MookieRah
Kinda Sorta OK at Smash
This thread is to posit my hypothesis that the main reason Mewtwo is considered garbage tier is primarily due to his initial tier list ratings, and that a lot of what happened afterwards is largely a result of that.
A Brief History of Mewtwo in Competitive Smash
A Quick Breakdown of the Tier Lists
Mewtwo VS The Characters Placed Above Him (2015 Tier List)
Some Hypothetical Questions
Self Fulfilling Prophecies
Closing Statements
My point with all this isn't to say that Mewtwo is viable, rather that he is potentially viable, and that his position on the tier list is not an accurate depiction of Mewtwo's actual status amongst the cast. Mewtwo has never been given the chance to be taken seriously due to his incredibly poor representation and quirkyness at the onset of the competitive smash community, and despite having a demi-god level representation for several years he has not been given the 'viable' stamp that characters like Yoshi and Pikachu have received, despite similar levels of high level representation. New players are actively discouraged at every corner from picking Mewtwo as a serious main, and those that do will feel discrimination from the community, likely forcing them to switch characters before they ever had the chance to perform well enough with him to question the collective ignorance on the character. The ability that Taj commanded alone shows that this character is not one to sleep on, and with Zoma's rise it shows that Mewtwo's development has a lot of room to grow.
A Brief History of Mewtwo in Competitive Smash
I started doing the Mewtwo gig way back in 2003, and I picked him up more as a joke character at the time. It wasn't until MOAST 3 (2005), after being told by Arash (best Bowser at the time) that my M2 was my best that I decided to main him for real. The only player at the time that I had to emulate was UmbreonMow (whom now goes by Umbreon), who was pretty much retired with M2 by the time I got serious. There existed one video of his M2 online, which was the basis for a lot of my play. Everything else I just had to piece together myself or from online chats with Umbreon.
I was a good player, especially considering I was from Mississippi, but honestly I was never great. I was never good enough to make an impact on any tier list. The sole representation for Mewtwo's early placement was riding on Umbreon, and if you ever talked to him he would tell you that Mewtwo was a pretty terrible character, and his opinion of Mewtwo only worsened over time seemingly.
In the very first tier list, Mewtwo was ranked last place. This makes sense, as Mewtwo is incredibly strange compared to the rest of the cast, and was the last character to be unlocked. I remember the first time I tried playing him in any real way, and it took me a while to find my rhythm with him. Seeing as the first tier list was released less than a year after melee's release, it's no wonder nobody was around to main him competitively. He was weird, and most players had picked their first main before he was even unlocked. Move forward a few tier lists and you see that Mewtwo gradually rises. I suspect this is due in large part by Umbreon and his opinion influencing the list. By 2005, the year I started working on Mewtwo, his slight rise in the list had reversed as he began to work his way back down to bottom again.
After Melee FC3 I was pretty much alone with Mewtwo. I had played Umbreon in dittos and bested him, and after that he gave the title of best Mewtwo over to me. Even then he had pretty much stopped playing Mewtwo for a while before we played each other there. There literally wasn't anyone else around that I knew of at my level, and only a handful of people that chatted Mewtwo with me. I was pretty much it. Just me, left alone, trying to etch out Mewtwo's metagame by myself. To make matters worse, my crew pretty much started dropping their interest in smash around this time. I did my best to stay relevant, but honestly I was quickly outpaced by the metagame. It wasn't until late 2005 that I started hearing rumors of Taj, and eventually began receiving harassment by Forward, a damn good AZ Falco player and friend of Taj, whom promoted Taj like crazy and loved to talk **** to me about being garbage.
2006 rolls around and Taj releases Shadow Claw. I remember being amazed by his play, but not wanting to admit it due to pride. He was so clearly better than me. He actually had what it took to make a dent in competitive smash with Mewtwo, and he did, albeit him being a dual main with Marth often overshadows the times his Mewtwo put in the actual work towards his success. Shortly after that a member of a sister crew in Memphis began maining Mewtwo and also did really well with him, Iori, but he retired a few years later. If you look at the tier lists from then on you see Mewtwo begin to rise again due to Taj's efforts, but now that Taj has retired, he has remained stagnant at the lower tiers.
Only recently has the Mewtwo community caught a glimpse of what he is capable of lately through the Japanese player Zoma, who seems to have picked up the torch where Taj left it. His play is clearly the next logical step in Mewtwo's meta, as he has further expanded on Mewtwo's amazing combo game, all kinds of amazing teleport tricks that are not gimmicky at all, and is simply damned good. For those who haven't seen him, find some of his latest videos and try not to be impressed by them.
I was a good player, especially considering I was from Mississippi, but honestly I was never great. I was never good enough to make an impact on any tier list. The sole representation for Mewtwo's early placement was riding on Umbreon, and if you ever talked to him he would tell you that Mewtwo was a pretty terrible character, and his opinion of Mewtwo only worsened over time seemingly.
In the very first tier list, Mewtwo was ranked last place. This makes sense, as Mewtwo is incredibly strange compared to the rest of the cast, and was the last character to be unlocked. I remember the first time I tried playing him in any real way, and it took me a while to find my rhythm with him. Seeing as the first tier list was released less than a year after melee's release, it's no wonder nobody was around to main him competitively. He was weird, and most players had picked their first main before he was even unlocked. Move forward a few tier lists and you see that Mewtwo gradually rises. I suspect this is due in large part by Umbreon and his opinion influencing the list. By 2005, the year I started working on Mewtwo, his slight rise in the list had reversed as he began to work his way back down to bottom again.
After Melee FC3 I was pretty much alone with Mewtwo. I had played Umbreon in dittos and bested him, and after that he gave the title of best Mewtwo over to me. Even then he had pretty much stopped playing Mewtwo for a while before we played each other there. There literally wasn't anyone else around that I knew of at my level, and only a handful of people that chatted Mewtwo with me. I was pretty much it. Just me, left alone, trying to etch out Mewtwo's metagame by myself. To make matters worse, my crew pretty much started dropping their interest in smash around this time. I did my best to stay relevant, but honestly I was quickly outpaced by the metagame. It wasn't until late 2005 that I started hearing rumors of Taj, and eventually began receiving harassment by Forward, a damn good AZ Falco player and friend of Taj, whom promoted Taj like crazy and loved to talk **** to me about being garbage.
2006 rolls around and Taj releases Shadow Claw. I remember being amazed by his play, but not wanting to admit it due to pride. He was so clearly better than me. He actually had what it took to make a dent in competitive smash with Mewtwo, and he did, albeit him being a dual main with Marth often overshadows the times his Mewtwo put in the actual work towards his success. Shortly after that a member of a sister crew in Memphis began maining Mewtwo and also did really well with him, Iori, but he retired a few years later. If you look at the tier lists from then on you see Mewtwo begin to rise again due to Taj's efforts, but now that Taj has retired, he has remained stagnant at the lower tiers.
Only recently has the Mewtwo community caught a glimpse of what he is capable of lately through the Japanese player Zoma, who seems to have picked up the torch where Taj left it. His play is clearly the next logical step in Mewtwo's meta, as he has further expanded on Mewtwo's amazing combo game, all kinds of amazing teleport tricks that are not gimmicky at all, and is simply damned good. For those who haven't seen him, find some of his latest videos and try not to be impressed by them.
A Quick Breakdown of the Tier Lists
I want to talk a bit about the early tier lists. Specifically the second one (Dec. 2002). The top 5 characters all had things that were a bit busted at low level play. Sheik had... well... everything. Fox was super fast with very powerful KO options, despite him also being the master of suicides. Falco had lasers and a super powerful spike. Peach had a downsmash that punished crouch canceling to an extreme degree. Lastly there is Marth, due to his disjointed sword. After that you have a bracket which includes all the marios + luigi, ganon, and Samus. With the exception of Samus (and Luigi to some extent) these characters were fairly easy to pick up and play. These characters made the top 10.
By the third tier list, a lot of positions began to solidify more. The top and upper tiers were considered to be legit viable, with some mid-tiers also being considered viable to some of the community. Bottom was considered trash. This was the tier list that was made after the arrival of Ken, and this was the point in which Mewtwo's fate was sealed to be considered low-tier. From this point on, major shifts were rarely made between characters.
By the third tier list, a lot of positions began to solidify more. The top and upper tiers were considered to be legit viable, with some mid-tiers also being considered viable to some of the community. Bottom was considered trash. This was the tier list that was made after the arrival of Ken, and this was the point in which Mewtwo's fate was sealed to be considered low-tier. From this point on, major shifts were rarely made between characters.
Mewtwo VS The Characters Placed Above Him (2015 Tier List)
As I pointed out, Taj was a demi-god level player that, in his prime, was able to put a dent into the Melee gods. Using Taj as an example of Mewtwo's relative goodness, lets compare Mewtwo against all the characters that are currently ranked higher than him.
Roy hasn't has demi-god level representation since Neo back in the early to mid 2000s. Not only that, it's common knowledge about how susceptible he is to crouch cancels due to the poor damage and knockback on pretty much all his attacks. It also should be noted that Roy is a popular character, and has had a lot of representation in terms of players over the years. Lots of representation plus poor tournament performance indicates that he is not in the same realm as Mewtwo.
Game & Watch has never had demi-god level representation. There have been good G&W players, but they weren't on Taj's level nor had Taj's level of accomplishment.
Link has also pretty much never had demi-god level representation despite his popularity.
DK had some pretty good representation for a time. It was during my relative melee absence that DK started performing better than expected. So somewhere between 2007-2010 I believe. That said, it was very short lived, and DK was not making impacts in the smash scene like Taj was in 2010.
Young Link had Caveman. He's sorta in the same position as Roy in that was his only representation that was demi-god status, and Caveman sorta stopped being relevant shortly after Melee FC6. Armada brought out a YL to deal with Jigglypuff, but using this character against one matchup != the character being of high status overall.
Mario has seen decent representation over smash history, but honestly he rarely made demi-god level, and I am not aware of someone who has been as impactful as Taj during his time or after.
Ganon is the first character that comes into mind that begins to actually have a legit placement above Mewtwo. There have been a handful of excellent Ganon players throughout the years with demi-god level status. Kage comes to mind, being the beast of a Ganon during Taj's hayday, and pretty much everyone is aware of BizarroFlame.
While Luigi is above Ganon I honestly am a bit perplexed as to why. I think Luigi is a fairly solid character, but for the life of me I don't know many high level Luigi's that have made a huge impact in quite some time. I'm going to give this character the benefit of the doubt, though, and chalk this up to my lack of awareness rather than lack of actual representation.
Finally we arrive at Yoshi, which does have a main at demi-god level status. Then it's followed by Doc and Pika, which also have or have had mains relatively recently/presently that perform well enough to satisfy them being above Mewtwo.
So the question is, why are most of these characters above Mewtwo? As I pointed out, look at the old tier lists. All of the characters above Mewtwo started out higher than Mewtwo. It's only because Mewtwo was considered so bad ,so early, that people have been hesitant to move him up the drastic amount of placements required to actually represent what the character has been able to accomplish. If Mewtwo started in the middle, or was in the middle by the third or fourth tier list, he would not be so low, and would not have had to fought much to move up into a viable space due to Taj's representation.
Roy hasn't has demi-god level representation since Neo back in the early to mid 2000s. Not only that, it's common knowledge about how susceptible he is to crouch cancels due to the poor damage and knockback on pretty much all his attacks. It also should be noted that Roy is a popular character, and has had a lot of representation in terms of players over the years. Lots of representation plus poor tournament performance indicates that he is not in the same realm as Mewtwo.
Game & Watch has never had demi-god level representation. There have been good G&W players, but they weren't on Taj's level nor had Taj's level of accomplishment.
Link has also pretty much never had demi-god level representation despite his popularity.
DK had some pretty good representation for a time. It was during my relative melee absence that DK started performing better than expected. So somewhere between 2007-2010 I believe. That said, it was very short lived, and DK was not making impacts in the smash scene like Taj was in 2010.
Young Link had Caveman. He's sorta in the same position as Roy in that was his only representation that was demi-god status, and Caveman sorta stopped being relevant shortly after Melee FC6. Armada brought out a YL to deal with Jigglypuff, but using this character against one matchup != the character being of high status overall.
Mario has seen decent representation over smash history, but honestly he rarely made demi-god level, and I am not aware of someone who has been as impactful as Taj during his time or after.
Ganon is the first character that comes into mind that begins to actually have a legit placement above Mewtwo. There have been a handful of excellent Ganon players throughout the years with demi-god level status. Kage comes to mind, being the beast of a Ganon during Taj's hayday, and pretty much everyone is aware of BizarroFlame.
While Luigi is above Ganon I honestly am a bit perplexed as to why. I think Luigi is a fairly solid character, but for the life of me I don't know many high level Luigi's that have made a huge impact in quite some time. I'm going to give this character the benefit of the doubt, though, and chalk this up to my lack of awareness rather than lack of actual representation.
Finally we arrive at Yoshi, which does have a main at demi-god level status. Then it's followed by Doc and Pika, which also have or have had mains relatively recently/presently that perform well enough to satisfy them being above Mewtwo.
So the question is, why are most of these characters above Mewtwo? As I pointed out, look at the old tier lists. All of the characters above Mewtwo started out higher than Mewtwo. It's only because Mewtwo was considered so bad ,so early, that people have been hesitant to move him up the drastic amount of placements required to actually represent what the character has been able to accomplish. If Mewtwo started in the middle, or was in the middle by the third or fourth tier list, he would not be so low, and would not have had to fought much to move up into a viable space due to Taj's representation.
Some Hypothetical Questions
My first question is, what if Taj didn't become a big deal in 2006, but started his rise in 2002? What if he was one of the OG players around the time of Ken's reign? How would the tier list look then, and how would that have shaped things now? I very much doubt he would be so low. Considering the fact that the data we currently have on Mewtwo's performance is that he can be used to demi-god skill level by 2010-2011 standards, there would be no reason to think that Mewtwo wouldn't have been considered good early on and up to those dates if someone of Taj's level existed in the early days. If Mewtwo had amazing early representation by a single high level player, he would have seen a surge in player representation, and he definitely would have ended up much higher on the list as a result. He would have likely ended up being in the high end of upper, and seeing as how the tier lists moved very slowly from this point on, Mewtwo would have likely been, at the worst, Ganon status today.
My second question is, what would Peach's placement on the tier list be if her down smash wasn't as good? What if it knocked players away instead of sucking them into her dress on a crouch cancel? One might think I'm joking about the down smash issue, but it literally was no joke in the early days. It was a big reason why so many people mained her. If Peach didn't have down smash, she would have been considered just as weird and off-putting as Mewtwo, despite the fact that she would still have been a great character. Nowadays, you rarely see down smash causing much problems in top level play because we've grown accustomed to dealing with it, but people have discovered all of the other things that make Peach great.
To take this point further, what if Armada didn't exist? Would Peach still be as high as she is now? I find it hard to believe that she would. I feel that, without Armada bolstering Peach's position, she would have started to drop placements and people would be highly questioning her viability.
I bring up Peach because I feel that Peach is the character with the most parallels with Mewtwo. I'm not saying that Mewtwo at Peach's level of goodness, but I'm pointing out that a character with similar characteristics sits quite highly, as well as pointing out how much early representation and a single person has affected Peach's position as a character.
My second question is, what would Peach's placement on the tier list be if her down smash wasn't as good? What if it knocked players away instead of sucking them into her dress on a crouch cancel? One might think I'm joking about the down smash issue, but it literally was no joke in the early days. It was a big reason why so many people mained her. If Peach didn't have down smash, she would have been considered just as weird and off-putting as Mewtwo, despite the fact that she would still have been a great character. Nowadays, you rarely see down smash causing much problems in top level play because we've grown accustomed to dealing with it, but people have discovered all of the other things that make Peach great.
To take this point further, what if Armada didn't exist? Would Peach still be as high as she is now? I find it hard to believe that she would. I feel that, without Armada bolstering Peach's position, she would have started to drop placements and people would be highly questioning her viability.
I bring up Peach because I feel that Peach is the character with the most parallels with Mewtwo. I'm not saying that Mewtwo at Peach's level of goodness, but I'm pointing out that a character with similar characteristics sits quite highly, as well as pointing out how much early representation and a single person has affected Peach's position as a character.
Self Fulfilling Prophecies
Go to youtube. Find a video of a Mewtwo player playing another character. Look at the comments. You are likely to find that lots of people are likely making fun of the opponent if he/she loses to Mewtwo, and on the flip side if Mewtwo loses you will find tons of examples of people claiming that Mewtwo sucks. Go find videos of two high ranking characters. How often do you see people pointing out that one person lost purely due to character choice? Generally speaking that is only brought up if it's a known to be bad matchup. You also don't see people making fun of someone losing to Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth, etc.
When everyone tells you that your character is trash, and points to your decision of character choice as the reason for a loss, it makes it very easy to believe it over long periods of time. Granted, that doesn't mean that the people saying this are wrong, but it doesn't mean they are right either. For example, I would try to convince Link/Roy/Kirby players not to main those characters because I feel that they have had enough of a player base matched with poor tournament representation to adequately show that they simply aren't that great. In contrast, Mewtwo has always had incredibly poor player representation despite having a solid player giving incredible representation.
This was the whole basis behind my old Mewtwo combo vid Believe In Yourself, because all of my losses were blamed on my character, and everyone told me I should switch despite not having better success with other characters. Over time, the grind of people telling me this got to me and I began to start blaming my losses on Mewtwo as well, when clearly Mewtwo was capable of bringing the pain as Taj has shown.
I have recently picked up Mewtwo again because of netplay, and now he performs as well as if not better than my Marth. I have found that I struggle in the exact same matchups as my Marth did, despite the popular belief that Mewtwo loses to pretty much all of the viable cast handedly. I have also found that there is quite a big stigma to playing Mewtwo, especially playing him well. Often times I am not taken seriously, and I must battle through a players lower tiered secondaries for the luxury to play their serious main. So many people get mad and tell me to play my “real main” because they assume I'm sand bagging. Sometimes players will start with their main, lose, and then switch to Marth or Fox because they think the matchup is so bad that it is an auto-win for them (Pro tip: it's not). I've had people, after playing several matches in which I would on average two stock them, tell me at the end that they “figured out the matchup” simply cause they might have taken me to my last stock a few times towards the end. I've had people stop playing me simply because they didn't want to play against Mewtwo, as he wasn't relevant in the tournament scene. I've also had so many rage quits and post-match salt fests monologues over how annoying it is to play me, how I'm not really that good, or insert any other John or slur here.
The psychological effects of maining a character ranked so lowly should not be discounted in this discussion. It greatly affects the player base of that character, and it is a barrier the community must overcome to ever see representation of a character fully in the current or future meta.
When everyone tells you that your character is trash, and points to your decision of character choice as the reason for a loss, it makes it very easy to believe it over long periods of time. Granted, that doesn't mean that the people saying this are wrong, but it doesn't mean they are right either. For example, I would try to convince Link/Roy/Kirby players not to main those characters because I feel that they have had enough of a player base matched with poor tournament representation to adequately show that they simply aren't that great. In contrast, Mewtwo has always had incredibly poor player representation despite having a solid player giving incredible representation.
This was the whole basis behind my old Mewtwo combo vid Believe In Yourself, because all of my losses were blamed on my character, and everyone told me I should switch despite not having better success with other characters. Over time, the grind of people telling me this got to me and I began to start blaming my losses on Mewtwo as well, when clearly Mewtwo was capable of bringing the pain as Taj has shown.
I have recently picked up Mewtwo again because of netplay, and now he performs as well as if not better than my Marth. I have found that I struggle in the exact same matchups as my Marth did, despite the popular belief that Mewtwo loses to pretty much all of the viable cast handedly. I have also found that there is quite a big stigma to playing Mewtwo, especially playing him well. Often times I am not taken seriously, and I must battle through a players lower tiered secondaries for the luxury to play their serious main. So many people get mad and tell me to play my “real main” because they assume I'm sand bagging. Sometimes players will start with their main, lose, and then switch to Marth or Fox because they think the matchup is so bad that it is an auto-win for them (Pro tip: it's not). I've had people, after playing several matches in which I would on average two stock them, tell me at the end that they “figured out the matchup” simply cause they might have taken me to my last stock a few times towards the end. I've had people stop playing me simply because they didn't want to play against Mewtwo, as he wasn't relevant in the tournament scene. I've also had so many rage quits and post-match salt fests monologues over how annoying it is to play me, how I'm not really that good, or insert any other John or slur here.
The psychological effects of maining a character ranked so lowly should not be discounted in this discussion. It greatly affects the player base of that character, and it is a barrier the community must overcome to ever see representation of a character fully in the current or future meta.
Closing Statements
My point with all this isn't to say that Mewtwo is viable, rather that he is potentially viable, and that his position on the tier list is not an accurate depiction of Mewtwo's actual status amongst the cast. Mewtwo has never been given the chance to be taken seriously due to his incredibly poor representation and quirkyness at the onset of the competitive smash community, and despite having a demi-god level representation for several years he has not been given the 'viable' stamp that characters like Yoshi and Pikachu have received, despite similar levels of high level representation. New players are actively discouraged at every corner from picking Mewtwo as a serious main, and those that do will feel discrimination from the community, likely forcing them to switch characters before they ever had the chance to perform well enough with him to question the collective ignorance on the character. The ability that Taj commanded alone shows that this character is not one to sleep on, and with Zoma's rise it shows that Mewtwo's development has a lot of room to grow.
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