'm missing something, because I don't play her, but I didn't think she was that bad. She seems kinda low mid to me. Is Zelda really so bad as to be bottom 5?

As a general rule I don't question when someone places a character in their "traditional" place on the tier list, i.e. Hyrule tier, superheavies tier, etc.

 

[B_Burg]

Just a head's up, I promise not to doompost too terribly often about Dedede here, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut



I think you're good, tbh. The buffs that Dedede got involve closing out stocks sooner, nothing that really elevates him and pushes him past his own innate weaknesses. YL still puts Dedede through the paces in neutral. He's not quite as thorough about it as, say, Megaman, but YL can play the mid-range game pretty well between boomerangs and bombs. He's also small, relatively quick, and combos Dedede to hell and back. You might have to watch out for Inhale timings now (all instances of recovery/endlag for the move, from whiff to shooting projectiles, have dropped a few frames) but YL can get out of it.

fwiw I don't think the MU is a terrible-terrible one for Dedede (I leave that to the Megamans of this game, perhaps also the FALCOS now), but it's not a winning one, either.

Smooth Criminal

I'm kind of surprised you think the matchup is still that bad against . Not to suggest it's a winning one for or anything like that, but you still think it's potentially the worst for him in the game?

I tend to have a somewhat rough time against Dedede myself regardless of who I'm playing as so I might not be the best to comment on it, but I'd be curious to hear more insight on it. If you think that neutral just swings it that hard in Megaman's favor, or if there's more to it than that.

I'd also never considered the matchup against him at all, and looking at that data from the million matches (for whatever that's worth) it did look like did have a hard time. In fact it looked like was one of the worst matchups for him even pre-buff (along with , with actually looking a lot less advantageous in the matchup comparatively).

I know that data isn't the end-all be-all of discussion, but I was wondering what it was about Falco that gave him so much trouble.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I'm kind of surprised you think the matchup is still that bad against . Not to suggest it's a winning one for or anything like that, but you still think it's potentially the worst for him in the game?

I tend to have a somewhat rough time against Dedede myself regardless of who I'm playing as so I might not be the best to comment on it, but I'd be curious to hear more insight on it. If you think that neutral just swings it that hard in Megaman's favor, or if there's more to it than that.

I'd also never considered the matchup against him at all, and looking at that data from the million matches (for whatever that's worth) it did look like did have a hard time. In fact it looked like was one of the worst matchups for him even pre-buff (along with , with actually looking a lot less advantageous in the matchup comparatively).

I know that data isn't the end-all be-all of discussion, but I was wondering what it was about Falco that gave him so much trouble.

Falco's combo game is near-infinite against big body characters. Just fighting the CPU, it feels like I can't do much if I'm playing a heavy, so I can't imagine it'd be any better against a Falco main who has the character fully-optimized. And there's also Falco's frame 1 reflector, have fun trying to use Gordos against that. It's still an awful matchup for other heavies, but at least Bowser has tough guy, K Rool has belly armor, Incineroar has intangibility on Darkest Lariat. I can't even think of anything poor Dedede has that would help.

 

[Thinkaman]

Falco's combo game is near-infinite against big body characters. Just fighting the CPU, it feels like I can't do much if I'm playing a heavy, so I can't imagine it'd be any better against a Falco main who has the character fully-optimized. And there's also Falco's frame 1 reflector, have fun trying to use Gordos against that. It's still an awful matchup for other heavies, but at least Bowser has tough guy, K Rool has belly armor, Incineroar has intangibility on Darkest Lariat. I can't even think of anything poor Dedede has that would help.

Revenge is also nice if Falco tries to over-play his combo hand, which he almost surely will. He is forced to respect Incineroar as if he had the frame data of, well, anyone with a top-class 3f combo breaker.

 

[PK Gaming]

Random thought:

When your friends go Incineroar in friendlies, it's because they hate you

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I agree with this except . While I think he needs more changes to be anything better than lower mid tier, I still think he's good enough to be lower mid tier and his matchup spread is underrated by almost everyone IMO. I still have trouble seeing buffed characters like and (who I think may also be lower mid tier now) being better than him.

Late, but hard disagree.
This patch buffed everyone around Doc's tier and effectively killed his possible even-ish MU's.

Spoiler: MU's now

-: Safer and gets more off neutral wins, thus getting Doc off stage earlier.
-: Is now somewhat scary at high %'s and stone kills earlier off of edge-guards. Most of the same applies with & .
-: Harder to get in and can cheese/gimp him more effectively.
-: Get's him off-stage easier, thus setting up Gordo ledge-traps more often.
-: Can actually tipper now.
-: Nair into Aether, enough said.
-: Faster normals and better anti-airs.
-: Stronger edge-guards.
-: Better combos, edge-guarding, and Side-B for neutral now. Hard lost now.

And then there's ...


He's too slow-moving, has too stubby range, too poor at recovering, Up-Smash OoS hard counters pills.
What can he do?
Very little, maybe pray and hope that the Min Min doesn't know what they're doing.
This matchup is ****ing horrible, easily one of the worst in the game.

Simply put, unlike most other flavor of the month "low tiers", Doc just can't force his opponent to deal with him.
His advantage is overall good in the long run but he lacks the range or mobility to use it. (God help you if your opponent decides to camp)

If he had a decent way of pushing his way into the neutral, then at least he would have the perk of killing his opponent before they can adapt.
But that hardly applies to him, and he has nothing to back to that up.
Combine with his horrible recovery, more times then not he'll still reach kill percent faster and thus lose.

All and all, after this patch I'm comfortable with saying this character is bottom 3 and doesn't have much of a future outside of upsets.

At least he's not a casual/low-level menace like &, so buffs are still on the table.

 

[StoicPhantom]

So now Myran also thinks is one of the worst characters in the game? I feel like I'm missing something, because I don't play her, but I didn't think she was that bad. She seems kinda low mid to me. Is Zelda really so bad as to be bottom 5?

There's been a black hole of misinformation, misunderstanding, confirmation bias, pessimism, regurgitated opinions, and lack of desire to go deeper than surface level takes or seriously play her surrounding Ultimate Zelda since day one. No matter how much you may try to add corrections to misconceptions or debate opinions in good faith, they will always get swallowed up like they never existed in the first place.

It's just one of those forces of nature you have to accept like Rob not being high/top tier, Pikachu stans, and Shulk being the true final boss.

 

[RonNewcomb]

and Shulk being the true final boss.

I LOL'ed. Did Dabuz put Shulk top-tier as a troll, or is there actual reasoning? I heard the "potential" argument several patches ago, but... anything? Patch buff for Shulk? Clearly broken tech? Anything??

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I'm kind of surprised you think the matchup is still that bad against . Not to suggest it's a winning one for or anything like that, but you still think it's potentially the worst for him in the game?

I tend to have a somewhat rough time against Dedede myself regardless of who I'm playing as so I might not be the best to comment on it, but I'd be curious to hear more insight on it. If you think that neutral just swings it that hard in Megaman's favor, or if there's more to it than that.

Conceptually, nothing has changed about the MU from Smash 4. Megaman can chuck whatever the hell he wants at Dedede---lemons, bombs, saw blades---with so little commitment that Dedede is forced to sit back and wait for an over-extension that probably isn't coming. He can't effectively bait much with multiple jumps and his dead-in-the-water airspeed. Gordos are useless (fresh lemons send them back); Inhale to grab Megaman or reflect his projectiles is too risky (even after D3's 8.0 buff to it); D3's hammer-normals (jab, aerials except nair, f-tilt) aren't fast enough or long enough to get Megaman to respect the fact that they're disjointed; D3's horrible disadvantaged state is exacerbated by Mega's small size, plus the free big body combos he gets on him (and D3 has a helluva time keeping the pressure on when he's got advantage)...

Megaman is pure hell for Dedede, full stop. He shuts down the range where Dedede excels, which is the mid-range, a niche occupied by a lot of characters with disjointed buttons. Mega's neutral also keeps Dedede from playing counteroffensively. To put it in old FGC ratios, Mega is definitely either 7:3 or even 8:2. There is a reason why when I competed I kept a pocket character for times where I'd have to face off against one (e.g. Yeti).

I'd also never considered the matchup against him at all, and looking at that data from the million matches (for whatever that's worth) it did look like did have a hard time. In fact it looked like was one of the worst matchups for him even pre-buff (along with , with actually looking a lot less advantageous in the matchup comparatively).

I know that data isn't the end-all be-all of discussion, but I was wondering what it was about Falco that gave him so much trouble.

Before I get to Falco: I actually don't consider Rosalina to be an awful MU for Dedede. It's in her favor for sure, but Dedede can actually fight back against her B.S. pretty handily mainly due to multiple jumps and disjoints. Rosalina doesn't completely shut down Dedede's attempts to play the game like Megaman or Falco does.

Falco, well, I honestly wouldn't have considered much of him (slightly beats Dedede?)...until this patch. Now he's nightmare fuel. The one thing Dedede kinda sorta had on him in his multiple jumps and exploiting Falco's ground movement...? Gone, especially if he takes you to a stage with triplats. Lasers will keep Dedede honest and right where he wants you. Illusion is a legit mobility tool. He is going to be bobbing and weaving out of Dedede's effective ranges a lot; most importantly, he's going to get under you and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. He's going to land a hit, any hit, and you are probably going to get carried to the blast zone unless he drops his combo/string. Falco's advantage state in this MU is oppressive.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I disagree with Snake being horrible, it's probably one of his better high tier MUs and it's arguably even, ledge is hell but Ridley can play around nades decently with fireballs/side-B/Dtilt & Snake really really REALLY struggles to land and recovery, it's not that bad.

Counterplay exists, but I find myself getting clipped by a projectile all the time. Maybe I'm using the wrong strategy?

What does your Ridley look like in the Snake matchup?

As for Belmonts it seems bad until you realize they have to work so hard to kill Ridley, holy water only hits him on the ledge from a very precise angle and he kills them so easily in return, it's losing but not by much.

Yeah, Belmonts are't that bad, and they're easy to gimp too. I just put them in the archetypes for the sake of example.

Agreed with ZSS tho that matchup is straight up trash lmao.

It's so painful that his reveal trailer foreshadowed it.

As for his other horrible MUs are all pretty **** for him.

I definitely agree on Young Link and Mii Gunner. Those matchups are painful, but I personally have more trouble against Snake with Ridley.

Samus isn't that bad, but she still wins for sure.

I don't think Inkling is that bad honestly. Why do you think they're one of Ridley's worst matchups?

 

[StoicPhantom]

I LOL'ed. Did Dabuz put Shulk top-tier as a troll, or is there actual reasoning? I heard the "potential" argument several patches ago, but... anything? Patch buff for Shulk? Clearly broken tech? Anything??

I don't know, I pretty much checked out of Ultimate discussion like a month ago. One thing I do know is that for all his potential, the same group of characters are still being played at top level that were being played months ago and Shulk doesn't seem to appeal to the top players praising him, outside of theory, nor do they seem keen on proving it and picking him up.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I don't know, I pretty much checked out of Ultimate discussion like a month ago. One thing I do know is that for all his potential, the same group of characters are still being played at top level that were being played months ago and Shulk doesn't seem to appeal to the top players praising him, outside of theory, nor do they seem keen on proving it and picking him up.

I mean, I agree with Shulk being top tier. His "potential" is way overhyped, but he's still a very solid swordie and the Monado Arts are excellent. Base Shulk has better kill power than most of the cast, to say nothing of the nutty things you can pull off with Arts.

I know ESAM showed a lot of interest in Shulk, but who knows if he would have stuck to the character or if Shulk would be ESAM's dropped-secondary #300 and he'd just stick with Pikachu. Tournaments got cancelled just as ESAM was taking an interest

 

[The_Bookworm]

The thing about Dabuz's placement on Shulk is that he has ALWAYS ranked Shulk this high in the past. Shulk is one of the characters that Dabuz has always consistently place near the top of his tier list. The fact that Dabuz himself has historically struggled in the Shulk matchup definitely helps out too.

Zelda's case is far more confusing, as both Dabuz and Myran put her in bottom tier. When she got buffed last patch, players were considering her upper mid, maybe even high tier. Dabuz certainty did. Now she is suddenly bottom tier?

Lucas is another interesting character, as both players put him near the bottom of the list, which is a considerable drop from where he is normally placed in the past, that being mid tier. I do admit that Lucas is a big victim of powercreep, as well as his metagame being rather stagnate throughout Ultimate's lifespan relative to other characters regarded as mid tier, but is it enough to put Lucas at bottom 10?

This is another interesting character to see. Dabuz put him as a solid mid tier, while Myran put him as a bottom 3 character. Byleth is a pretty big enigma in terms of viability, due to the combination of many conflicting opinions and being released less than two months prior to the switch to online.

Is put in the low tiers in both lists, with Dabuz putting them in the bottom tiers. Combination of power-creep, continued prevalence of the character's inconsistencies, and only one person really pushing their results in any significant matter, is starting to catch up more than it already has.

In both of their lists, dropped off quite hard. Metagame stagnation combined with not receiving any notable buffs since patch 3.1 harmed the character quite a bit.
Conversely, increased drastically from before, with Dabuz putting him in high tier and Myran putting him in upper mid tier, which is a major glow-up considering that some, including Dabuz, put them as low as bottom tier in the past.

 

[StoicPhantom]

I mean, I agree with Shulk being top tier. His "potential" is way overhyped, but he's still a very solid swordie and the Monado Arts are excellent. Base Shulk has better kill power than most of the cast, to say nothing of the nutty things you can pull off with Arts.

I'm not necessarily disputing him being top tier. More so that Shulk has been theorized to potentially be the best character since Smash 4. There is a difference between best character and top tier and I feel like at least Bayonetta has been very comfortable at the top in Smash 4 and there are other characters than Shulk that ultimately end up as the best on actual tier lists in Ultimate, even with players that give the "potential" caveat.