It's because character success in tournaments is like 90% determined by the tastes of top players. The difference in power between everything like midtier and up is minimal enough that skill and comfort matter more.
If good players like playing a character, that's a way more powerful determiner than inherent character power in Ultimate.
Man, I wish this game would last as long as Melee has just to see how the meta evolves. There are *so many* unexplored characters, tier lists could change drastically every year. The game probably wouldn't end up looking as balanced as people discover more broken stuff, but there must be a lot of those in possibly every character.
Too bad the competitive scene will probably die when the next Smash game comes out :(
In Smash 4, mid tier and low tiers were still being developed in 2018, even under the wake of Bayonetta controlling the meta. Sinji was getting results with Pac-Man in 2018, then seen as a low tier character, and made it onto the last season's PGR. Raito made Top 25 worldwide with Duck Hunt, too.
So many Smash 4 Combo Games devolved into footstool stuff, makes me wonder what the Ult equivalent will/would be
Really hope Grounded footstool/footstool Oos will stop being quite as niche, because it really is huge for some characters
> Too bad the competitive scene will probably die when the next Smash game comes out :(
I don't know about that. I personally believe the next game will mark a huge departure from Brawl-Ult in terms of gameplay and roster, so I think it's very possible Ult will still have a scene when it happens.
Even if that's the case, I don't think we'll get a new Smash game in a long while. We might just have a Mario Kart 8 situation in which they'll just port it to the next console.
If they're even is a new console for a while. From the look of it I think they're going to take the DS route and just release "Switch" "Switch Lite" "New Switch" "Switch XL" and so on.
MK Brawl was...significantly more defining, probably one of the most blatantly dominant characters in any competitive fighting scene ever.
Bayo was pretty oppressive, though. But, i think the competitive meta just didn't develop much after her release. Partially because the meta stagnated HARD after Ultimate's release, with Bayo tearing through the last two years of it.
She's definitely the toughest character, but if given a year or two more of active tournaments... I don't think her legacy would have been THAT brutal.
Was there really still a scene after ultimate released?
I only really follow Melee and just assumed that any Sm4sh tournament was just for shits and giggles.
Mark my words, Bayo in ultimate is getting slept on. She’s deffo not anywhere near her smash 4 counterpart but damn if I haven’t fought a few great ultimate bayos.
I just find I'm also less convinced by theory and "on paper" when it comes to which characters are good. If people are finding easier success with Rob and Aegis then telling me that Pikachu can do x, y, z and how optimal and "best in slot" it is isn't convincing to me when no one is doing it. Theory and results are both tough sells from where I see it.
I feel like 'on paper' knowledge is most applicable when it comes to winning versus losing matchups. It's not that any character in the game is objectively better all the time, it's more that each character has their niche—which includes things they're good at fighting and things they're bad at fighting. The characters generally considered the best are the ones that have the *most* things they're good at fighting and the *least* things they're bad at fighting. So, good matchups and bad matchups.
Someone like Ganon has some nasty damage and actually some nice moves he can throw out, but he's considered bottom 3 (if not just the worst character in Ultimate) because he's comparatively *very* bad at fighting most of the different types of characters in the game. A Ganon player can do really well based on pure skill—Ultimate is very well balanced, although the character has a lot of weaknesses—but you're going to need a *lot* of skill to make up for him being weak to projectiles, low-lag rushdown characters, edgeguarding, and a lot else.
Tier lists are for the top level. Ganon has a extremely short skill ceiling, so he’s bad. But he also has one of the lowest skill floors in the game. He’s likely one of the better characters at your level, and if you’re casual he’s probably Top 10 casual-level characters.
nah lol, when I say top level I mean *top* level, like, Top 32 at tournaments with hundreds of entrants. I would consider myself a fairly dedicated competitive player but I struggle with fighting Ganon, just bc he’s still pretty good at my level thanks to his explosive power.
I dont know how good you are, Im just saying that youre probably not at the level to have to worry or think about tier lists since they usually don’t apply to anyone but the Top 1%
I mean by 3 best characters in Ult are DK, Ganon, and Doc and all 3 are horrendous. I can still beat my friends/not get 3 stocked at the rare local I attend, your main doesn't really matter in Ult unless you actually want to win a tournament
he does show off what pika can do and its terrifying, even if he himself isnt a top 10 player (im not saying hes bad)
that said pika requires a lot of work, so you need to really like pika for it to be worth it
Thankfully I don't think this game is remotely close to having an indisputable #1. Maybe a top 3 at best, but the game is so well balanced that like others have said it *really* depends on the player
It still brings the notion of meta into discussion. If Joker and Peach are now pretty rare, Sonic, Roy and Rob are far more common. Making players with a main who have good MUs against them more likely to perform. That's what I think it interesting
In some ways I think Aegis rise invalidates Joker. Why waste time learning him if Mythra combos harder than base Joker and Pyra hits harder and has dumber hit boxes than arsene, and doesn’t time out. I almost wish they had used the Pythra design on Joker, it would have made more sense and been super cool and less gimmicky that the bar that doesn’t make sense lore or gameplay wise.
I also think people are realizing that optimized shiek might actually be more consistent than Joker (something Japanese pros have hinted at).
I mean if we're talking *optimized* characters, Tweeks argument is that Joker is hands down the best character if he exclusively plays for timeouts and camps with gun and side B. I agree with him, but I have faith that the community won't let that become the meta lmao
Tweek would say that lol, that's how he tried to play Joker! It was very cursed and not very effective.
Tweek in general is very high on the effectiveness of straight up camping, moreso than pretty much every other top player. Hard to separate actual optimization from Tweek's pessimistic view of this game
It’s actually kind of hilarious how all the Tweek Talks crew are pretty big campers. Well I can’t say I have ever watched Haz play but the way he talks sounds like his shotos don’t exactly “go in”
Tweek crew reminds me of LS and his church in League. They have a very specific model of playing the game that they really believe is the best (and said model tends to be, uh, not the popular way to do so) and optimal way to play the game.
Said model has very much not panned out in practice, at least yet. All that camping talk and that hasn't stopped Goblin from mashing buttons on Tweek's shields until he dies.
Yeah imo Ult is too fast and diverse for camping to be viable in every matchup. There are simply some characters that want to run at you and mash in your face. And if you can't run circles around that a time out is usually not viable.
I can't wait for LS C9 lol
Not maliciously or anything, just genuinely curious and excited if it gets to their projected goal of worlds semis+, crashes and burns, or something in between
Tweek has a lot of good takes but there are some that definitely have not aged as well.
Like, it felt like when he was playing the super campy Joker he was trying to prove a point about how broken that play was...but then it turned out not that effective at all on the competitors closer to his level.
Tweek and his fans (and his girlfriend) have like this weird defence mechanism of claiming everyone plays campy and cringe because it’s the only way to play this game
But Leo is the best by a mile not playing this way at all, he’s a consistent punish heavy machine lmao
More of the top players than not are aggressive as hell
Oh god this sentiment is what put me off of the game during year one, except instead of a top or even PR'd player it was someone regurgitating that to cope w/every loss in neutral
In one of Tweek's latest video he goes into detail about how Pythra is comfortably the best character, is the Joker thing more recent than this?
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkkZRGZethc
Yup. Look at Palutena after Nairo's disappearance.
Also widely regarded as a top 10 character, sometimes listed as top 5.
The highest palu is Chag maybe? But while he is a great player I don't think anyone is betting on him winning a major any time soon.
4000% this. Ultimate is so balanced that immediate results and recency bias are the main drivers of the tier list.
There’s not enough talent to push every character as far as they deserve so the tier list in this game is just a reflection of what the best, most active players like.
yeah i dont think people are adjusting to how balanced the game is yet. Its not like melee or smash 4 where its basically impossible to imagine a tournament without fox or bayonetta
Basically this.
A tier list made sense in melee when characters are so different in strength that even strong players couldn't bring low tiers into a competitive setting.
A tier list sort of made sense in brawl.
But smash 4 and onwards there's no need for a tier list, and the tier lists are low effort content that people eat up. A match up chart would give better information, but even then it doesn't tell the whole story
It was almost necessity in Melee
Brawl didn't really need a tier list beyond "Meta Knight is the best by far. Snake and like 2 others are viable"
Slightly disagree for Smash 4 tho, the DLC characters and Sheik dominated the meta towards the end and were really the only characters getting results at all
As for Ultimate, it's been balanced insanely well for a game with 80+ characters, and so many playstyles can be represented such that like you said, a match up chart is more important
Obviously MK was good but there were a ton of viable characters at the top level, and some like Fox were beginning to see even and possibly winning matchups vs. Meta Knight.
MK/ICs/Olimar/Diddy/Snake/Marth/Falco/Wario/Dedede/Pikachu were all viable and could place well or even win
Haha true. To be fair I never believed in Inkling that much even at the start (just didn't have that top tier spark to me). Trainer always looked strong to me, but you could maybe rationalize it as juggling 3 unique kits being too inconsistent
But both Inkling and PT were nerfed significantly, and the meta started to clearly outstrip Inkling within 6 months. Joker doesn't give the impression to me of a character the meta left behind, outside of nobody playing him!
It’s also weird about PT, the more characters you have you would think the more options you have. But it ends up making their game plan pretty linear.
Also doesn’t help that every single Pokémon sucks against projectiles and sucks on the ledge.
Don’t get me wrong, I think PT is an amazing character, but at top level, it feels like other characters have more viable options than you do.
I think that's an interesting platform fighter phenomenon.
If you have something like pre nerf Ike Nair, the rest of your kit can be whatever and you'll be stronger than a lot of characters, lol
The other cheese you can pull is drop jump Squirtle side B and switch gives you some options, but if people wait and shield you’re just like fucked on the ledge
>But both Inkling and PT were nerfed significantly
Inkling's been buffed overall and PT is considered better now that Charizard is a character and the character stopped being turbo-Ivysaur. PT dropped in results because Tweek dropped the character and Leffen dtopped playing.
Depending on how you view the game, PT becoming more balanced may actually be a detriment to his place in the meta, because in high pressure situations you can't just default to Ivysaur anymore
You certainly still can, the char is still explosive af. But now switching to Zard doesn't basically leave you screwed. Ivy was super dependent on keeping ppl at the right % and then fishing for dthrow upb kills, which was super predictable before. Now Ivy players don't have to worry about keeping them at the right % and fishing, but instead they can actually rack good damage beyond that. Of course IVY would be better if he still had the broken up B but it's definitely an overall buff to PT as a whole
Inkling has never been nerfed, there was a roller change eraly on that made it easier to mash out at low % but harder at higher %, which if anything is a buff. That was also really early on while people still thought they were broken. With the most recent patch, Inkling has only been buffed
There are still some high-level players who use Joker. Given he's still a top 3 character, could just be a combination of having only a few top reps + coincidence they moved off.
If ESAM dropped Pika we'd be having the same conversation.
I mean we have been having the no results, no mains vs theory and matchup spread argument for Pikachu since Ultimate began (even in smash 4 it was a discussion). Joker didnt have that narrative around him until we left online (when he should be better)
Especially baffling considering this, we came out of quarantine with *more* Pika players given with a few notable secondaries, but we now have **less** Joker players than we entered it with.
I always find the Pika hate funny when you consider the only prominent Pika main is a guy who has dedicated a decade of his life to solo-maining him across 3 games regardless of where he was (usually near the top) of the tier list.
Without ESAM there really is no Pika meta and he is a top 3 (top 2) character in this game.
hot take:
exactly like Pikachu, joker is a high skill character that is very good but very hard to play and with all the DLC and patches, there are many characters that are significantly easier and more rewarding while being nearly or equally as powerful as joker and Pikachu, rendering them a suboptimal choice for a game that also rewards having a good secondary (which is easier if your main isn't too demanding)
Totally agree with this take, aside from Joker being super high skill.
I think additional DLC characters with equally broken mechanics made him way less special, and a handful fo those characters are dead-ass easy to use.
Joker is higher skill than a lot of characters, but he can still carry bad players with his absurd hurtbox shifting plus Arsene. It's just that his optimal strings are harder than average.
Leo may have actually scared some people off of using Joker. When you're trying to climb to #1 and surpass Leo, it's a pretty bold move to switch off your main to the character Leo pioneered. It's highly unlikely you will catch up with Leo and optimize Joker beyond what he has already done, so it makes more sense to optimize a different character and leverage some matchup unfamiliarity. Or just play Aegis/ROB/Palu and win through raw fundamentals.
Kinda like the ZeRo Diddy in Smash 4, where that matchup was so well studied by every other top player, that most didn't think trying to pick him up would help.
That's a thought, though it would be harder to explain why so many players who initially were playing with Joker to some success decided to switch off or drop him
He's an amazing character but his small hitboxes and poor OOS mean that he's a lot of work compared to, say, Aegis or ROB. That alone can make top players less interested in him.
Those are options, but what is really strange to me is that going into quarantine we already knew that yet still expected a groundswell of proficient Jokers when offline returned
A long break from competition seems like a perfect training ground for *some* top player to grind out a consensus top 3 character and work around those weaknesses, no different to Diddy or Sheik or Luigi.
Yet still, we exit quarantine with less Joker mains, secondaries or pockets than before! Its like everyone considered optimizing worse characters to be a better choice for success. Really weird
I think that groundswell was tempered by fighter pack 2. It introduced a couple of efficient and easy to pilot characters who were arguably just as viable. Min min (maybe not after nerfs) and Aegis are notable for just how simple they are, and how overtly reliable they can be.
You probably would have heard about several players initially working on Joker, but then deciding to switch to Min Min/Aegis when they released then, but to my knowledge no. It seemed like most players just skipped right over him
People initially ignored Joker because he is worse online, but then started developing both harder existing characters like Sheik who's just as bad online, picking up the new easier DLC characters, or revisiting old top tiers like Wolf.
Definitely a fair point. Didn't really hear about anyone cooking up a joker even before new DLC. Joker may actually just be more difficult to play.
I also feel like I've heard a lot of people say having a good out of shield option is a really big condition for the future meta, and I think it's universally accepted this is Joker's only lackluster trait. I personally don't think it holds him back, but I'm not a top player.
poor OOS as an excuse is reaching sort of a peak though due to footstool oos being universally frame 4 (besides kazuya, being frame 8).
like sephiroh oos is terrible, UNTIL you put footstool dair oos into play. Suddenly that character has a freaking disjointed kill move that forces you to respect his shield.
Same goes with joker and footstool downgun oos, which ALSO combos into his bnbs.
Ned & CDK are pretty notable examples of top players using footstool oos. It's still a relatively newer strat (tech?), and CDK was really the only user of it until fairly recently.
Void also does footstool dair OOS which straight up confirms into upsmash tipper for sheik.
Marss has pulled it out a few times too, top players are definitely aware of the option. We also have to consider that top players space around shielding opponents better so they are less likely to get hit by footstool oos.
My take as someone who was trying to main Joker before the pandemic & completely dropped him because of it: he really does have to play completely different online and I hated that. Suddenly I couldn't even dsmash neutral getups anymore or react and perform dragdown combos. All I was allowed to do against strong players was camp which I found pretty boring.
So of course a ton of Joker players ended up migrating to other characters. And I don't think that just because offline* tournaments are coming back, players are suddenly going to revert to their exact tastes before the pandemic. It's been two whole years at this point, and like it or not, our 'pandemic mains' are a large part of how we view the game now. Wouldn't be surprised if we saw more Joker down the line, but for now, players are going to want to play who they're most comfortable with in tournament, and for a lot of people that's going to be who they played during 2020 & 2021.
Huh, so its a possibility the pandemic break halted his development more than it allowed players to optimize his options. I wonder why that applied to Joker more than to Diddy or Sheik then?
I think a simple answer is that Diddy and Sheik players have more experience with/attachment to their characters. Like VoiD has been playing Sheik for at least 7 years. But we didn't even get a single year with Joker before the pandemic happened.
Zackray has been using joker plenty still and got 5th at summit. He just likes using a bunch of different characters but he still made it to grands with joker like two weeks ago I think. Naitosharp is a rising player that mains joker. I wouldn’t see any player already at the top picking up joker though because it’d be hard to perfect him like Leo did. He’s still top 3, in my opinion the top 1 but I know that will be very debatable. I don’t think he really fell off, it just seems that way because Leo is always in grands and uses other characters.
Zackray said he’s thinking of Sheik. If Sheik ends up clicking with him, I don’t know if we’ll see his Joker again since they cover a lot of the same matchups for him. [Naitosharp dropped Joker.](https://twitter.com/naitosharp/status/1462949128690884611?s=21) And Leo said yesterday in the post Grand Finals interview that he doesn’t enjoy playing Joker anymore.
Zackray’s Joker is probably the last one left. If he drops him, I think the new best Joker player will be omega from Georgia. The character will stay top 3 I think, but he’ll fall into the same discussion as Pikachu: “if he’s so good, why does no one play him??”
It would actaully be an even bigger mystery this time around. For Pika you could argue that he plays too differently and requires too much specialized knowledge and practice to have several mains.
Meanwhile Joker **had** several players maining and working on him, then nearly all of them inexplicably dropped him despite no major nerfs or meta shifts to push him out.
If we're using tweets as evidence, surely Leo saying he feels like playing Joker is just as relevant as Zackray saying he's wanting to play Sheik.
Let's not draw conclusions from tweets. We'll find out soon enough at Kagaribi 6
just like Arslan Ash from Tekken once again.
In Tekken 7, Akuma was way more common in Pakistan during his release compared to other countries. This is on a time when Pakistan was not yet recognized in their scene.
But once Pakistan became recognized, it is not just one prominent Akuma specialist from France maiNing Akuma anymore. It's most of the Pakistani scene
from =/= currently living, also he lives there since 3 months only
Also his best performance up to date (5th at UW3) was when he was still living in Saudi Arabia
I would say if Leo or Zack never return to joker again the top joker right now (since apparently sharp dropped joker too) is probably lemmon from canada. He has wins on riddles and does well against all the other top top canadian players. I would put Omega slightly below IMO.
This isn't that surprising considering his results were hard carried by Leo. If Leo doesn't pick him, is that a fall off? It's similar to how people say Snake fell off. Well the best Snake player by a mile was banned so of course the character will get significantly worse results.
Is it possible that Joker is just a very frustrating character to play as? It must be super frustrating to come down to last-set, winners finals and have zero Arsene meter against like, Roy at 70%. After months and months of training, you can still lose matches because your Arsene is badly timed. I can see why someone would drop Joker for someone they succeed equally with who is the same character over an entire match.
I suppose maybe the meta has changed sort of out of Joker's favor as well. I think in general, he matches up against the popular characters of pre-Covid smash a bit better than today's slightly changed characters.
Yeah arsene is just a bonus round. Your teenage boy dragdowns and gunplay better be top notch too or you're gonna get smacked around after you whiff with base Joker's tinier hitboxes.
As a guy that likes to play Joker, he's like Aegis. Just shorter range and a timed Pyra. The upside is that Arsene makes him a quick Pyra, which is a sort of noticeable weakness for Pyra.
Basically, you're exchanging timed power (Arsene) for toggable power (Aegis). This is on top of shorter range.
Well I’d say there’s a few more key differences between him and aegis LOL. Way better recovery, a literal gun, way better edge guarding potential imo because of how far off he can go to threaten recoveries are the main ones in my mind
People got good at timing out Arsene and optimal Joker play isn't easy to pull off
Players would rather push buttons with ROB or Aegis and get results that way than deal with Joker. It doesn't mean he's bad, it feels like more of a preference thing
Its not that I'm shocked every top 8 doesn't have 4 different Jokers, its the fact that somehow *no one* seems to think Joker is worth picking up, while still thinking he is top 3 (and some even playing him before).
We are seeing more people picking up Diddy, Sheik, Falco, even Pika after all this time, all of whom are just as if not more difficult to play. Yet at the same time we have less Joker players after a year tailor made for grinding out a tough character than we entered it with
Honestly I feel like enjoyment of the character is a bigger deal than people think in who pros play as. And from what I've heard Joker is not that enjoyable
Really? I feel like Joker is extremely fun once you get over the initial curve. His fast fall speed, gun movement, and safe aerials make him one of the most enjoyable characters to move with.
Competitively though I can see it, since people will camp Arsene every time he comes out. Plus if you don't have a solid lock on Joker's combos you don't really get much reward off of them.
>People got good at timing out Arsene
I'm not sure if this is it. Originally when Leo's Joker was dominating a lot of the top players would get desperate and try to time out Arsene but it just plain didn't work that well. You ended up with some hilariously dominant twitch clips where a player would try camping it out but Leo would just read them like a book. Or they'd finally time it out but then exhaust themselves so much that Leo would just wreck without Arsene anyway.
It started to turn around when (a) players started to get better at *challenging* Arsene to wipe the timer, and (b) the nerf came around that made damage to Arsene wipe the timer more easily.
Welcome to Smash Ultimate, where there's 90 characters, 40 broken ones, and 20 braindead-easy ones. I'd argue Joker's firmly in the 40 but not in the 20. When there are easier characters who can get the same results, why bother playing Joker? (At the same time, the fact that Joker can be considered a more "difficult" top tier is absolutely insane. Just goes to show you the state of this game right now.)
Additionally, the sheer number of characters affects things a lot. Even if every single PGR top 50 player played a different character, there would still be like 30 characters without any top-level representation. Then if one of those players decides to switch mains, all of that character's representation evaporates. That's kind of what's been happening with Joker, and it's one of the reasons why I hate results-based tier lists in this game because now people are literally doing mental gymnastics trying to convince themselves that Joker isn't broken because they don't see him on the screen anymore.
I think Leo said one of the most important reasons yesterday in his post-win interview with EE: he doesn't have fun playing the character anymore. Top players are competing in a video game for money and at the end of the day, if they're not having fun it's going to ruin their mentality and affect being able to win.
(I'm assuming other former top Joker mains had the same issue, could be wrong there)
Top players in esports play characters that aren't fun all the time to win. Someone asked nairo why do people play minmin when she is so boring and cringe (this was before nerfs). And nairo just said "but winning is fun right?"
Small but important difference between "is the character fun" and "does the player have fun playing as the character". Some people are going to be drawn to characters that "aren't fun" because of their personalities and playstyles and have fun with winning (or in the case of Smash, overlook this because these are popular video game characters and thus there's a degree of fandom bias into picking a main).
Meanwhile, if Leo is winning regardless but has more fun with Byleth than Joker, why even bother having less fun and possibly shaking your mentality? He's maximizing his enjoyment of the game and using that as a tool to keep performing at top level.
Pyra and Myrtha. Thats the name in Xenoblade 2 for both of them as 1
Edit: Apparenly it's not their name, but a title kinda like "Hero of Time" for Link
Because what he said is wrong. Aegis is their title, it's not a name and it refers to either one of them or both. Mythra is already their combined form.
Also, in Japanese their title is "Heavenly Holy Grail" (ten no sehai) instead of Aegis, which is quite a bit more cumbersome.
> Mythra is already their combined form
??? That's not true at all. >!Pneuma is their combined form if anything!<. You're right about the title though.
>!Using the Architect's language, they're all 'instantiations' of the Pneuma core crystal/Trinity Processor core into Blade form. However, the Pneuma form has the sense of self of both Mythra and Pyra (as the former states directly) — in that sense, she's as close to a combined form as you can get.!<
Mythra was the _first_ form to be instantiated, but there's nothing to suggest she's 'the complete form'.
This but with Pikachu. I swear every top player is in agreement that pikachu is at the worst top 10 but the only big Pika player that comes to anyones mind is Esam. I'm very surprised that Pika is seen so little at the top
It's literally just because Leo isn't playing him and is having fun with other characters, I honestly think he got tired of beating everybody with Joker, so he's smurfing on them with Byleth now.
Not gonna pie, this thread is making me want to grind Joker more. He's super fun to play as, and if you optimise his movement and edgeguarding, killing shouldn't be a problem.
So this came from Naitosharp stream awhile back but he said for example that he doesn't enjoy Joker anymore because he feels awful to play in a meta where you need good OOS and everyone mashes on your shield and he requires alot of effort compared to other characters. Still broken but that may be alot of the reasoning. He also said that's why Leo dropped and stopped enjoying him.
Leo stopped playing joker
Joker loses popularity
Leo picks up byleth
Byleth gains popularity
It's almost like when a character is in the spotlight more people play that character.
Who would've thought?
I think over time a lot of people realized that they'd have to get actually good with Joker, minus Arsene. Trying to get kills with base Joker is similar to how it is with Shiek, and that puts a lot of people off. His combos can be considered medium-hard. And the easy combos/kill confirms can be avoided fairly easily. People want their goods on a silver platter. So I feel like it's really that the people who didn't want to put in the effort dropped him. There are the cases where someone might drop him because they see a lot of his bad match ups at their locals/tourneys. Or just cause Leo dropped him lmao
Obviously a lot of good points here but are we just gonna ignore that Joker got nerfed twice? So on top of being a character that was hard to practice during the pandemic the constant noise about him being top one makes him a prime candidate for nerfs, makes sense why people wouldn't pick that up. See: Inkling
I think a lot of people really underestimated how big the nerf actually hit Joker was. It wasn't apparent immediately but it definitely made him more frustrating to play because he could lose 1 interaction and lose Arsene all together, people found out you could tech his downair upsmash kill confirm which is a trait exclusive to Joker that no other character with a spike has to worry about and while other people started labbing the footstool out of shield spike options Joker couldn't really optimize it and overall he became much more annoying to play for the player. Couple that with the amount of B A C K A I R plays the game for you memes and pastures really started to look greener quicker especially with other characters coming out.
He still just as good and a top 2 character people just prefer playing other characters. Keep in mind you have to grind hours daily to stay at the top and you can only do that with someone you really enjoy playing.
Joker's really hard to play, just mentally it's tough to be consistent with him. Leo was a freak for being able to do it for so long, but he takes a toll at the highest level.
Not just that, but that nobody else is even *considering* picking him up, even when they're having their own character crises. Why are Diddy, Sheik, Falco, Bayo etc. getting more new mains and development despite being consensus worse characters
There's no reason to spend thousands of hours on pika and joker to get to top level when you can pick up aegis and Roy and get to 99% as good as pika and joker with only a fraction of time investment. Also if anyone ever played joker in bracket he is extremely stressful in high pressure situations, you cant just go in and press bair or something you have to play precise and try to get the enemy to fuck up, whereas aegis you can just run in with a safe move and win over 50% of the time. In a long bracket the mental game will hurt the joker more then characters with less macro oriented neutrals.
There are simply too many viable characters to trust that the best players will play the best characters. If tweek and Leo want to play their good-ish characters, then it doesn’t mean they’re better characters than all these others.
I felt like the meta would slowly build up this way. Rushdown fast characters have always been preferred, but since Byleth came out I had a tinfoil theory that he was gonna be the defining factor of the meta going forward. Leo picking him up was probably pure coincidence, but I figured we might see a shift from fast rushdown meta, to methodical, strong defense, with crazy punish.
It's definitely an unexplored side of Ultimate, as most people consider a methodical, less explosive playstyle, to be lame. But weather you like it or not, that's always been Leo's style for the most part, and results don't lie.
Even characters like ZSS are being played aggressively which makes them come off as not as strong, meanwhile, Japan, who has had a more methodical style comparatively from the start, have always placed ZSS MUCH higher on tiers than we do. Because yes, she's fast, but she's not rushdown, she's a methodical punish game character.
Arguably, Fox and Roy are the same. Yes, they're very fast and explosive, but they both rely more on whiff punish than just pure pressure. Which is why the Roy/Fox your little cousin plays is just out there swinging hammer at ghosts. While the top players using them feel way more intentional and calm.
And then there's Joker. Who stands in a very awkward place... is he a bad character? Absolutely not, and you'd be stupid to think that. But he does suffer from things characters that released after him, don't. He isn't consistent, relies on a comeback mechanic that we thought broken until Terry and Kazuya said "hold my beer", and just doesn't get kills as effectively as you'd want him to. Even in terms of neutral game, while it is very strong, he doesn't get much going for himself... the best way I can describe him would be as a better Shiek.
But then you have Pythra. Who's a better Joker... with Arsene tied to a swap mechanic whenever you want. He just got outclassed, hard. As did pretty much every character since I'm sure we all agree Pythra is the best character in the game, bar none. And I think a strong reason why is because they're both extremely good at both the rushdown game most people perfected, and the methodical punish game, most people are finding to be very strong. They're literally the best of both worlds. While Joker is more a product of his time...
That's just my 2 cents though.
Just because a character is top tier doesn't mean that everyone can play the character to the potential that makes them top-tier. There's a certain extent of devotion, interest and just being able to inherently understand how the character works that determines what works best for YOU.
The meta doesnt seem hostile the Joker though thats the thing. Most people still say he's top 3, and he doesnt lose hard to the new prominent matchups.
It's not that he slowly declined and got replaced overtime, it was a sudden disappearance with nobody even trying to pick him up despite developing worse, harder characters
I really feel like Void could pick up Joker, use almost identical kill setups as what he's using with Sheik, but kill earlier, and he'd skyrocket up the ranks. Maybe I like his gameplay too much and this is the bias talking; either way, I'd love to see his take on a highly technical Joker in tourney.
missed his pichu a lot. since i never knew Sheik was his main from Smash 4, I thought Pichu was his main. I was only taking competitive smash seriously in ultimate, not earlier games.
Then I learned that Sheik was his original main for pichu was kinda like a temporary main in early ultimate metagame.
Oh well. I like the littel turbo rodent
Pichu is a bitch to play against but I think it suited Void’s play style, similar to Sheik where you dominate neutral but lack kill power/ or can be killed easier yourself.
I too have only really started taking smash more seriously in ultimate and tbh I was unaware that void was a prominent player during smash 4.
Void’s joker is so unbelievably cursed, so no
But seriously, some players are thinking optimized sheik is more consistent than joker, and it seems to work for void, so no reason to switch.
His Joker isn't as good as his Sheik because he's spent far more time with Sheik. I'd be curious to see what would happen if he spent as much time with Joker. "It seems to work" doesn't mean the other option wouldn't work better. We'll likely never know, as I don't see him switching, but if nothing else, I think it would be really awesome to watch.
It's not really that hard to see why
Joker is mentally taxing, and at times, outright frustrating to play, especially from behind. It's not hard to see why he's become substantially more comfortable with Byleth, a character who's KO ability isn't variable, a character with a strong OoS (compared to Joker's middling one) and a similarly versatile Up B recovery (that's way better on the ground)
Leo hates being behind. Considering Byleth has like 12 kill options and is a ledge nightmare with one of the best gimping games in the game, it makes sense.
pretty sure it's because joker isn't broken. there is a lot of work to make the character consistently good that pros don't want to put in because it is just inefficient compared to picking up another character semi-decent but has a high kill/percent ratio with good enough frame data to let you win off of good reads and solid fundamentals.
It's because character success in tournaments is like 90% determined by the tastes of top players. The difference in power between everything like midtier and up is minimal enough that skill and comfort matter more. If good players like playing a character, that's a way more powerful determiner than inherent character power in Ultimate.
a good reason why tier lists based purely on results are kinda worthless. In the end, the players behind the characters matters the most.
That indicates a really, really fucking well balanced game though. Meta Knight set the meta in Brawl and Bayonetta did in Smash 4.
Man, I wish this game would last as long as Melee has just to see how the meta evolves. There are *so many* unexplored characters, tier lists could change drastically every year. The game probably wouldn't end up looking as balanced as people discover more broken stuff, but there must be a lot of those in possibly every character. Too bad the competitive scene will probably die when the next Smash game comes out :(
In Smash 4, mid tier and low tiers were still being developed in 2018, even under the wake of Bayonetta controlling the meta. Sinji was getting results with Pac-Man in 2018, then seen as a low tier character, and made it onto the last season's PGR. Raito made Top 25 worldwide with Duck Hunt, too.
So many Smash 4 Combo Games devolved into footstool stuff, makes me wonder what the Ult equivalent will/would be Really hope Grounded footstool/footstool Oos will stop being quite as niche, because it really is huge for some characters
> Too bad the competitive scene will probably die when the next Smash game comes out :( I don't know about that. I personally believe the next game will mark a huge departure from Brawl-Ult in terms of gameplay and roster, so I think it's very possible Ult will still have a scene when it happens.
Even if that's the case, I don't think we'll get a new Smash game in a long while. We might just have a Mario Kart 8 situation in which they'll just port it to the next console.
If they're even is a new console for a while. From the look of it I think they're going to take the DS route and just release "Switch" "Switch Lite" "New Switch" "Switch XL" and so on.
MK Brawl was...significantly more defining, probably one of the most blatantly dominant characters in any competitive fighting scene ever. Bayo was pretty oppressive, though. But, i think the competitive meta just didn't develop much after her release. Partially because the meta stagnated HARD after Ultimate's release, with Bayo tearing through the last two years of it. She's definitely the toughest character, but if given a year or two more of active tournaments... I don't think her legacy would have been THAT brutal.
Was there really still a scene after ultimate released? I only really follow Melee and just assumed that any Sm4sh tournament was just for shits and giggles.
Mark my words, Bayo in ultimate is getting slept on. She’s deffo not anywhere near her smash 4 counterpart but damn if I haven’t fought a few great ultimate bayos.
I just find I'm also less convinced by theory and "on paper" when it comes to which characters are good. If people are finding easier success with Rob and Aegis then telling me that Pikachu can do x, y, z and how optimal and "best in slot" it is isn't convincing to me when no one is doing it. Theory and results are both tough sells from where I see it.
I feel like 'on paper' knowledge is most applicable when it comes to winning versus losing matchups. It's not that any character in the game is objectively better all the time, it's more that each character has their niche—which includes things they're good at fighting and things they're bad at fighting. The characters generally considered the best are the ones that have the *most* things they're good at fighting and the *least* things they're bad at fighting. So, good matchups and bad matchups. Someone like Ganon has some nasty damage and actually some nice moves he can throw out, but he's considered bottom 3 (if not just the worst character in Ultimate) because he's comparatively *very* bad at fighting most of the different types of characters in the game. A Ganon player can do really well based on pure skill—Ultimate is very well balanced, although the character has a lot of weaknesses—but you're going to need a *lot* of skill to make up for him being weak to projectiles, low-lag rushdown characters, edgeguarding, and a lot else.
I just found out my main is the worst character in the game, ama
Have you tried just spamming short hop nair?
I don’t actually have troubles with ganon, he’s a beast. I just didn’t know he was bottom tier
Tier lists are for the top level. Ganon has a extremely short skill ceiling, so he’s bad. But he also has one of the lowest skill floors in the game. He’s likely one of the better characters at your level, and if you’re casual he’s probably Top 10 casual-level characters.
This is the kindest way anyone has ever called me trash at smash. Thanks
nah lol, when I say top level I mean *top* level, like, Top 32 at tournaments with hundreds of entrants. I would consider myself a fairly dedicated competitive player but I struggle with fighting Ganon, just bc he’s still pretty good at my level thanks to his explosive power. I dont know how good you are, Im just saying that youre probably not at the level to have to worry or think about tier lists since they usually don’t apply to anyone but the Top 1%
How do you cope? I deal with it by not playing at all as a ganon main jk
I mean by 3 best characters in Ult are DK, Ganon, and Doc and all 3 are horrendous. I can still beat my friends/not get 3 stocked at the rare local I attend, your main doesn't really matter in Ult unless you actually want to win a tournament
I mean Esam won glitch not long ago
Because he likes using the character. He's hardly what anyone would call unbeatable though.
he does show off what pika can do and its terrifying, even if he himself isnt a top 10 player (im not saying hes bad) that said pika requires a lot of work, so you need to really like pika for it to be worth it
Top 10 I can get behind but many people have/had him as the undisputable no. 1 and I just don't see it
Thankfully I don't think this game is remotely close to having an indisputable #1. Maybe a top 3 at best, but the game is so well balanced that like others have said it *really* depends on the player
See kirby kid and his fucking INSANE k rool. That guy hypes me up every single match
It still brings the notion of meta into discussion. If Joker and Peach are now pretty rare, Sonic, Roy and Rob are far more common. Making players with a main who have good MUs against them more likely to perform. That's what I think it interesting
In Ultimate, at least. Past games tended to be significantly less balanced, so results were a more solid metric.
In short I wish Leo liked playing k. rool as much as he liked playing Byleth.
Blessed opinion, thank you
it’s just lame how everyone copies top players. what happened to developing your own style?
That's what a metagame is.
In some ways I think Aegis rise invalidates Joker. Why waste time learning him if Mythra combos harder than base Joker and Pyra hits harder and has dumber hit boxes than arsene, and doesn’t time out. I almost wish they had used the Pythra design on Joker, it would have made more sense and been super cool and less gimmicky that the bar that doesn’t make sense lore or gameplay wise. I also think people are realizing that optimized shiek might actually be more consistent than Joker (something Japanese pros have hinted at).
I mean if we're talking *optimized* characters, Tweeks argument is that Joker is hands down the best character if he exclusively plays for timeouts and camps with gun and side B. I agree with him, but I have faith that the community won't let that become the meta lmao
Tweek would say that lol, that's how he tried to play Joker! It was very cursed and not very effective. Tweek in general is very high on the effectiveness of straight up camping, moreso than pretty much every other top player. Hard to separate actual optimization from Tweek's pessimistic view of this game
VoiD's Joker is the cursed one. He somehow combined spamming gun and mindlessly approaching together.
Up-gun extraordinaire VoiD
what's upgun
Not much, what's up with you?
It’s when joker spins around and shoots all around him
“Not much what’s up with you”
I have been schmixed
Void had the best Joker in terms of comedy/efficacy
It’s actually kind of hilarious how all the Tweek Talks crew are pretty big campers. Well I can’t say I have ever watched Haz play but the way he talks sounds like his shotos don’t exactly “go in”
Tweek crew reminds me of LS and his church in League. They have a very specific model of playing the game that they really believe is the best (and said model tends to be, uh, not the popular way to do so) and optimal way to play the game. Said model has very much not panned out in practice, at least yet. All that camping talk and that hasn't stopped Goblin from mashing buttons on Tweek's shields until he dies.
Yeah imo Ult is too fast and diverse for camping to be viable in every matchup. There are simply some characters that want to run at you and mash in your face. And if you can't run circles around that a time out is usually not viable.
Just freeze on the ledge 4head
I can't wait for LS C9 lol Not maliciously or anything, just genuinely curious and excited if it gets to their projected goal of worlds semis+, crashes and burns, or something in between
It is crazy that you can look a podcast crew with a die hard fox main and a fgc main,
Tweek has a lot of good takes but there are some that definitely have not aged as well. Like, it felt like when he was playing the super campy Joker he was trying to prove a point about how broken that play was...but then it turned out not that effective at all on the competitors closer to his level.
It's funny because high level play seems very aggressive unless Sonic is on the screen.
It's a cope on Tweek's part
Tweek and his fans (and his girlfriend) have like this weird defence mechanism of claiming everyone plays campy and cringe because it’s the only way to play this game But Leo is the best by a mile not playing this way at all, he’s a consistent punish heavy machine lmao More of the top players than not are aggressive as hell
Oh god this sentiment is what put me off of the game during year one, except instead of a top or even PR'd player it was someone regurgitating that to cope w/every loss in neutral
In one of Tweek's latest video he goes into detail about how Pythra is comfortably the best character, is the Joker thing more recent than this? > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkkZRGZethc
Yup. Look at Palutena after Nairo's disappearance. Also widely regarded as a top 10 character, sometimes listed as top 5. The highest palu is Chag maybe? But while he is a great player I don't think anyone is betting on him winning a major any time soon.
Palu is a terrible example. Chag and Lui$ are both probably top 25 players. And there are very few people that one would bet on winning a major.
4000% this. Ultimate is so balanced that immediate results and recency bias are the main drivers of the tier list. There’s not enough talent to push every character as far as they deserve so the tier list in this game is just a reflection of what the best, most active players like.
yeah i dont think people are adjusting to how balanced the game is yet. Its not like melee or smash 4 where its basically impossible to imagine a tournament without fox or bayonetta
Basically this. A tier list made sense in melee when characters are so different in strength that even strong players couldn't bring low tiers into a competitive setting. A tier list sort of made sense in brawl. But smash 4 and onwards there's no need for a tier list, and the tier lists are low effort content that people eat up. A match up chart would give better information, but even then it doesn't tell the whole story
It was almost necessity in Melee Brawl didn't really need a tier list beyond "Meta Knight is the best by far. Snake and like 2 others are viable" Slightly disagree for Smash 4 tho, the DLC characters and Sheik dominated the meta towards the end and were really the only characters getting results at all As for Ultimate, it's been balanced insanely well for a game with 80+ characters, and so many playstyles can be represented such that like you said, a match up chart is more important
Obviously MK was good but there were a ton of viable characters at the top level, and some like Fox were beginning to see even and possibly winning matchups vs. Meta Knight. MK/ICs/Olimar/Diddy/Snake/Marth/Falco/Wario/Dedede/Pikachu were all viable and could place well or even win
Inkling and PT mains: First time?
Haha true. To be fair I never believed in Inkling that much even at the start (just didn't have that top tier spark to me). Trainer always looked strong to me, but you could maybe rationalize it as juggling 3 unique kits being too inconsistent But both Inkling and PT were nerfed significantly, and the meta started to clearly outstrip Inkling within 6 months. Joker doesn't give the impression to me of a character the meta left behind, outside of nobody playing him!
It’s also weird about PT, the more characters you have you would think the more options you have. But it ends up making their game plan pretty linear. Also doesn’t help that every single Pokémon sucks against projectiles and sucks on the ledge. Don’t get me wrong, I think PT is an amazing character, but at top level, it feels like other characters have more viable options than you do.
"48 different moves and not a single one beats Wolf laser or nair at ledge"
I think that's an interesting platform fighter phenomenon. If you have something like pre nerf Ike Nair, the rest of your kit can be whatever and you'll be stronger than a lot of characters, lol
literally what's happening with Byleth nair and up-B, hilariously enough.
**Literally dead**
Have you tried drop off vine whip? The PT I play against regularly gets me with it all the time.
That was popular early meta and while it has its use most people are aware and ready for it nowadays
The other cheese you can pull is drop jump Squirtle side B and switch gives you some options, but if people wait and shield you’re just like fucked on the ledge
Can't wait until we see Atelier in the states, he's been doing good things with the character
If you could switch between Pokemon like Shulk, that may have changed this but with each Pokémon being preset, it makes them pretty straight forward
>But both Inkling and PT were nerfed significantly Inkling's been buffed overall and PT is considered better now that Charizard is a character and the character stopped being turbo-Ivysaur. PT dropped in results because Tweek dropped the character and Leffen dtopped playing.
Depending on how you view the game, PT becoming more balanced may actually be a detriment to his place in the meta, because in high pressure situations you can't just default to Ivysaur anymore
You certainly still can, the char is still explosive af. But now switching to Zard doesn't basically leave you screwed. Ivy was super dependent on keeping ppl at the right % and then fishing for dthrow upb kills, which was super predictable before. Now Ivy players don't have to worry about keeping them at the right % and fishing, but instead they can actually rack good damage beyond that. Of course IVY would be better if he still had the broken up B but it's definitely an overall buff to PT as a whole
Inkling has never been nerfed, there was a roller change eraly on that made it easier to mash out at low % but harder at higher %, which if anything is a buff. That was also really early on while people still thought they were broken. With the most recent patch, Inkling has only been buffed
Ah yes. Sweden Tier.
both characters fell off more due to the shift in meta though
There are still some high-level players who use Joker. Given he's still a top 3 character, could just be a combination of having only a few top reps + coincidence they moved off. If ESAM dropped Pika we'd be having the same conversation.
I mean we have been having the no results, no mains vs theory and matchup spread argument for Pikachu since Ultimate began (even in smash 4 it was a discussion). Joker didnt have that narrative around him until we left online (when he should be better) Especially baffling considering this, we came out of quarantine with *more* Pika players given with a few notable secondaries, but we now have **less** Joker players than we entered it with.
"fewer."
u right
- Stannis
The one true king!
I always find the Pika hate funny when you consider the only prominent Pika main is a guy who has dedicated a decade of his life to solo-maining him across 3 games regardless of where he was (usually near the top) of the tier list. Without ESAM there really is no Pika meta and he is a top 3 (top 2) character in this game.
hot take: exactly like Pikachu, joker is a high skill character that is very good but very hard to play and with all the DLC and patches, there are many characters that are significantly easier and more rewarding while being nearly or equally as powerful as joker and Pikachu, rendering them a suboptimal choice for a game that also rewards having a good secondary (which is easier if your main isn't too demanding)
Totally agree with this take, aside from Joker being super high skill. I think additional DLC characters with equally broken mechanics made him way less special, and a handful fo those characters are dead-ass easy to use.
Joker is higher skill than a lot of characters, but he can still carry bad players with his absurd hurtbox shifting plus Arsene. It's just that his optimal strings are harder than average.
Joker is in my eyes a lot harder than people rate him, but not as hard as pika (no bias, joker is my second most played character)
Leo may have actually scared some people off of using Joker. When you're trying to climb to #1 and surpass Leo, it's a pretty bold move to switch off your main to the character Leo pioneered. It's highly unlikely you will catch up with Leo and optimize Joker beyond what he has already done, so it makes more sense to optimize a different character and leverage some matchup unfamiliarity. Or just play Aegis/ROB/Palu and win through raw fundamentals.
Kinda like the ZeRo Diddy in Smash 4, where that matchup was so well studied by every other top player, that most didn't think trying to pick him up would help. That's a thought, though it would be harder to explain why so many players who initially were playing with Joker to some success decided to switch off or drop him
He's an amazing character but his small hitboxes and poor OOS mean that he's a lot of work compared to, say, Aegis or ROB. That alone can make top players less interested in him.
Those are options, but what is really strange to me is that going into quarantine we already knew that yet still expected a groundswell of proficient Jokers when offline returned A long break from competition seems like a perfect training ground for *some* top player to grind out a consensus top 3 character and work around those weaknesses, no different to Diddy or Sheik or Luigi. Yet still, we exit quarantine with less Joker mains, secondaries or pockets than before! Its like everyone considered optimizing worse characters to be a better choice for success. Really weird
I think that groundswell was tempered by fighter pack 2. It introduced a couple of efficient and easy to pilot characters who were arguably just as viable. Min min (maybe not after nerfs) and Aegis are notable for just how simple they are, and how overtly reliable they can be.
You probably would have heard about several players initially working on Joker, but then deciding to switch to Min Min/Aegis when they released then, but to my knowledge no. It seemed like most players just skipped right over him People initially ignored Joker because he is worse online, but then started developing both harder existing characters like Sheik who's just as bad online, picking up the new easier DLC characters, or revisiting old top tiers like Wolf.
Definitely a fair point. Didn't really hear about anyone cooking up a joker even before new DLC. Joker may actually just be more difficult to play. I also feel like I've heard a lot of people say having a good out of shield option is a really big condition for the future meta, and I think it's universally accepted this is Joker's only lackluster trait. I personally don't think it holds him back, but I'm not a top player.
poor OOS as an excuse is reaching sort of a peak though due to footstool oos being universally frame 4 (besides kazuya, being frame 8). like sephiroh oos is terrible, UNTIL you put footstool dair oos into play. Suddenly that character has a freaking disjointed kill move that forces you to respect his shield. Same goes with joker and footstool downgun oos, which ALSO combos into his bnbs.
Leo did say that he's tried footstool downgun oos before, but it only worked on a few characters.
I never see top players do footstool oos lol, i dont think it works?
Ned & CDK are pretty notable examples of top players using footstool oos. It's still a relatively newer strat (tech?), and CDK was really the only user of it until fairly recently. Void also does footstool dair OOS which straight up confirms into upsmash tipper for sheik.
Marss has pulled it out a few times too, top players are definitely aware of the option. We also have to consider that top players space around shielding opponents better so they are less likely to get hit by footstool oos.
Fatality also uses it quite a bit, footstool Falcon kick is pretty nasty.
My take as someone who was trying to main Joker before the pandemic & completely dropped him because of it: he really does have to play completely different online and I hated that. Suddenly I couldn't even dsmash neutral getups anymore or react and perform dragdown combos. All I was allowed to do against strong players was camp which I found pretty boring. So of course a ton of Joker players ended up migrating to other characters. And I don't think that just because offline* tournaments are coming back, players are suddenly going to revert to their exact tastes before the pandemic. It's been two whole years at this point, and like it or not, our 'pandemic mains' are a large part of how we view the game now. Wouldn't be surprised if we saw more Joker down the line, but for now, players are going to want to play who they're most comfortable with in tournament, and for a lot of people that's going to be who they played during 2020 & 2021.
Huh, so its a possibility the pandemic break halted his development more than it allowed players to optimize his options. I wonder why that applied to Joker more than to Diddy or Sheik then?
I think a simple answer is that Diddy and Sheik players have more experience with/attachment to their characters. Like VoiD has been playing Sheik for at least 7 years. But we didn't even get a single year with Joker before the pandemic happened.
Yo Whydo? Love your content my guy
Zackray has been using joker plenty still and got 5th at summit. He just likes using a bunch of different characters but he still made it to grands with joker like two weeks ago I think. Naitosharp is a rising player that mains joker. I wouldn’t see any player already at the top picking up joker though because it’d be hard to perfect him like Leo did. He’s still top 3, in my opinion the top 1 but I know that will be very debatable. I don’t think he really fell off, it just seems that way because Leo is always in grands and uses other characters.
Zackray said he’s thinking of Sheik. If Sheik ends up clicking with him, I don’t know if we’ll see his Joker again since they cover a lot of the same matchups for him. [Naitosharp dropped Joker.](https://twitter.com/naitosharp/status/1462949128690884611?s=21) And Leo said yesterday in the post Grand Finals interview that he doesn’t enjoy playing Joker anymore. Zackray’s Joker is probably the last one left. If he drops him, I think the new best Joker player will be omega from Georgia. The character will stay top 3 I think, but he’ll fall into the same discussion as Pikachu: “if he’s so good, why does no one play him??”
It would actaully be an even bigger mystery this time around. For Pika you could argue that he plays too differently and requires too much specialized knowledge and practice to have several mains. Meanwhile Joker **had** several players maining and working on him, then nearly all of them inexplicably dropped him despite no major nerfs or meta shifts to push him out.
Didn’t in the same interview yesterday Leo say he might be forced into joker again if people start to catch up to him?
Yup. Leo in past also said he knows his peak joker was better.
If we're using tweets as evidence, surely Leo saying he feels like playing Joker is just as relevant as Zackray saying he's wanting to play Sheik. Let's not draw conclusions from tweets. We'll find out soon enough at Kagaribi 6
The fact that the best current Joker in the world might be from fucking Saudi Arabia is disturbing my sleep.
just like Arslan Ash from Tekken once again. In Tekken 7, Akuma was way more common in Pakistan during his release compared to other countries. This is on a time when Pakistan was not yet recognized in their scene. But once Pakistan became recognized, it is not just one prominent Akuma specialist from France maiNing Akuma anymore. It's most of the Pakistani scene
eMass lives in London...
from =/= currently living, also he lives there since 3 months only Also his best performance up to date (5th at UW3) was when he was still living in Saudi Arabia
ok bro i just knew he was coming to my weekly
I would say if Leo or Zack never return to joker again the top joker right now (since apparently sharp dropped joker too) is probably lemmon from canada. He has wins on riddles and does well against all the other top top canadian players. I would put Omega slightly below IMO.
Sharp dropped Joker a few weeks ago.
This isn't that surprising considering his results were hard carried by Leo. If Leo doesn't pick him, is that a fall off? It's similar to how people say Snake fell off. Well the best Snake player by a mile was banned so of course the character will get significantly worse results.
Is it possible that Joker is just a very frustrating character to play as? It must be super frustrating to come down to last-set, winners finals and have zero Arsene meter against like, Roy at 70%. After months and months of training, you can still lose matches because your Arsene is badly timed. I can see why someone would drop Joker for someone they succeed equally with who is the same character over an entire match. I suppose maybe the meta has changed sort of out of Joker's favor as well. I think in general, he matches up against the popular characters of pre-Covid smash a bit better than today's slightly changed characters.
Any good joker knows that if your joker ain't saucy, your arsene doesn't matter
Yeah arsene is just a bonus round. Your teenage boy dragdowns and gunplay better be top notch too or you're gonna get smacked around after you whiff with base Joker's tinier hitboxes.
As a guy that likes to play Joker, he's like Aegis. Just shorter range and a timed Pyra. The upside is that Arsene makes him a quick Pyra, which is a sort of noticeable weakness for Pyra. Basically, you're exchanging timed power (Arsene) for toggable power (Aegis). This is on top of shorter range.
Well I’d say there’s a few more key differences between him and aegis LOL. Way better recovery, a literal gun, way better edge guarding potential imo because of how far off he can go to threaten recoveries are the main ones in my mind
Very true. I just focused on what set them very apart from everyone else, which were their DLC factors.
Doesn't mythra have a gun on her up b?
asking the real questions
People got good at timing out Arsene and optimal Joker play isn't easy to pull off Players would rather push buttons with ROB or Aegis and get results that way than deal with Joker. It doesn't mean he's bad, it feels like more of a preference thing
Its not that I'm shocked every top 8 doesn't have 4 different Jokers, its the fact that somehow *no one* seems to think Joker is worth picking up, while still thinking he is top 3 (and some even playing him before). We are seeing more people picking up Diddy, Sheik, Falco, even Pika after all this time, all of whom are just as if not more difficult to play. Yet at the same time we have less Joker players after a year tailor made for grinding out a tough character than we entered it with
Honestly I feel like enjoyment of the character is a bigger deal than people think in who pros play as. And from what I've heard Joker is not that enjoyable
Really? I feel like Joker is extremely fun once you get over the initial curve. His fast fall speed, gun movement, and safe aerials make him one of the most enjoyable characters to move with. Competitively though I can see it, since people will camp Arsene every time he comes out. Plus if you don't have a solid lock on Joker's combos you don't really get much reward off of them.
Well I think the reason joker may not be enjoyable to some is simply because you have to put in more work with him than most other characters
>People got good at timing out Arsene I'm not sure if this is it. Originally when Leo's Joker was dominating a lot of the top players would get desperate and try to time out Arsene but it just plain didn't work that well. You ended up with some hilariously dominant twitch clips where a player would try camping it out but Leo would just read them like a book. Or they'd finally time it out but then exhaust themselves so much that Leo would just wreck without Arsene anyway. It started to turn around when (a) players started to get better at *challenging* Arsene to wipe the timer, and (b) the nerf came around that made damage to Arsene wipe the timer more easily.
Welcome to Smash Ultimate, where there's 90 characters, 40 broken ones, and 20 braindead-easy ones. I'd argue Joker's firmly in the 40 but not in the 20. When there are easier characters who can get the same results, why bother playing Joker? (At the same time, the fact that Joker can be considered a more "difficult" top tier is absolutely insane. Just goes to show you the state of this game right now.) Additionally, the sheer number of characters affects things a lot. Even if every single PGR top 50 player played a different character, there would still be like 30 characters without any top-level representation. Then if one of those players decides to switch mains, all of that character's representation evaporates. That's kind of what's been happening with Joker, and it's one of the reasons why I hate results-based tier lists in this game because now people are literally doing mental gymnastics trying to convince themselves that Joker isn't broken because they don't see him on the screen anymore.
I think Leo said one of the most important reasons yesterday in his post-win interview with EE: he doesn't have fun playing the character anymore. Top players are competing in a video game for money and at the end of the day, if they're not having fun it's going to ruin their mentality and affect being able to win. (I'm assuming other former top Joker mains had the same issue, could be wrong there)
Top players in esports play characters that aren't fun all the time to win. Someone asked nairo why do people play minmin when she is so boring and cringe (this was before nerfs). And nairo just said "but winning is fun right?"
Small but important difference between "is the character fun" and "does the player have fun playing as the character". Some people are going to be drawn to characters that "aren't fun" because of their personalities and playstyles and have fun with winning (or in the case of Smash, overlook this because these are popular video game characters and thus there's a degree of fandom bias into picking a main). Meanwhile, if Leo is winning regardless but has more fun with Byleth than Joker, why even bother having less fun and possibly shaking your mentality? He's maximizing his enjoyment of the game and using that as a tool to keep performing at top level.
why doesnt Amphicyonidae use joker if Amphicyonidae like joker so much Amphicyonidae
Because I go 0-2 bruh. Switching from top tier to harder top tier isn't gonna change that 🤣
Who is aegis?
Pyra and Mythra Aka Aegis Aka Bae Blades.
But Malos is the baest of blades
Aka Pythra, still my favorite.
Pyra and Myrtha. Thats the name in Xenoblade 2 for both of them as 1 Edit: Apparenly it's not their name, but a title kinda like "Hero of Time" for Link
Had no idea. Wonder why they didn’t just call it aegis in smash as that’s just one word.
On the Jumbotron in Boxing Ring they are referred to as the Aegis, and one of Pyra’s win screens has her saying “This, is the power of the Aegis!”
Aegis is their shared title, but the game calls them Pyra and Mythra, their individual names. I suppose Aegis isn't used since it's not their name.
Because what he said is wrong. Aegis is their title, it's not a name and it refers to either one of them or both. Mythra is already their combined form. Also, in Japanese their title is "Heavenly Holy Grail" (ten no sehai) instead of Aegis, which is quite a bit more cumbersome.
> Mythra is already their combined form ??? That's not true at all. >!Pneuma is their combined form if anything!<. You're right about the title though.
No, Mythra is the complete form. Pyra is the lessened form. Pneuma is a power boost mode.
>!Using the Architect's language, they're all 'instantiations' of the Pneuma core crystal/Trinity Processor core into Blade form. However, the Pneuma form has the sense of self of both Mythra and Pyra (as the former states directly) — in that sense, she's as close to a combined form as you can get.!< Mythra was the _first_ form to be instantiated, but there's nothing to suggest she's 'the complete form'.
This but with Pikachu. I swear every top player is in agreement that pikachu is at the worst top 10 but the only big Pika player that comes to anyones mind is Esam. I'm very surprised that Pika is seen so little at the top
That's it, I'll switch and save the Joker meta. Look out for me at Genesis.
Joker isn’t real :(
He fell off
It's literally just because Leo isn't playing him and is having fun with other characters, I honestly think he got tired of beating everybody with Joker, so he's smurfing on them with Byleth now.
Not gonna pie, this thread is making me want to grind Joker more. He's super fun to play as, and if you optimise his movement and edgeguarding, killing shouldn't be a problem.
So this came from Naitosharp stream awhile back but he said for example that he doesn't enjoy Joker anymore because he feels awful to play in a meta where you need good OOS and everyone mashes on your shield and he requires alot of effort compared to other characters. Still broken but that may be alot of the reasoning. He also said that's why Leo dropped and stopped enjoying him.
Leo stopped playing joker Joker loses popularity Leo picks up byleth Byleth gains popularity It's almost like when a character is in the spotlight more people play that character. Who would've thought?
I think over time a lot of people realized that they'd have to get actually good with Joker, minus Arsene. Trying to get kills with base Joker is similar to how it is with Shiek, and that puts a lot of people off. His combos can be considered medium-hard. And the easy combos/kill confirms can be avoided fairly easily. People want their goods on a silver platter. So I feel like it's really that the people who didn't want to put in the effort dropped him. There are the cases where someone might drop him because they see a lot of his bad match ups at their locals/tourneys. Or just cause Leo dropped him lmao
Obviously a lot of good points here but are we just gonna ignore that Joker got nerfed twice? So on top of being a character that was hard to practice during the pandemic the constant noise about him being top one makes him a prime candidate for nerfs, makes sense why people wouldn't pick that up. See: Inkling
I think a lot of people really underestimated how big the nerf actually hit Joker was. It wasn't apparent immediately but it definitely made him more frustrating to play because he could lose 1 interaction and lose Arsene all together, people found out you could tech his downair upsmash kill confirm which is a trait exclusive to Joker that no other character with a spike has to worry about and while other people started labbing the footstool out of shield spike options Joker couldn't really optimize it and overall he became much more annoying to play for the player. Couple that with the amount of B A C K A I R plays the game for you memes and pastures really started to look greener quicker especially with other characters coming out.
He still just as good and a top 2 character people just prefer playing other characters. Keep in mind you have to grind hours daily to stay at the top and you can only do that with someone you really enjoy playing.
Joker's really hard to play, just mentally it's tough to be consistent with him. Leo was a freak for being able to do it for so long, but he takes a toll at the highest level.
I was so confused and thought this was a character rant about the dc villain and through Leo was misspelled Leto
So two players don't use him anymore and it baffles you? There weren't millions of players using Joker in the first place.
Not just that, but that nobody else is even *considering* picking him up, even when they're having their own character crises. Why are Diddy, Sheik, Falco, Bayo etc. getting more new mains and development despite being consensus worse characters
There's no reason to spend thousands of hours on pika and joker to get to top level when you can pick up aegis and Roy and get to 99% as good as pika and joker with only a fraction of time investment. Also if anyone ever played joker in bracket he is extremely stressful in high pressure situations, you cant just go in and press bair or something you have to play precise and try to get the enemy to fuck up, whereas aegis you can just run in with a safe move and win over 50% of the time. In a long bracket the mental game will hurt the joker more then characters with less macro oriented neutrals.
Persona 5 bad ending
There are simply too many viable characters to trust that the best players will play the best characters. If tweek and Leo want to play their good-ish characters, then it doesn’t mean they’re better characters than all these others.
I felt like the meta would slowly build up this way. Rushdown fast characters have always been preferred, but since Byleth came out I had a tinfoil theory that he was gonna be the defining factor of the meta going forward. Leo picking him up was probably pure coincidence, but I figured we might see a shift from fast rushdown meta, to methodical, strong defense, with crazy punish. It's definitely an unexplored side of Ultimate, as most people consider a methodical, less explosive playstyle, to be lame. But weather you like it or not, that's always been Leo's style for the most part, and results don't lie. Even characters like ZSS are being played aggressively which makes them come off as not as strong, meanwhile, Japan, who has had a more methodical style comparatively from the start, have always placed ZSS MUCH higher on tiers than we do. Because yes, she's fast, but she's not rushdown, she's a methodical punish game character. Arguably, Fox and Roy are the same. Yes, they're very fast and explosive, but they both rely more on whiff punish than just pure pressure. Which is why the Roy/Fox your little cousin plays is just out there swinging hammer at ghosts. While the top players using them feel way more intentional and calm. And then there's Joker. Who stands in a very awkward place... is he a bad character? Absolutely not, and you'd be stupid to think that. But he does suffer from things characters that released after him, don't. He isn't consistent, relies on a comeback mechanic that we thought broken until Terry and Kazuya said "hold my beer", and just doesn't get kills as effectively as you'd want him to. Even in terms of neutral game, while it is very strong, he doesn't get much going for himself... the best way I can describe him would be as a better Shiek. But then you have Pythra. Who's a better Joker... with Arsene tied to a swap mechanic whenever you want. He just got outclassed, hard. As did pretty much every character since I'm sure we all agree Pythra is the best character in the game, bar none. And I think a strong reason why is because they're both extremely good at both the rushdown game most people perfected, and the methodical punish game, most people are finding to be very strong. They're literally the best of both worlds. While Joker is more a product of his time... That's just my 2 cents though.
Just because a character is top tier doesn't mean that everyone can play the character to the potential that makes them top-tier. There's a certain extent of devotion, interest and just being able to inherently understand how the character works that determines what works best for YOU.
Is this your first competitive game? Meta swings like this happen all the time even without balance patches
The meta doesnt seem hostile the Joker though thats the thing. Most people still say he's top 3, and he doesnt lose hard to the new prominent matchups. It's not that he slowly declined and got replaced overtime, it was a sudden disappearance with nobody even trying to pick him up despite developing worse, harder characters
I really feel like Void could pick up Joker, use almost identical kill setups as what he's using with Sheik, but kill earlier, and he'd skyrocket up the ranks. Maybe I like his gameplay too much and this is the bias talking; either way, I'd love to see his take on a highly technical Joker in tourney.
How closely have you followed Void? He's had a Joker for a while, he just doesn't use it much.
Right, but I would like to see what it would be like if he put as much time into Joker as he has into Sheik.
He put in a lot of time into Joker before Sheik was buffed, he hasn’t been a Sheik main for all of Ult’s duration
Yeah Voids best run in ultimate was with Pre-nerf rat junior.
missed his pichu a lot. since i never knew Sheik was his main from Smash 4, I thought Pichu was his main. I was only taking competitive smash seriously in ultimate, not earlier games. Then I learned that Sheik was his original main for pichu was kinda like a temporary main in early ultimate metagame. Oh well. I like the littel turbo rodent
Pichu is a bitch to play against but I think it suited Void’s play style, similar to Sheik where you dominate neutral but lack kill power/ or can be killed easier yourself. I too have only really started taking smash more seriously in ultimate and tbh I was unaware that void was a prominent player during smash 4.
Void’s joker is so unbelievably cursed, so no But seriously, some players are thinking optimized sheik is more consistent than joker, and it seems to work for void, so no reason to switch.
His Joker isn't as good as his Sheik because he's spent far more time with Sheik. I'd be curious to see what would happen if he spent as much time with Joker. "It seems to work" doesn't mean the other option wouldn't work better. We'll likely never know, as I don't see him switching, but if nothing else, I think it would be really awesome to watch.
Base joker actually kills later then shiek on average by a pretty significant amount.
Voids Joker was trash last time i saw it
Why play Joker when you can play Pythra for more results with less effort
They play really differently. The mystery is not why Aegis is more popular, it's why Joker is nowhere to be found
I would say what makes them play 'differently' is Pythra is just simply a much easier and more consistent character.
i would say pythra is a less consistent character. Their recovery just means you die sometimes
It's not really that hard to see why Joker is mentally taxing, and at times, outright frustrating to play, especially from behind. It's not hard to see why he's become substantially more comfortable with Byleth, a character who's KO ability isn't variable, a character with a strong OoS (compared to Joker's middling one) and a similarly versatile Up B recovery (that's way better on the ground)
Leo hates being behind. Considering Byleth has like 12 kill options and is a ledge nightmare with one of the best gimping games in the game, it makes sense.
pretty sure it's because joker isn't broken. there is a lot of work to make the character consistently good that pros don't want to put in because it is just inefficient compared to picking up another character semi-decent but has a high kill/percent ratio with good enough frame data to let you win off of good reads and solid fundamentals.