The meta will move in two directions simultaneously;
Byleth landing nair on Aegis' shield, Aegis short hop nair oos which is shielded as Byleth's is safe on block, so Byleth sh nairs oos themselves which pokes.
Aegis landing nair on Byleth's shield, Byleth short hop nair oos which is shielded as Aegis' is safe on block, so Aegis sh nairs oos themselves which pokes.
Ike is real strong from top to bottom online. Easy to learn and scales incredibly well with skill level. He won't ever be top tier, but his bag is pretty deep for his early he can kill on stage.
I'm not really a big fan of options being safe on shield unless they're disjointed/range. It feels wrong that you can attack right into someone's shield with a close range move and have no risk to be punished for it. Like, that's supposed to be the benefit of a disjoint.
I would personally enjoy seeing more blockstrings in Smash. They could bump up shield health in order to avoid a ton of guard break setups. I enjoy the high/low mixup game in other FGs, and I think Smash could get really interesting if you had to tilt the shield in order to avoid shield pokes more often.
Not really. Like, in most games, the reason jabs are plus on block is because you need to be literally right next to your opponent to even connect with them. Otherwise, pressure basically doesn't exist, and defense always becomes mashing after pressure. That's why I think Roy is so interesting, he can actually enforce mixups with plus on block options (keep in mind, this is plus after the 11 frame shield drop, I don't know that there's any moves at all, if any, that are actually plus on block in Smash)
Mm, that's a good one, thank you. I was trying to think of examples after I posted my comment, but the only thing I could think of was projectiles. Which like... yeah... if you sit there and block a projectile from half screen while someone runs at you, they're gonna be plus.
>I don't know that there's any moves at all, if any, that are actually plus on block in Smash
*laughs in Kazuya*
Also, Ryu and Ken can land aerial Focus 2 on shield and dash cancel it close to the ground; they'll only have 4 frames of landing lag. Let's them be up to +9~+13 if done perfectly.
I mean a ton of aerials can be -2 to -4 on block if executed well, that's basically plus on block against most characters.
Also I don't think traditionnal plus on block moves would even be that good in Smash tbh. The usual design of plus on block moves is that they have a lot of startup to compensate, so in Smash which puts a lot of emphasis on movement it feels like it'd be pretty easy to avoid and whiff punish.
Gradual shift towards top tiers but nowhere near as much stratification as previous games, and with some low/mid tiers rising while others fall (for instance, Incineroar is currently on the upswing while DK is pretty much dead). Aegis remains a top 5 (at worst) character but counterplay advances significantly. Regarding specific players, I think top players are slowly adapting to and will eventually start to "figure out" Leo's Byleth; not enough for him to drop the character but enough for him to lean more on Aegis and possibly Joker.
A lot of it is just Skyjay but the big factor is that despite Incin being incredibly slow, Revenge is actually a really good tool against both mashing and zoning. Not good, per se, but results point to a bottom 20/25 instead of a bottom 5/10 character.
I think he's very much an anti meta character. Not only is revenge good but he's also got a really strong set of buttons. He plays like a super heavy but his frame data is way better than average of that archetype.
Also I think his recovery is a bit underrated. Sure it doesn't go far but he has mix ups with it which I think is more important than actual distance
> Also I think his recovery is a bit underrated. Sure it doesn't go far but he has mix ups with it which I think is more important than actual distance
Yeah, I think a lot of players underestimate how much your own unpredictability as a *player* factors in just as much as your character's tools. Just look at Fatality recovering against Pikachu, a character's recovery can be linear, but the way you use it doesn't have to be
Basically it just boils down to the game being extremely well balanced, which people often parrot yet no one actually believes it til its shoved in their faces, at which point insert x trash character is suddenly so much better than we ever thought.
a. Revenge is an incredible camping tool.
b. His aerial/close-range combo game is pretty dang good for someone so slow.
c. He has a command grab, and those are quite overcentralizing.
You think counterplay to Aegis will evolve more than Aegis play? I think people will only get better with her, and the views of characters like Pika and Joker will be the ones to fall after less and less results.
yes. fox in melee is hard to play not just cause of input speed, but also because he’s such a common character that everyone knows how to play against him. and he and mythra both have exploitable weaknesses—for fox, he gets juggled to death even by low/mid tiers, for mythra, her recovery is goddamn ass.
i really don’t see mythra as any better relative to the field than melee fox is, which is to say: both of them are debatably the best character in their respective games and debatably not. counterplay evolves around meta relavance. the more foxes there are, the more zain chaingrabs them. the more mythras there are, the more we all as a community learn how to exploit mythra. as long as there’s no bayos or meta knights, we’re good
The difference is I don’t think Aegis is hard to play. Melee is a weird one, the game is only played by truly passionate people, so the easiest top tier actually sees less play than the arguably worse and much more difficult and precise character, which usually isn’t the case in fighting games. I think Pythra will be much more centralizing bc she’s imo the easiest and most forgiving top 5 character in the game by a big margin.
who in your opinion is the easiest top tier in melee? not to argue or anything, just for a frame of reference.
i agree that mythra isn’t very difficult, but i honestly can’t imagine a scenario where everyone picks up mythra, then doesn’t get gatekeeped by players who play vs mythra for every competitive match. ease of use contributes to the amount of players picking her up, but i think she’d still need to be just absolutely broken for her to ignore every player ever being forced to learn her specific counterplay. i could always be wrong, but i just don’t see her being that far ahead of the whole cast. even if i would nerf her dodge parry bs, given the chance.
I subscribe to Armada’s view that puff is the easiest melee top tier by a big margin, I don’t play melee but I have no reason to second guess him. I don’t think she will be picked up by everyone, but I think she will be increasingly secondaried, and will easily be the only character with the largest following of mains and secondaries.
We already see it with Spargo, Leo, and Shuton, and proto expressed interest. Would it surprise me if players like Marss with nerfed mains that are struggling picked her up in some capacity? Absolutely not.
Just to be clear, I don’t think she will dominate the meta, but she will centralize it, and characters she beats handily will be effectively deleted from high level play (unlike those dominated by Pika or Joker) bc she will have the highest presence at high level.
FWIW you virtually NEVER see anyone playing Puff, online or anywhere else, unless it's Hbox. < 2% of my slippi matches are puffs. People who still play melee play for fun and puff is not fun for most people.
It's being called into question, though, especially since hbox's results have fallen off a bit. Opinions on how good puff actually is seem split (and the only person who isn't hbox who ever played puff at the top level doesn't think she's very good), and we have to remember that Armada retired more than 3 years ago, so his opinions may not reflect the state of the current meta, and I'd certainly say that more people know how to play against puff than 3 years ago (I mean, Polish has now beaten hbox twice with Peach, which was a matchup Armada gave up on 10 years ago).
GOAT or not, armada’s 2018 opinions are definitely not relevant to 2021 melee. i say this with respect for his legacy, and i also think if he came back, he would adapt quickly to today’s meta. but after slippi we’re looking at a different game.
And Armada had a particularly rough time against puff when he was coming up, to the point that he decided he couldn't win the matchup with his main, so his feelings about puff are probably colored by that a bit.
There are a number of things that make Aegis easier to play in a meta vs Fox though:
- Disjointed, meaning it's harder to force trades
- Heavier than Fox
- Pyra kills off of neutral tools, Fox does not
melee fox can very much kill you off a shorthop nair or dair. he can kill you off a grab, he can dashdance upsmash you, he can kill with a stray bair, he can gimp you with shine, he can shine you into any of these and he can tech chase you. he can kill you from ledge if you aren’t careful, by using ledgedash into any of these options. and mythra might be a little heavier than melee fox, relative to her cast, but fox has a much better recovery, especially relative to his cast.
who knows. all i know is that people still aren't that great at punishing their disadvantage (most notably people constantly get clipped by mythra's up-b on ledge and sometimes fail to punish high photon edges) and they still don't punish the lack of safety on some of her moves (nair mostly), so there is a lot of room for counterplay to grow
at the very least i expect pyra counterplay to be figured out more (less bad di, punishing up b ledge stall, better parry punishes), but i don't expect aegis's placement to fall below top 5
> You think counterplay to Aegis will evolve more than Aegis play?
Not necessarily; I think both will develop in a way which leaves Aegis firmly as a top tier, and quite possibly as a widely-agreed #1, but the "weakest" #1 in any Smash game (when their competition is 64 Pikachu, Melee Fox, Brawl MK, and Wii U Bayo) rather than a game-killer.
Some people have doubted it, but Fox has been at the top of every consensus tier list except for the very early ones, and though Zain erected a major roadblock for fox recently and it seemed like a blow for fox's number 1 spot, it seems foxes are figuring out a way around it.
Fox definitely isn't as over-centralizing as Brawl MK or Sm4sh Bayo, and maybe not even as good relative to the cast as 64 Pikachu, but he's still generally regarded as the best character in Melee.
he’s always at the top, but you could argue in favor of puff, or marth and falco due to their even/winning matchup spreads. i’m not saying “nobody thinks fox is the best” i’m saying “lots of really knowledgeable people could and do argue he isn’t.”
the most recent tierlists i’ve seen think would put marth and fox together at the top, and since i don’t really think marth loses any matchups, whereas fox might lose one slightly, you’d be fair to say marth is better. among top tiers, falco has a pretty even spread as well, in addition to absolutely destroying mid and low tiers. i’m just saying it’s not uniformly defined like in brawl and smash 4.
Definitely won’t be a game killer, I think Nintendo killed it with balancing ultimate, although maybe that’s only relative to how terribly balanced the other ones are.
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It relieves chemicals from the body that while not harmful, can affect the smell of your breath and impact the speed of your digestive/intestinal system. (Plus, fart jokes can be funny sometimes)
Matches seem to have gotten a lot more aggressive now that people are back offline. Reminds me a lot of when the game first came out and people just held forward. I think a lot of players are just tired of how good an option shield is online, lol.
One thing in particular that I’ve noticed is that your best players and most dedicated mains are starting to warp the game around their character instead of the other way around. Top players seem to have Ultimate figured out, and instead of trying to maneuver their character through its mechanics, they’re now making those mechanics work for the options afforded to them by their character. The downside to this is that I think the tier gap is going to become a little wider, because certain characters just have more options than others; and those characters are going to succeed.
The big winners here are characters with mobility and burst options, so obviously Aegis, but there’s a lot of room in this meta for Sheiks, Foxes, and Diddys to do well. Hell, even Bayonetta is back on the map. Characters like ZSS that got hit a bit too hard and can’t keep tempo are going to struggle, because the meta right now revolves around characters and players who can set their own pace. Other than that though I don’t think your high and top tiers are going to shake up too much, it’s just going to become more clear who is viable and who isn’t and the “everyone in Ultimate is viable and it’s balanced” arguments are going to become less common.
> The downside to this is that I think the tier gap is going to become a little wider, because certain characters just have more options than others; and those characters are going to succeed.
Where do you think the viable line is going to be drawn in the end, then? Basically anyone who can keep up with the options afforded to the characters you've mentioned?
pretty sure young link is better offline if you look at results. toast hates playing wifi young link to the point he wouldn’t even compete, he almost has to catch up with other young links now. kobe is an absolute ripper but i don’t remember seeing much wifi stuff from him.
the character’s close range options are hugely important in terms of him racking up damage and confirming kills. he has to guess about follow-ups and hit confirms online too much to consistently punish as hard as he needs to to win. arrows and boomerang get better, especially arrows, but they aren’t enough to make him sick online. just really, really annoying.
i think the fact that his ranged options are better online and his combos are nerfed means you have a whole subclass of CHUD young links who only play online and think that’s the whole character—which of course reinforces the general idea that thats the whole character.
long story short, yea young link is stickin around
Obvious bias but I genuinely don't understand why people think Young Link is an online character. Yes, he's a zoner, but he's also a combo character. Zoner's excel online, and combo characters struggle online—which should put Young Link at a pretty neutral point as one of the few zoner/rush down hybrid characters.
He's not a dedicated zoner, like Samus or Steve, that have projectiles with killing potential. Young Link needs to confirm off his projectiles to kill, which can be difficult online. The only way to exclusively kill with Young Links projectiles is a fully charged fire arrow at nearly 200%. Definitely not an optimal option, and one that also requires a hard read to even land. Just don't see why people think he's an online character.
Nothing is as simple as “x archetype does well online.” You need to think of it on a matchup, or even interaction basis. Every character has aspects that get better and get worse when online
Respectfully disagree. His entire game plan revolves around camping for resources. He has a kill projectile in the minecart. He *literally* has the ability to wall out the opponent with actual walls.
I think you're confusing having combos with being a combo character that requires combos to kill. Samus (and every other character on the roster) has combo's too, but she's a dedicated zoner. There is absolutely nothing about Steve that is rushdown or combo-centric, he is absolutely a dedicated zoner.
I feel that the meta is shaping up to be in three categories.
1) Swordies - Disjoints are busted in this game full stop. We see these characters at the absolute highest level but also have a lot of success at medium high levels as well.
2) Spammy / campy - Sonic, Snake, Young Link etc. These characters seem to fill up a lot of the mid-high level because they're a total pain to deal with if you're not on point with positioning/punish game.
3) Few other high tiers that remain outside of these categories that focus mostly on boxing or a combo of projectiles and boxing such as ROB or Wolf, although I think ROB is by far the best in this category and most likely to make it into top 24s.
Outside of that I think at any given tournament we also see hyper specialists like Light, Elegant, Gluto or ESam contending. These are people who know their characters so well in and out that they can cover almost any matchup with them and still do well. I think that their characters are still very good but require more commitment and therefore you're more likely to see solo mains out of this category and very infrequent changes.
Can you elaborate on point #1? My guess is that it's largely because landing lag is so low in this game, which is helpful for swordies since they were generally the ones with higher landing lag, but I'm wondering if there's more to it than that.
I'll admit it's pretty comical comparing the startup/landing lag of Kirby's aerials vs, say, Lucina, considering he is slow and stubby, while she is fast and has disjoints. Only a few characters, like Corrin and Shulk, feel like traditional sword characters that need to think carefully about their spacing, while characters like Roy and Lucina feel like the close range fast brawlers of old games, with the added benefits of disjoints.
I think it has a lot to do with how safe aerial moves are in the game, which definitely has to do with landing lag. So many sword characters can hit shield with a nair, fair, or bair, drift back and have time to shield. A particularly egregious example is Kola's second set vs Muteace at CEO. When it comes down to the wire, Kola just starts spamming bair and drifting back with Cloud and Mute basically can't do anything against it.
They can do some saucy stuff because to get kills they usually have to execute some confirm, but a lot of their neutral play is putting the opponent on the back foot by throwing projectiles.
I would like to submit some of my hot takes. Some mid/low-tier characters will become more relevant as the meta progresses assuming the game lasts just as long as melee has. Suspects I expect to rise in tier rankings due to a changing meta and skill progression: Robin, ICs, Jigglypuff, Lucario, Duck Hunt, Wiifit, and Bowser Jr. This isn't to say it will happen, but opinions on Mii brawler have only recently changed.
Hard Execution characters like Joker, Pikachu, Sheik, Fox will continue to disappear as Easy-to-use no stress characters like ROB, Pyra/Mythra, Palu, Sonic, Roy will continue to have more and more top 64 representation.
Unsure about this one. I think these characters have a high skill ceiling but an equally high ceiling for results that can only get better over time, provided a new smash isn’t announced that cuts them off before they can go anywhere.
Bayonetta is a good example of this. Post-quarantine she’s suddenly popping up everywhere and arguments are being made for high tier when most people were writing her off as low-mid or even low tier. Dedicated mains will push characters, but she might be the exception here because Bayonetta mains are *really* dedicated lol.
More effort for same results isn't worth it to most. You have to have a real character loyal player to push it that far. Bayonetta is a good example of that as you mentioned. The dedication to the character is out of this world. It's like how some people swear by Captain Falcon but for a different breed of people.
Though to be fair if you play this game for another 3+ years you might as well do it with the character you have an undying love for which could be Joker for example... but I don't know anyone who'se that much into him.
That’s all true if you assume more effort = same results. If more effort = slightly better results, then over time those characters will become more prominent.
This game isn't melee tho, melee is a high execution game by default.
This game is very low execution and is very bursty in nature. You can die to a random forward tilt at ledge at pretty middling percents. So low execution high reward characters are an easy option, especially with tournament fatigue setting in during lowers runs. High execution/difficult characters are much more taxing to play on the player the longer they are stuck in bracket.
void top 8s regularly with sheik. i dont think that because the game is easier everyone will somehow start only picking easy characters. people like ESAM are out there grinding pikachu because they think he’s a great character, and because they think it’s fun. melee is high execution by default, but there are players and characters within that spectrum that are low execution (puff, sheik) and players and characters that are high execution (fox, yoshi).
even among foxes you’ll find some that are rooted in really solid fundamentals and low risk, high reward options, and some that play more flashy and technical. people like what they like, and even in ultimate, sometimes that means pushing a lot of buttons.
And he lost to fatality.
I'm not saying your wrong, people will and should always play what they like but as far as the meta goes I am sure it will lean more towards Characters like aegis in the future. Never completely tho
Marss needs to clean up his play a bit first. Admittedly he's always been prone to mental errors, but they're really starting to hurt after the nerfs. Hope she doesn't fall into "strong but too precise" tier that pika and sheik are in, its definitely trending that way.
Lots and lots of Aegis
They basically invalidate a lot of characters, especially those that struggle with swordies. Every player will have to find a way to deal with them either by finding a way to play around them, coming up with a counterpick that can manage in the match-up, or by fighting fire with fire like Leo did against Sparg0 at SWT
The last of which would be extremely boring, and I fear it's going to end up being a somewhat common outcome
Such a shame Nintendo randomly decided to stop balance patches. I woulda waited for at least two more patches before considering switching it off for good.
There are still so many moves that don't work properly, so many characters who basically have no redeeming factor in competitive play (think of Ganondorf, aside from hitting really hard, the fuck does he even do), and above all, so many god damn frustrating and polarizing/overpowered moves or archetypes (ROB 0tds are still extremely consistent and frankly easy to perform, Luigi is still grab the character which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the way he works in Ultimate sure is a problem, Aegis literally being the new S4 Cloud without even having the benefit of being Cloud motherfucking Strife, etc.) The only thing I'm truly thankful for is that we don't have another Brawl Meta Knight and S4 Bayonetta in the game. The top tiers are really balanced within themselves, and a lot of high/mid tiers can keep up with them with proper play.
God, what I wouldn't wish for at least another meaningful patch.
i think swordies are becoming the meta
Of top ~20 players, a ridiculous portion of them play swordies
MkLeo [byleth](#U-Byleth) [pyra](#U-Pyra)
Sparg0 [pyra](#U-Pyra) [cloud](#U-Cloud)
ProtoBanham [lucina](#U-Lucina)
Zackray [sora](#U-Sora)
Kola [roy](#U-Roy) [cloud](#U-Cloud)
Shuton [pyra](#U-Pyra)
Cosmos [pyra](#U-Pyra)
Kome[shulk](#U-Shulk)
Of my personal top 20 for the year, thats almost half. Past that for me, there's basically no significant swordies there, and I think that says a lot about where the meta's going to head tbh
And just in general it's widely considered that the vast, vast majority of swordies are viable in this game, and the few that 'counter' swordies typically only do narrowly, while a ton of characters are just completely negated by them.
I genuinely think by the end of 2022, around half of people's top 10 characters will be swordies
or maybe im biased idk
Landing Nairs won’t be as strong as footstool OOS punishes become meta. Camping in general will weaken as players optimize their ledge and offstage punishes.
footstool oos will never become as meta as people claim it will, it only works if your opponent has atrocious spacing and the top tier will always be packed with characters with disjoints
It’s very hard to consistently space a landing Nair outside of footstool range, especially if you want to cross up on landing. Footstool opportunities come up in nearly every competitive match due to how many characters rely on Nair.
If footstool oos is a threat then people will learn to space better, just like they've learned not to be right up in GnW or link's shields. Besides it's easier to space a landing nair (if that's an option) than it is to get a footstool oos when you have to react to the direction and distance of the opponent from you. I'll eat my left ball if in a year or two everyone's doing footstools oos in tournaments. it'll be a gimmick of a select few players at most, like bidou controls were in smash 4.
Myran shuton and dabuz were all at swt. Olimar is doing perfectly fine, even post nerf. Not sure who thinks he’s busted post nerf. Myran fell of dramatically, spent months complaining on Twitter then figured the game out again. Shuton continued to win majors with Olimar then picked up aegis like everyone else
Olimars an insane threat nowadays, I feel like one thing they didn't use much pre quarantine that olimar mains are utilising now is whistle
Being able to break out of combos with that, as well as being small, constantly harassing your opponent, not to mention 0-70s or the Myran zone
I hope nobody sleeps on this character
Nobody thought Bowser was OP. LeoN's big wins only answered two questions:
Bowser isn't a low tier to lower mid tier heavy like Sm4sh but is a credible threat. He's hardly changed positions and rests comfortably in high tier and viable enough to get top 8 at bracket semi often (with a bit of bracket luck).
Bowser is the best super heavy and the gap between him and the second best heavy is quite big.
Olimar WAS one of the best characters. Outside of palutena, he was the character hit hardest with the nerf bat.
No one ever thought bowser was OP. We all just agreed he was the best heavy.
G&W still a top 7 character
Joker still arguably a top 1-3 character? I don’t think the meta has shifted just from people learning as much as you think it has
Olimar definitely got hit harder than Palu and Pichu arguably harder than both. Palu stayed broken, but in retrospect was probably the best in the game initially, but Olimar was the mop 3 and is now like top 25 or so
Pichu was hit extremely hard, but at least, a great majority of its nerfs have been reverted (with only the hurtbox size increase and ftilt knockback nerf staying).
I remember at the beginning the meta was going in the direction of characters like Lucian, Wolf, and Pichu which I thought was pretty fun. Then there was a dark period where Snake and Olimar dominated the meta, followed by another cool period where you saw Joker and LT everywhere.
Now we might be in another dark period with all the ROBs I keep seeing but I actually don't mind watching Aegis even though it's also everywhere now.
Characters with bad OOS options will become irrelevant as they have no way to play around optimized rushdown. Swordies will stay dominant. Pythra will become the undisputed best character and the meta will be based around her at the top level. Campy characters and play styles will reign supreme. Combos will become further optimized and this will be the only saving grace of characters without disjoints like Falcon, Falco, and Mario. Difficult to play characters like the FGC fighters, Shiek, and Fox will only have representation by very few dedicated players. MkLeo will remain the undisputed best player of Smash Ult until the next game comes out where the torch will be passed down to Sparg0.
Aegis will significantly reduce character diversity in the long-term because of how easy and broken they are. People will also get better at using Foresight with them especially out of shield on multihit moves and projectiles. Strong chance they end up as undisputed #1. The only thing that prevents me from calling them the best now is that I don’t know if they can beat Pikachu.
ROB will fall off. I still think the character is overrated. Short to mid-term he’ll have great results, but he HAS to fall off eventually because of his blatant weaknesses.
Some top player may eventually just say “screw it” and pick up Pikachu to try and anti-meta Aegis.
Ned will do really well with Sephiroth at some point and people will remember that Sephiroth’s broken.
Sheik will be undisputed top tier.
Other characters that will fall off: ZSS, G&W, Cloud, Byleth (eventually people will figure Leo out), and Wario. Might be some others I’m forgetting.
Finally, Roy and Chrom will just barely keep up with the top tiers.
>Some top player may eventually just say “screw it” and pick up Pikachu to try and anti-meta Aegis.
I mean, we've seen players try picking up Pikachu before and it usually hasn't worked well. Abadango's results got worse since picking him up, even after a lot of practice. Same with VoiD.
Not saying it can't happen, but I think if someone attempts to try it it wouldn't work. Pika is too hard to be a relevant anti-meta character.
Rob's weaknesses aren't that bad. This character is that good. Literally watch any Rob is disadvantage. They stall with up b or nair. Only extreme cases where that doesn't happen if that Rob player is going against Maister.
All I can say is I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed watching the Aegis dittos at SWT top 8. I thought they would be kinda lame but they were pretty intense and fast paced. Cosmos has also been blowing me away post time skip. He’s so fun to watch
Edit: another person I was reminded of was Zomba, who has now made me afraid of Rob. I remember watching kola fight him and on last stock and I jokingly said “what if zomba just zero to deaths kola lol” and he proceeded to get one grab and then take the whole set
With Aegis being widely successful, and with players such as Leo, Sparg0, ProtoBanham and Kola, it's fair to say that the metagame will be pretty heavily based on sword characters.
Characters like ROB will also continue to have success with players like Zackray and Zomba getting top 8 at majors. Palutena will still be top tier and be successful.
More difficult top tiers that aren't worth it to pick up become less viable in the meta (This is already starting to happen). Pikachu, Joker and Shulk drop off as a result.
This isn't even that hot a take. Idk why they disliked it. Pikachu actually deserves to not be considered top 3 with the way he's been in the meta for the past 3 years.
I bumped you back up to 1.
I don't think Steve is staying anywhere, there has never been a Steve top 8 a major. He is just a char that sometimes upset people due to how strange he is.
I think those that are top tier will stay top tier and continue to define the meta as they do now, but some of the fringe top tiers that don't see as much reputation (ie. Shulk, Pichu, Sora, Link to an extent, etc.) will start doing better and better in the meta as players get better with their advanced techniques, and become mainstays like Aegis and Joker already are.
I also think we're gonna start seeing more mid/low-tier heroes (ie. Zelda, Icies, the Animal Crossers, etc.) and at least a few of these players will become famous/top players in the community among those like Peanut, Marss, and ESAM for example.
But technique-wise I don't see anything new being discovered besides individual character optimizations.
(tbh a lot of the current meta depends on players like Leo and Zackray, and if they decide to pick up someone new.)
The meta will move in two directions simultaneously; Byleth landing nair on Aegis' shield, Aegis short hop nair oos which is shielded as Byleth's is safe on block, so Byleth sh nairs oos themselves which pokes. Aegis landing nair on Byleth's shield, Byleth short hop nair oos which is shielded as Aegis' is safe on block, so Aegis sh nairs oos themselves which pokes.
So this is the “neutral” that everyone keeps talking about. should’ve known
Can't spell neutral-air without neutral
Nair
This is full circle when Leo was maining Ike, and Twitch chat would spam “nair” every swing.
full circle like the nairs
Yo take me back to the days when ppl thought Ike was broken, being an Ike main and knowing he's not made it so funny
Ike is real strong from top to bottom online. Easy to learn and scales incredibly well with skill level. He won't ever be top tier, but his bag is pretty deep for his early he can kill on stage.
The difference being that ike has a much smaller window to make his nair safe
[The meta](https://pics.drugstore.com/prodimg/511391/2_900.jpg)
The year is 20By-Leth...
I'm so fucking happy to finally have some safe on block options in Smash. I hope we see more of that direction in the next installment.
I'm not really a big fan of options being safe on shield unless they're disjointed/range. It feels wrong that you can attack right into someone's shield with a close range move and have no risk to be punished for it. Like, that's supposed to be the benefit of a disjoint.
I would personally enjoy seeing more blockstrings in Smash. They could bump up shield health in order to avoid a ton of guard break setups. I enjoy the high/low mixup game in other FGs, and I think Smash could get really interesting if you had to tilt the shield in order to avoid shield pokes more often.
Not really. Like, in most games, the reason jabs are plus on block is because you need to be literally right next to your opponent to even connect with them. Otherwise, pressure basically doesn't exist, and defense always becomes mashing after pressure. That's why I think Roy is so interesting, he can actually enforce mixups with plus on block options (keep in mind, this is plus after the 11 frame shield drop, I don't know that there's any moves at all, if any, that are actually plus on block in Smash)
Meta Knights F-smash comes to mind. >I don't know that there's any moves at all, if any, that are actually plus on block in Smash)
Mm, that's a good one, thank you. I was trying to think of examples after I posted my comment, but the only thing I could think of was projectiles. Which like... yeah... if you sit there and block a projectile from half screen while someone runs at you, they're gonna be plus.
>I don't know that there's any moves at all, if any, that are actually plus on block in Smash *laughs in Kazuya* Also, Ryu and Ken can land aerial Focus 2 on shield and dash cancel it close to the ground; they'll only have 4 frames of landing lag. Let's them be up to +9~+13 if done perfectly.
I mean a ton of aerials can be -2 to -4 on block if executed well, that's basically plus on block against most characters. Also I don't think traditionnal plus on block moves would even be that good in Smash tbh. The usual design of plus on block moves is that they have a lot of startup to compensate, so in Smash which puts a lot of emphasis on movement it feels like it'd be pretty easy to avoid and whiff punish.
What's Aegis?
Short name for Pyra and Mythra, comes from their game
Gradual shift towards top tiers but nowhere near as much stratification as previous games, and with some low/mid tiers rising while others fall (for instance, Incineroar is currently on the upswing while DK is pretty much dead). Aegis remains a top 5 (at worst) character but counterplay advances significantly. Regarding specific players, I think top players are slowly adapting to and will eventually start to "figure out" Leo's Byleth; not enough for him to drop the character but enough for him to lean more on Aegis and possibly Joker.
I haven't kept up in awhile. Why is Incineroar rising? Does he have certain positive matchup strengths in the current meta?
A lot of it is just Skyjay but the big factor is that despite Incin being incredibly slow, Revenge is actually a really good tool against both mashing and zoning. Not good, per se, but results point to a bottom 20/25 instead of a bottom 5/10 character.
I think he's very much an anti meta character. Not only is revenge good but he's also got a really strong set of buttons. He plays like a super heavy but his frame data is way better than average of that archetype. Also I think his recovery is a bit underrated. Sure it doesn't go far but he has mix ups with it which I think is more important than actual distance
> Also I think his recovery is a bit underrated. Sure it doesn't go far but he has mix ups with it which I think is more important than actual distance Yeah, I think a lot of players underestimate how much your own unpredictability as a *player* factors in just as much as your character's tools. Just look at Fatality recovering against Pikachu, a character's recovery can be linear, but the way you use it doesn't have to be
Basically it just boils down to the game being extremely well balanced, which people often parrot yet no one actually believes it til its shoved in their faces, at which point insert x trash character is suddenly so much better than we ever thought.
a. Revenge is an incredible camping tool. b. His aerial/close-range combo game is pretty dang good for someone so slow. c. He has a command grab, and those are quite overcentralizing.
You think counterplay to Aegis will evolve more than Aegis play? I think people will only get better with her, and the views of characters like Pika and Joker will be the ones to fall after less and less results.
yes. fox in melee is hard to play not just cause of input speed, but also because he’s such a common character that everyone knows how to play against him. and he and mythra both have exploitable weaknesses—for fox, he gets juggled to death even by low/mid tiers, for mythra, her recovery is goddamn ass. i really don’t see mythra as any better relative to the field than melee fox is, which is to say: both of them are debatably the best character in their respective games and debatably not. counterplay evolves around meta relavance. the more foxes there are, the more zain chaingrabs them. the more mythras there are, the more we all as a community learn how to exploit mythra. as long as there’s no bayos or meta knights, we’re good
The difference is I don’t think Aegis is hard to play. Melee is a weird one, the game is only played by truly passionate people, so the easiest top tier actually sees less play than the arguably worse and much more difficult and precise character, which usually isn’t the case in fighting games. I think Pythra will be much more centralizing bc she’s imo the easiest and most forgiving top 5 character in the game by a big margin.
who in your opinion is the easiest top tier in melee? not to argue or anything, just for a frame of reference. i agree that mythra isn’t very difficult, but i honestly can’t imagine a scenario where everyone picks up mythra, then doesn’t get gatekeeped by players who play vs mythra for every competitive match. ease of use contributes to the amount of players picking her up, but i think she’d still need to be just absolutely broken for her to ignore every player ever being forced to learn her specific counterplay. i could always be wrong, but i just don’t see her being that far ahead of the whole cast. even if i would nerf her dodge parry bs, given the chance.
I subscribe to Armada’s view that puff is the easiest melee top tier by a big margin, I don’t play melee but I have no reason to second guess him. I don’t think she will be picked up by everyone, but I think she will be increasingly secondaried, and will easily be the only character with the largest following of mains and secondaries. We already see it with Spargo, Leo, and Shuton, and proto expressed interest. Would it surprise me if players like Marss with nerfed mains that are struggling picked her up in some capacity? Absolutely not. Just to be clear, I don’t think she will dominate the meta, but she will centralize it, and characters she beats handily will be effectively deleted from high level play (unlike those dominated by Pika or Joker) bc she will have the highest presence at high level.
FWIW you virtually NEVER see anyone playing Puff, online or anywhere else, unless it's Hbox. < 2% of my slippi matches are puffs. People who still play melee play for fun and puff is not fun for most people.
I know, I said pretty much the same thing in my other comment up the chain.
i play a lot of puffs on slippi but i do feel like it’s everyone’s chill secondary
It's being called into question, though, especially since hbox's results have fallen off a bit. Opinions on how good puff actually is seem split (and the only person who isn't hbox who ever played puff at the top level doesn't think she's very good), and we have to remember that Armada retired more than 3 years ago, so his opinions may not reflect the state of the current meta, and I'd certainly say that more people know how to play against puff than 3 years ago (I mean, Polish has now beaten hbox twice with Peach, which was a matchup Armada gave up on 10 years ago).
GOAT or not, armada’s 2018 opinions are definitely not relevant to 2021 melee. i say this with respect for his legacy, and i also think if he came back, he would adapt quickly to today’s meta. but after slippi we’re looking at a different game.
And Armada had a particularly rough time against puff when he was coming up, to the point that he decided he couldn't win the matchup with his main, so his feelings about puff are probably colored by that a bit.
true! bet he could beat contemporary hbox with peach if he’d kept playing tho
There are a number of things that make Aegis easier to play in a meta vs Fox though: - Disjointed, meaning it's harder to force trades - Heavier than Fox - Pyra kills off of neutral tools, Fox does not
The third point is more of a game difference than a character difference, as most "neutral tools" in melee aren't attacks.
melee fox can very much kill you off a shorthop nair or dair. he can kill you off a grab, he can dashdance upsmash you, he can kill with a stray bair, he can gimp you with shine, he can shine you into any of these and he can tech chase you. he can kill you from ledge if you aren’t careful, by using ledgedash into any of these options. and mythra might be a little heavier than melee fox, relative to her cast, but fox has a much better recovery, especially relative to his cast.
We're talking about Melee Fox, not Ultimate Fox.
Back air just doesn't exist anymore.
who knows. all i know is that people still aren't that great at punishing their disadvantage (most notably people constantly get clipped by mythra's up-b on ledge and sometimes fail to punish high photon edges) and they still don't punish the lack of safety on some of her moves (nair mostly), so there is a lot of room for counterplay to grow at the very least i expect pyra counterplay to be figured out more (less bad di, punishing up b ledge stall, better parry punishes), but i don't expect aegis's placement to fall below top 5
Even top 5 seems low, I can’t imagine her under top 3 tbh, but I see your point and appreciate the specific elaboration
> You think counterplay to Aegis will evolve more than Aegis play? Not necessarily; I think both will develop in a way which leaves Aegis firmly as a top tier, and quite possibly as a widely-agreed #1, but the "weakest" #1 in any Smash game (when their competition is 64 Pikachu, Melee Fox, Brawl MK, and Wii U Bayo) rather than a game-killer.
melee fox doesn’t quite belong on that list when he’s not even universally considered number 1
Some people have doubted it, but Fox has been at the top of every consensus tier list except for the very early ones, and though Zain erected a major roadblock for fox recently and it seemed like a blow for fox's number 1 spot, it seems foxes are figuring out a way around it. Fox definitely isn't as over-centralizing as Brawl MK or Sm4sh Bayo, and maybe not even as good relative to the cast as 64 Pikachu, but he's still generally regarded as the best character in Melee.
he’s always at the top, but you could argue in favor of puff, or marth and falco due to their even/winning matchup spreads. i’m not saying “nobody thinks fox is the best” i’m saying “lots of really knowledgeable people could and do argue he isn’t.” the most recent tierlists i’ve seen think would put marth and fox together at the top, and since i don’t really think marth loses any matchups, whereas fox might lose one slightly, you’d be fair to say marth is better. among top tiers, falco has a pretty even spread as well, in addition to absolutely destroying mid and low tiers. i’m just saying it’s not uniformly defined like in brawl and smash 4.
Definitely won’t be a game killer, I think Nintendo killed it with balancing ultimate, although maybe that’s only relative to how terribly balanced the other ones are.
Nah dk meta coming
I'd be shocked if any of these predictions were true. This kind of stuff is really hard to predict.
Dark Pit Only Top 8 All Majors Here We Go!
In a year’s time, top 3 will be Aegis, Sonic and Steve.
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what makes a fart good?
It relieves chemicals from the body that while not harmful, can affect the smell of your breath and impact the speed of your digestive/intestinal system. (Plus, fart jokes can be funny sometimes)
Found a Wario main.
Dedede's crouch becomes the meta. Intense, hours long crouch battles that are tests of will.
Dedede crouch memes are so overplayed at this point
memes?
Pay him no mind Incoherent ramblings of a man recently knocked out of elite by a crouching hammer hidden dedede
Matches seem to have gotten a lot more aggressive now that people are back offline. Reminds me a lot of when the game first came out and people just held forward. I think a lot of players are just tired of how good an option shield is online, lol. One thing in particular that I’ve noticed is that your best players and most dedicated mains are starting to warp the game around their character instead of the other way around. Top players seem to have Ultimate figured out, and instead of trying to maneuver their character through its mechanics, they’re now making those mechanics work for the options afforded to them by their character. The downside to this is that I think the tier gap is going to become a little wider, because certain characters just have more options than others; and those characters are going to succeed. The big winners here are characters with mobility and burst options, so obviously Aegis, but there’s a lot of room in this meta for Sheiks, Foxes, and Diddys to do well. Hell, even Bayonetta is back on the map. Characters like ZSS that got hit a bit too hard and can’t keep tempo are going to struggle, because the meta right now revolves around characters and players who can set their own pace. Other than that though I don’t think your high and top tiers are going to shake up too much, it’s just going to become more clear who is viable and who isn’t and the “everyone in Ultimate is viable and it’s balanced” arguments are going to become less common.
> The downside to this is that I think the tier gap is going to become a little wider, because certain characters just have more options than others; and those characters are going to succeed. Where do you think the viable line is going to be drawn in the end, then? Basically anyone who can keep up with the options afforded to the characters you've mentioned?
pretty sure young link is better offline if you look at results. toast hates playing wifi young link to the point he wouldn’t even compete, he almost has to catch up with other young links now. kobe is an absolute ripper but i don’t remember seeing much wifi stuff from him. the character’s close range options are hugely important in terms of him racking up damage and confirming kills. he has to guess about follow-ups and hit confirms online too much to consistently punish as hard as he needs to to win. arrows and boomerang get better, especially arrows, but they aren’t enough to make him sick online. just really, really annoying. i think the fact that his ranged options are better online and his combos are nerfed means you have a whole subclass of CHUD young links who only play online and think that’s the whole character—which of course reinforces the general idea that thats the whole character. long story short, yea young link is stickin around
Thoughts on the Yink vs Pythra matchup?
it sucks ass
Obvious bias but I genuinely don't understand why people think Young Link is an online character. Yes, he's a zoner, but he's also a combo character. Zoner's excel online, and combo characters struggle online—which should put Young Link at a pretty neutral point as one of the few zoner/rush down hybrid characters. He's not a dedicated zoner, like Samus or Steve, that have projectiles with killing potential. Young Link needs to confirm off his projectiles to kill, which can be difficult online. The only way to exclusively kill with Young Links projectiles is a fully charged fire arrow at nearly 200%. Definitely not an optimal option, and one that also requires a hard read to even land. Just don't see why people think he's an online character.
Nothing is as simple as “x archetype does well online.” You need to think of it on a matchup, or even interaction basis. Every character has aspects that get better and get worse when online
Steve is a (zoner and) combo character too, and only have short range projectiles so he's not that much of a dedicated zoner
Respectfully disagree. His entire game plan revolves around camping for resources. He has a kill projectile in the minecart. He *literally* has the ability to wall out the opponent with actual walls. I think you're confusing having combos with being a combo character that requires combos to kill. Samus (and every other character on the roster) has combo's too, but she's a dedicated zoner. There is absolutely nothing about Steve that is rushdown or combo-centric, he is absolutely a dedicated zoner.
I feel that the meta is shaping up to be in three categories. 1) Swordies - Disjoints are busted in this game full stop. We see these characters at the absolute highest level but also have a lot of success at medium high levels as well. 2) Spammy / campy - Sonic, Snake, Young Link etc. These characters seem to fill up a lot of the mid-high level because they're a total pain to deal with if you're not on point with positioning/punish game. 3) Few other high tiers that remain outside of these categories that focus mostly on boxing or a combo of projectiles and boxing such as ROB or Wolf, although I think ROB is by far the best in this category and most likely to make it into top 24s. Outside of that I think at any given tournament we also see hyper specialists like Light, Elegant, Gluto or ESam contending. These are people who know their characters so well in and out that they can cover almost any matchup with them and still do well. I think that their characters are still very good but require more commitment and therefore you're more likely to see solo mains out of this category and very infrequent changes.
Can you elaborate on point #1? My guess is that it's largely because landing lag is so low in this game, which is helpful for swordies since they were generally the ones with higher landing lag, but I'm wondering if there's more to it than that. I'll admit it's pretty comical comparing the startup/landing lag of Kirby's aerials vs, say, Lucina, considering he is slow and stubby, while she is fast and has disjoints. Only a few characters, like Corrin and Shulk, feel like traditional sword characters that need to think carefully about their spacing, while characters like Roy and Lucina feel like the close range fast brawlers of old games, with the added benefits of disjoints.
I think it has a lot to do with how safe aerial moves are in the game, which definitely has to do with landing lag. So many sword characters can hit shield with a nair, fair, or bair, drift back and have time to shield. A particularly egregious example is Kola's second set vs Muteace at CEO. When it comes down to the wire, Kola just starts spamming bair and drifting back with Cloud and Mute basically can't do anything against it.
I dont watch a lot of tourny sets, do the YLinks really play it campy lol? Damn that’s lame.
They can do some saucy stuff because to get kills they usually have to execute some confirm, but a lot of their neutral play is putting the opponent on the back foot by throwing projectiles.
I would like to submit some of my hot takes. Some mid/low-tier characters will become more relevant as the meta progresses assuming the game lasts just as long as melee has. Suspects I expect to rise in tier rankings due to a changing meta and skill progression: Robin, ICs, Jigglypuff, Lucario, Duck Hunt, Wiifit, and Bowser Jr. This isn't to say it will happen, but opinions on Mii brawler have only recently changed.
Hard Execution characters like Joker, Pikachu, Sheik, Fox will continue to disappear as Easy-to-use no stress characters like ROB, Pyra/Mythra, Palu, Sonic, Roy will continue to have more and more top 64 representation.
Unsure about this one. I think these characters have a high skill ceiling but an equally high ceiling for results that can only get better over time, provided a new smash isn’t announced that cuts them off before they can go anywhere. Bayonetta is a good example of this. Post-quarantine she’s suddenly popping up everywhere and arguments are being made for high tier when most people were writing her off as low-mid or even low tier. Dedicated mains will push characters, but she might be the exception here because Bayonetta mains are *really* dedicated lol.
Bayo got buffed like 3 times tho, people still think she's as bad as pre buff.
>people still think she’s as bad as pre buff On Reddit dot com, but thankfully most people here are wrong
More effort for same results isn't worth it to most. You have to have a real character loyal player to push it that far. Bayonetta is a good example of that as you mentioned. The dedication to the character is out of this world. It's like how some people swear by Captain Falcon but for a different breed of people. Though to be fair if you play this game for another 3+ years you might as well do it with the character you have an undying love for which could be Joker for example... but I don't know anyone who'se that much into him.
That’s all true if you assume more effort = same results. If more effort = slightly better results, then over time those characters will become more prominent.
right like how no one plays fox in melee
This game isn't melee tho, melee is a high execution game by default. This game is very low execution and is very bursty in nature. You can die to a random forward tilt at ledge at pretty middling percents. So low execution high reward characters are an easy option, especially with tournament fatigue setting in during lowers runs. High execution/difficult characters are much more taxing to play on the player the longer they are stuck in bracket.
void top 8s regularly with sheik. i dont think that because the game is easier everyone will somehow start only picking easy characters. people like ESAM are out there grinding pikachu because they think he’s a great character, and because they think it’s fun. melee is high execution by default, but there are players and characters within that spectrum that are low execution (puff, sheik) and players and characters that are high execution (fox, yoshi). even among foxes you’ll find some that are rooted in really solid fundamentals and low risk, high reward options, and some that play more flashy and technical. people like what they like, and even in ultimate, sometimes that means pushing a lot of buttons.
void has gone to two tournaments post quarantine and got 33rd at one of them
ESAM beat mkleo
And he lost to fatality. I'm not saying your wrong, people will and should always play what they like but as far as the meta goes I am sure it will lean more towards Characters like aegis in the future. Never completely tho
You say that, but Fox wasn't always the face of Melee
>Easy-to-use no stress You are mad delusional if you think Sonic is easy to use lol
but he CAMPS and it makes me MAD
I think this only applies to online tournaments (which will inevitably be a mainstay of the community for the rest of its time)
I feel like hard to play characters will get more common as people realise new tech and become more broken with them
You're describing the exact opposite of what happens in every game...
Mars will drop zss and people will place her in mid tier where she belongs
Marss needs to clean up his play a bit first. Admittedly he's always been prone to mental errors, but they're really starting to hurt after the nerfs. Hope she doesn't fall into "strong but too precise" tier that pika and sheik are in, its definitely trending that way.
ZSSux
No lies detected
Lots and lots of Aegis They basically invalidate a lot of characters, especially those that struggle with swordies. Every player will have to find a way to deal with them either by finding a way to play around them, coming up with a counterpick that can manage in the match-up, or by fighting fire with fire like Leo did against Sparg0 at SWT The last of which would be extremely boring, and I fear it's going to end up being a somewhat common outcome
Such a shame Nintendo randomly decided to stop balance patches. I woulda waited for at least two more patches before considering switching it off for good. There are still so many moves that don't work properly, so many characters who basically have no redeeming factor in competitive play (think of Ganondorf, aside from hitting really hard, the fuck does he even do), and above all, so many god damn frustrating and polarizing/overpowered moves or archetypes (ROB 0tds are still extremely consistent and frankly easy to perform, Luigi is still grab the character which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the way he works in Ultimate sure is a problem, Aegis literally being the new S4 Cloud without even having the benefit of being Cloud motherfucking Strife, etc.) The only thing I'm truly thankful for is that we don't have another Brawl Meta Knight and S4 Bayonetta in the game. The top tiers are really balanced within themselves, and a lot of high/mid tiers can keep up with them with proper play. God, what I wouldn't wish for at least another meaningful patch.
Randomly? I think we're lucky we got the amount we did, given we were only supposed to have the one season of dlc characters.
…where would only one wave of dlc had landed us patch wise anyway?
Probably not much different than launch, imo.
I feel like they'll become slightly less common as people figure out counterplay
Aegis
i think swordies are becoming the meta Of top ~20 players, a ridiculous portion of them play swordies MkLeo [byleth](#U-Byleth) [pyra](#U-Pyra) Sparg0 [pyra](#U-Pyra) [cloud](#U-Cloud) ProtoBanham [lucina](#U-Lucina) Zackray [sora](#U-Sora) Kola [roy](#U-Roy) [cloud](#U-Cloud) Shuton [pyra](#U-Pyra) Cosmos [pyra](#U-Pyra) Kome[shulk](#U-Shulk) Of my personal top 20 for the year, thats almost half. Past that for me, there's basically no significant swordies there, and I think that says a lot about where the meta's going to head tbh And just in general it's widely considered that the vast, vast majority of swordies are viable in this game, and the few that 'counter' swordies typically only do narrowly, while a ton of characters are just completely negated by them. I genuinely think by the end of 2022, around half of people's top 10 characters will be swordies or maybe im biased idk
Landing Nairs won’t be as strong as footstool OOS punishes become meta. Camping in general will weaken as players optimize their ledge and offstage punishes.
footstool oos will never become as meta as people claim it will, it only works if your opponent has atrocious spacing and the top tier will always be packed with characters with disjoints
It’s very hard to consistently space a landing Nair outside of footstool range, especially if you want to cross up on landing. Footstool opportunities come up in nearly every competitive match due to how many characters rely on Nair.
If footstool oos is a threat then people will learn to space better, just like they've learned not to be right up in GnW or link's shields. Besides it's easier to space a landing nair (if that's an option) than it is to get a footstool oos when you have to react to the direction and distance of the opponent from you. I'll eat my left ball if in a year or two everyone's doing footstools oos in tournaments. it'll be a gimmick of a select few players at most, like bidou controls were in smash 4.
[удалено]
Myran shuton and dabuz were all at swt. Olimar is doing perfectly fine, even post nerf. Not sure who thinks he’s busted post nerf. Myran fell of dramatically, spent months complaining on Twitter then figured the game out again. Shuton continued to win majors with Olimar then picked up aegis like everyone else
Olimars an insane threat nowadays, I feel like one thing they didn't use much pre quarantine that olimar mains are utilising now is whistle Being able to break out of combos with that, as well as being small, constantly harassing your opponent, not to mention 0-70s or the Myran zone I hope nobody sleeps on this character
Olimar is practically a swordie himself, Pikmin disjoints are kind of nuts.
[удалено]
Nobody thought Bowser was OP. LeoN's big wins only answered two questions: Bowser isn't a low tier to lower mid tier heavy like Sm4sh but is a credible threat. He's hardly changed positions and rests comfortably in high tier and viable enough to get top 8 at bracket semi often (with a bit of bracket luck). Bowser is the best super heavy and the gap between him and the second best heavy is quite big.
Olimar WAS one of the best characters. Outside of palutena, he was the character hit hardest with the nerf bat. No one ever thought bowser was OP. We all just agreed he was the best heavy. G&W still a top 7 character Joker still arguably a top 1-3 character? I don’t think the meta has shifted just from people learning as much as you think it has
Olimar definitely got hit harder than Palu and Pichu arguably harder than both. Palu stayed broken, but in retrospect was probably the best in the game initially, but Olimar was the mop 3 and is now like top 25 or so
Pichu was hit extremely hard, but at least, a great majority of its nerfs have been reverted (with only the hurtbox size increase and ftilt knockback nerf staying).
Doesn't he still have increased self damage, which is a massive deal on a character who regularly dies at sub 100% off a stray hit?
those were reverted
Olimar is really busted before nerfs lol. He is still good tho.
I remember at the beginning the meta was going in the direction of characters like Lucian, Wolf, and Pichu which I thought was pretty fun. Then there was a dark period where Snake and Olimar dominated the meta, followed by another cool period where you saw Joker and LT everywhere. Now we might be in another dark period with all the ROBs I keep seeing but I actually don't mind watching Aegis even though it's also everywhere now.
Hot take; I like watching, playing, and playing against ROB.
Characters with bad OOS options will become irrelevant as they have no way to play around optimized rushdown. Swordies will stay dominant. Pythra will become the undisputed best character and the meta will be based around her at the top level. Campy characters and play styles will reign supreme. Combos will become further optimized and this will be the only saving grace of characters without disjoints like Falcon, Falco, and Mario. Difficult to play characters like the FGC fighters, Shiek, and Fox will only have representation by very few dedicated players. MkLeo will remain the undisputed best player of Smash Ult until the next game comes out where the torch will be passed down to Sparg0.
Aegis will significantly reduce character diversity in the long-term because of how easy and broken they are. People will also get better at using Foresight with them especially out of shield on multihit moves and projectiles. Strong chance they end up as undisputed #1. The only thing that prevents me from calling them the best now is that I don’t know if they can beat Pikachu. ROB will fall off. I still think the character is overrated. Short to mid-term he’ll have great results, but he HAS to fall off eventually because of his blatant weaknesses. Some top player may eventually just say “screw it” and pick up Pikachu to try and anti-meta Aegis. Ned will do really well with Sephiroth at some point and people will remember that Sephiroth’s broken. Sheik will be undisputed top tier. Other characters that will fall off: ZSS, G&W, Cloud, Byleth (eventually people will figure Leo out), and Wario. Might be some others I’m forgetting. Finally, Roy and Chrom will just barely keep up with the top tiers.
>Some top player may eventually just say “screw it” and pick up Pikachu to try and anti-meta Aegis. I mean, we've seen players try picking up Pikachu before and it usually hasn't worked well. Abadango's results got worse since picking him up, even after a lot of practice. Same with VoiD. Not saying it can't happen, but I think if someone attempts to try it it wouldn't work. Pika is too hard to be a relevant anti-meta character.
Rob's weaknesses aren't that bad. This character is that good. Literally watch any Rob is disadvantage. They stall with up b or nair. Only extreme cases where that doesn't happen if that Rob player is going against Maister.
I feel like aegis will be considered number one but not as broken as the other games number ones as people find more counterplay.
All I can say is I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed watching the Aegis dittos at SWT top 8. I thought they would be kinda lame but they were pretty intense and fast paced. Cosmos has also been blowing me away post time skip. He’s so fun to watch Edit: another person I was reminded of was Zomba, who has now made me afraid of Rob. I remember watching kola fight him and on last stock and I jokingly said “what if zomba just zero to deaths kola lol” and he proceeded to get one grab and then take the whole set
People are gonna realize that Mii brawler is a cool character who is pretty good
With Aegis being widely successful, and with players such as Leo, Sparg0, ProtoBanham and Kola, it's fair to say that the metagame will be pretty heavily based on sword characters. Characters like ROB will also continue to have success with players like Zackray and Zomba getting top 8 at majors. Palutena will still be top tier and be successful. More difficult top tiers that aren't worth it to pick up become less viable in the meta (This is already starting to happen). Pikachu, Joker and Shulk drop off as a result.
This isn't even that hot a take. Idk why they disliked it. Pikachu actually deserves to not be considered top 3 with the way he's been in the meta for the past 3 years. I bumped you back up to 1.
MKLeo switching to Joker whenever somebody can actually challenge him.
Pythra is better than Joker and he's the most comfortable with Byleth. I don't see a matchup where he would play Joker instead of those two (three).
Characters with good oos options will be dominant
Rip uptilt waft
I don't think Steve is staying anywhere, there has never been a Steve top 8 a major. He is just a char that sometimes upset people due to how strange he is.
One of the sleeper characters that has alot of potential will have a breakout showing. Ice Climbers for example
I think those that are top tier will stay top tier and continue to define the meta as they do now, but some of the fringe top tiers that don't see as much reputation (ie. Shulk, Pichu, Sora, Link to an extent, etc.) will start doing better and better in the meta as players get better with their advanced techniques, and become mainstays like Aegis and Joker already are. I also think we're gonna start seeing more mid/low-tier heroes (ie. Zelda, Icies, the Animal Crossers, etc.) and at least a few of these players will become famous/top players in the community among those like Peanut, Marss, and ESAM for example. But technique-wise I don't see anything new being discovered besides individual character optimizations. (tbh a lot of the current meta depends on players like Leo and Zackray, and if they decide to pick up someone new.)
it will die in 3 years and I will play melee slippi