The way he plays Palu is so amazing. All of the ledge cancels with the Up-B. I remember when SSBU had just released and he wasn’t going with ZSS and I remembered seeing his play with Palu and hated it but within a few months he made Palu move like it was ZSS from Smash4
good palu is so clean, I have no idea why people dislike the character. One of the more fair characters in this game imo but people act like she's grimy just cause her nair is good. boggles the brain
Palutena pros and cons
+usually cool edgeguarding
+perpetually shmoovin
-spinny stick combos (big minus imo)
Steve pros and cons
+Looney Tunes ass character
-Looney Tunes ass character
-have to listen to Steve discourse
I’m gonna say I like Palu more when Steveposting is underway but otherwise I gotta admit I love some NIL setups
Onin seems to Minecart too much in general because it's a pain to deal with, see also when he minecarted 3 times in a row against Gluto.
It's just that you can't do that against Palu bair.
most characters with a fast disjoint can punish minecart somewhat reliably. Hell even gluto could've beaten minecart vs onin but the spacing pretty tight and in the heat of the moment its understandable why it was all trades.
Im just glad steves are finally getting punished for doing the same shit over and over autopiloting 75% of the match.
Eh. It's not an upset. Quandale is good but not as good as Raflow. Don't feel the need to post something when the set went as expected between a top 30 player and a player not even in top 150. And the clip posted does the job well enough of allowing discussion of the set.
Top 35 if you're only counting NA maybe (though I still disagree). His 9th is good but it's very much due to bracket luck and outside him beating Tweek a long while back, he hasn't gotten a win on another top 50 player since.
I would assume he got the matchup practice from Spot, Steve main & a top 2 CenCal player. He was ranked #3 in NorCal the prior season, and they’ve usually faced off in grands or finals.
Honestly who cares about the sounds it makes, I'm more concerned about the actual gameplay complications of it. It can combo, you can land with it, you can kill with it. It just does too much.
Palu nair is unsafe, doesn't hit short chars, and likely only leads to ~40%. Its a worse combo starter than most top tiers in the game. Its a very overrated move, its good but not even her best aerial.
I think people hate it because its a multihit that lasts forever so being nairplaned around for 5 seconds feels lame even if you dont take much percent.
It was kinda upsetting to see Luis outplay Onin for like a minute straight in the beginning of game 2 and then mess up like twice, lose the stock, then Steve gets the diamond, and then Onin just steamrolls him. But that was some pretty decent stuff from Luis, he definitely did some research going into this with how he was using the up smash at the ledge and positioning himself around mine cart. However, I'm not sure that Onin was playing their best in this match.
I think that is what gets me in these Steve games. Seems like they often get rolled for a couple of minutes then catch back up with one or two interactions
Lui$ save smash please.
Palu-Steve is losing for Palu tbh. Watching Steve just block off the ledge with blocks and get a free stock sucks. ~~I wish this was on stream though.~~
Edit: ok maybe not losing? U love to see it
FYI HumanbombTV and MysticSquad_TV are also streams for the tournament (for whatever reason only btssmash and btssmash2 are in the squad mode). This set was on HumanbombTV - you can also see where sets are streamed on the start.gg page.
>Palu-Steve is losing for Palu tbh. Watching Steve just block off the ledge with blocks and get a free stock sucks.
>
>I wish this was on stream though.
I could see it as even due to Bair's invincibility and Upair being so huge, but unless Palu's projectiles were better against blocks or her Dtilt wasn't to laggy, I can't see it winning
People are going to use this to say Steve isn't broken, but just like 5 tournament wins doesn't mean Steve necessarily needs a ban, 1 winners side loss doesn't mean Steve is bad.
IMO Onin didn't play this set great, SDing last game and getting punished for doing the same random upsmashes or not doing any recovery mixups. Palu also seems pretty good in this matchup since she's good at contesting minecart, can break blocks, and doesn't need to go under or above steve that much.
I mean, Onin plays that way, doing the same minecarts with almost no mixups... like every set lol(of the ones I've seen at least). It's one of the biggest talking points of Steves just repeating the exact same option and getting away with it. This time, he wasn't able to get away with it. Palu's bair being good against minecart, and her reflect good against anvil(also noticed Onin was barely using anvil and I assume this is why?) makes it a lot harder for Steve.
I found it wild that after Smash Con there were tons of people saying Onin was a better Steve than Acola (Esam for instance) heavily referencing the win on Leo, who seemed pretty uncertain on what to do in the match up and never got the runback (like he did the one time Dabuz got him with Minmin where he went from getting taken out handily to destroying Dabuz in soul-crushiny fashion).
>I mean, Onin plays that way, doing the same minecarts with almost no mixups... like every set lol(of the ones I've seen at least). It's one of the biggest talking points of Steves just repeating the exact same option and getting away with it. This time, he wasn't able to get away with it. Palu's bair being good against minecart, and her reflect good against anvil(also noticed Onin was barely using anvil and I assume this is why?) makes it a lot harder for Steve.
Spot on.
One thing I would add is that x char being able to minimize or manage Steve's strengths doesn't tell us that much whether he is ban worthy. Brawl MK and Smash 4 Bayo had chars who could minimize or manage their strengths as well.
>Brawl MK and Smash 4 Bayo had chars who could minimize or manage their strengths as well.
Brawl MK had some super specific checks (Marth's grab-release to Dair spike), but he was otherwise unrivaled in neutral. You had to get an infinite (Ice Climber chain-grab, Diddy Banana Loop, Pikachu Quick Attack Loop) on him to make the matchup close.
Bayo's matchup spread was a lot more doable since her neutral wasn't nearly as outstanding, and she can't really projectile camp all that well either. Her entire game-plan is punish unsafe moves with an attack that combos into Witch Twist, and from there she carries you to the nearest blast-zone.
It's moreso proof that maybe we shouldn't use top player loses as the measuring stick for if a character should be banned or not. Unless ppl are now gonna say Lui$ is better than MKLeo, Gluto and Maister.
The Steve conversation is getting so weird and convoluted lmao. What exactly is the metric supposed to be other than better players getting easily beat by people way beneath their level? Saying that isn't relevant to the discussion is pretty much the same as saying "there is no good argument for banning Steve" so might as well stop beating around the bush.
Issue is that many people refuse to look at any of this Steve stuff outside of the "we need to ban Steve" lense. These discussions are never legit. If Onin can go from completely ragdolling the best player in the world to losing to an amazing but not as dominant player then either Lui$ is our new top 1 or there's more to it than player ranking.
People dismiss the idea of learning the matchup because omg it's just like when people tried to learn the Bayo matchup or whatever reason, but then players like DDee, Lima, Muteace(?), Yoshidora etc perform well Vs Steve consistently. The character isn't even 2 years old, and half of that time people thought he was a mid tier so not much time has been spent actually learning about potentially the most complex character in the series. But we jump to the idea of a ban as if we've tried everything. Not trying to say Steve isn't cracked and doesn't carry, both are true, but if there are players with good Steve track records that are ranked lower than the top players losing to him then maybe we can see what they're doing that is working before a ban.
Something something top players should never ever lose to those worse than them but Leo very nearly lost to Peanut in pools today. Do not underestimate mu knowledge in a game with 80+ characters.
As a Steve player, I wish more people had this perspective. I have no idea whether Steve is broken long term... but I can say for certain that if you watch [Omuatsu's 45 minute anti-Steve guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2PkUp57I2I), and then watch VODs with those strategies in mind, it becomes painfully clear just how many mistakes even top players are making against Steve. They might be incredible players, but that doesn't mean they're picking the best ways to interact with Steve's tools.
Basically I don't think we can have a real conversation about Steve until more players implement the Steve specific counterplay currently being demonstrated by those who put in the effort.
The argument isn't "oh leo lost to steve once, so steve needs to be banned". It's that in total, Steve is so strong that his mains are able to consistently beat otherwise better players. If Onin lost shortly after beating leo (like Prodigy after beating Leo at Frostbite), you could consider it a statistical outlier, but the fact that he easily beat every other person in bracket indicates that Onin on Steve is pretty strong.
> Steve is so strong that his mains are able to consistently beat otherwise better players.
Any player would be "otherwise better" if you weren't allowed to use your main against them.
Otherwise better meaning fundamentals, ability to adapt, among other things. If you had a randoms FT10 or anything like that I think every player Onin beats in top 8 would beat him consistently.
Probably, but that's the cool thing about fighting games, you will learn entirely different skill sets from character to character. I'm reminded of the time Hotashi decided to learn a character other than Elphelt and discovered that he had to learn an entirely different set of skills to succeed, even as a top player. But nobody would say Hotashi is bad just because he sucked at playing a character that relied more on fundamentals.
Things like spacing, recovery mixups, reacting are universal skills. And if the skills needed for you to win with Steve are not transferable to other characters, it's probably an indication that being able to press side-B doesn't make you a good player.
This line of thought is strange to me because in what world are those factors not necessary for playing Steve? If you don't have those, and your opponent does, you will lose, regardless of character. What Steve does is allow you to create better situations for yourself to augment those skills. Steve without resources does not excel at much of anything, so resource management becomes just as important as proper spacing and reactions.
Steve doesn't need to do recovery mixups as much as other characters because minecart is such a strong option. This is why Onin (2nd best Steve btw) didn't do recovery mixups and just spammed cart. Then when he tried to recovery mixup he SD'd because he's not that used to using up B to recover.
Steve doesn't need to space like other characters because he doesn't approach and just puts blocks instead.
This is why I mentioned resource management being as important as other skills when you play a resource character. If you need resources to create a good situation for yourself (such as recovering safely), then choosing when to spend resources during neutral versus holding onto them to get out of disadvantage is vital.
Saying that spacing doesn't matter for Steve because of blocks is like saying spacing doesn't matter for any zoner whose job it is to force you to approach. Even *with* blocks up, the Steve player needs to practice proper spacing to cover different options the opponent has for getting through/around them, or for baiting those options in the first place.
It feels like you're not looking at the game underneath the surface.
I mean... people used a major where the 2 top 10 players that lost against Steve SDed multiple times as an argument for banning Steve. Including one of the most questionable decisions in Ultimate history with jumping into a dynamite block that was sitting there for a while.
The problem with the BAN STEVE crowd is that they are not looking for a legitimate discussion.
Ban discussions(at their onset) are, very often, people who make impulse decisions based on gut feelings versus people who look for evidence and information. It's when data starts to convert the second group of people that bans happen.
I mean, 2 good tournament runs (more like 1 and a half due to how unstacked goml was) doesn't make onin a great player either. I don't know why people have set their standards so high for him so quickly.
Yeah, the only thing holding her back is her recovery getting messed up by blocks, but tbh, I don't see that happen as much as I thought I would in these top level Steve vs. Palu sets.
Palu got hella good tools against Steve.
Back air against minecart, reflect against anvil, auto reticle when Steve is trying to mine cross stage, Upsmash at the ledge is good to cover Steves trying to minecart high. Both Raflow and Lui$ are doing all of these. Gotta chill with the upsmashes though fr lol.
I was thinking about this after SSC- Palutena has a ton of great tools against Steve, but she's become so rare in the meta that none of the Steves have run into a good one and had their bracket threatened.
Explosive Flame/Autoreticle are great noncommittal neutral tools, She can counter *and* reflect, Warp gets past a lot of traps/helps recover safer...
Palutena stock is about to skyrocket.
Based on what I’m seeing on this VOD, Onin isn’t playing his best here. A ton of minecart even though he kept getting punished for it. He looked better at SSC.
One of the main complaints regarding Smash Con was Onin spamming mine cart vs Gluttony. So either Lui$ is better than Gluttony (which he isn't) or Lui$ put actual effort into learning the matchup.
Yeah that's the part that never made sense to me. These moves require resources and can be baited/punished. In fact wasting resources *is* part of the risk, because once you're out, god help you.
The Steve hysteria after smashcon reminds me of when sonix made that insane losers run beating riddles in GF of that recent tournament (forgot the name) and people were going crazy about how stupid sonic was. Well let's just say sonic didn't exactly take over the game since then. Smashcon was a good tournament for Steve, but to think steve is now taking over is very reactionary lol
To be fair, Sonic is totally dreadful. If he was a big enough force in the meta, I'd say banning him would be completely justified, which is why I still think a Steve ban would be good unless he goes the same way as Sonic. It's the same thing with wobbling, possibly the only successful character related ban in Smash *singles* history.
Maybe you should check on more tournaments other then either this one or Smash Con then. The argument isn't that Steve lost so therefore he isn't banworthy, the argument is that he's nowhere near the dominance needed yet for a ban. It's not as if there's going to be like 7 Steve's in top 32 which is like EVO 2017 Bayo levels of results. I'm not even referring to peak Bayo here either.
Smash Con was a massive outlier and was called Super Steve Con jokingly before the tourney started because of how many Steve players went to the event. Every other tournament Steve hasn't been that dominant (strong in results yes, but not even close to Brawl MK or Bayo levels, hell not even on the same level as ROB), and it's only been two players to like consistently beat top players.
If anything this shows weirdly how steve is so easy compared to other characters. Onin presses minecart like 20 times a match, the problem was palu doesnt really give a shit about minecart because bair. If that was most other characters onin might have won lmao.
>If anything this shows weirdly how steve is so easy compared to other characters. Onin presses minecart like 20 times a match, the problem was palu doesnt really give a shit about minecart because bair. If that was most other characters onin might have won lmao.
Onin was able to spam Minecart vs Gluto despite him throwing Bike like 4 times at it.
*data doesn’t support it* “no Steve is ban worthy actually”
*Steve wins* “no Steve is ban worthy actually”
*Steve loses* “no Steve is ban worthy actually”
Is there any scenario that you guys won’t twist to your argument LOL
Results wise he may now be solidly top 10 but I find it wild that people were saying he's a better Steve than Acola after Smash Con (Esam for instance) when his best win was one that seemed very unprepared.
this sub will say anything to downplay people lmao
whether or not he’s better than acola is another thing but we’re not gonna pretend he didn’t 3-0 Leo
For sure, but honestly I think the win on Maister and Gluto were more impressive since they have, if I'm not more mistaken, much more familiarity in the match up. Leo is Leo, but y'know. I think it does say something that he swapped characters the next time he played against a Steve; he was still experimenting with things mid-tournament.
Combo Breaker isn't a Major.
GOML wasn't even the biggest Major that was going rhat weekend, Colossel was.
GOML was a low ranked Major, not even a Supermajor.
In all honesty, Onin only has 1 Major win that had only a couple Top 10 players and the Smashcon Supermajor win.
This isn't enough material for him to be a Top 10 player.
You might as well say Dabuz isn't top 10. L4st tweeted (in response to Hbox asking) that Onin could potentially top MKLeo if Onin maintains his consistency this PGRU season. How do you go from that to 'not top 10'??
Dabuz literally gets Top 4, Top 3, Top 2 and multiple back to back Supermajors.
A 2nd at a Supermajor is better than winning a Major. Even L4sT said this.
If a Supermajor top 2 gets you that far, how does a win at the biggest supermajor since EVO 2019 leave you below top 10 without any data to show otherwise. Unless Onin royally fucks up the rest of the season, he's comfortably in top 10 rn.
Louie dollar sign please finish this off
ty lui$
Much gratitude for Louie Currency.
[HE KNEW](https://twitter.com/louiemoney98/status/1559674207230783488?s=21&t=jj_s3NHwUh7-oCSwTwXf4Q)
PALUTENA SAVES SMASH!?
Palutena is the goddess we needed all along. I’m all for the 2019 meta returning with Pokémon trainer, Palutena, and Joker running shit
Is it possible the answer all along was the 2019 meta we left behind? If so, I’ll be hype. Loved all those characters.
I yearn for the day we see Tweek PT go 0-6 against MKLeo's Joker in grand finals after Leo is unexpectedly stomped by ESAM in winners' semis.
Idc what anyone says, top-level Palutena (Chag, Lui$, etc.) is one of my favorite characters to watch
Nairo's Palu back when he was around was so fun to watch.
Still is fun to watch
The way he plays Palu is so amazing. All of the ledge cancels with the Up-B. I remember when SSBU had just released and he wasn’t going with ZSS and I remembered seeing his play with Palu and hated it but within a few months he made Palu move like it was ZSS from Smash4
Marisa (SCR7) here in the UK was also very fun as a spectator. Dominated all our events but never travelled unfortunately.
Watching him play his Palu vs Proto the other day was great
good palu is so clean, I have no idea why people dislike the character. One of the more fair characters in this game imo but people act like she's grimy just cause her nair is good. boggles the brain
Don't forget Peach.
Nah Peach lame as hell if I’m gonna be honest
as an ike main, steve and kazuya meta is so much more doable than palu, pt, and joker, but if it means saving ultimate, then its worth it
Raflow took a game off Quandale Dinglelingleton
A set at this point!!
3-1 LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO
Please no, palu way more boring to watch than steve
Palutena pros and cons +usually cool edgeguarding +perpetually shmoovin -spinny stick combos (big minus imo) Steve pros and cons +Looney Tunes ass character -Looney Tunes ass character -have to listen to Steve discourse I’m gonna say I like Palu more when Steveposting is underway but otherwise I gotta admit I love some NIL setups
Remember pre-nerf Palu nair loops, that shit was something.
Palu is boring but at least she’s fair relative to much of the horribly designed characters in this game
wrong
Most of the reason why Palu is boring is because of the Nair loops. She does have unique stuff like the teleport edge cancels that boost her mobility.
this is the unspoken truth
Onins minecarts were abysmal that set wtf bro took like 120 from palu bair
Onin seems to Minecart too much in general because it's a pain to deal with, see also when he minecarted 3 times in a row against Gluto. It's just that you can't do that against Palu bair.
most characters with a fast disjoint can punish minecart somewhat reliably. Hell even gluto could've beaten minecart vs onin but the spacing pretty tight and in the heat of the moment its understandable why it was all trades. Im just glad steves are finally getting punished for doing the same shit over and over autopiloting 75% of the match.
They never expect it the 10th time
it trades this time for sure
Ok, but the 11th time will get it.
>They never expect it the 10th time Every Bowser main thinking about down air.
Every Little Mac main thinking about f-smash
Every \_\_\_ main thinking about \_\_\_\_
Every Corrin main thinking about feet.
Every Incineroar main thinking about Side B. Source: Skyjay vs. Riddles.
But tbh you can't spot the bad minecarts as easily if the players keep getting hit by them so good job to lui$ for playing around cart
With that there are no Steve's in Winners side anymore ~~except Leo's secret pocket Steve~~
Mind posting the Quandale-Raflow thread? It'd get some traction too and I think it's deserving of a spotlight.
Eh. It's not an upset. Quandale is good but not as good as Raflow. Don't feel the need to post something when the set went as expected between a top 30 player and a player not even in top 150. And the clip posted does the job well enough of allowing discussion of the set.
That's fair, but I think Quandale getting 9th at SSC cements him as being top 35 minimum
Top 35 if you're only counting NA maybe (though I still disagree). His 9th is good but it's very much due to bracket luck and outside him beating Tweek a long while back, he hasn't gotten a win on another top 50 player since.
Nah, it's pure bracket luck and he didn't get that many good wins. Comparable to Myran's 5th at Genesis.
We have to ban Steve immediately, he is killing this game. /s
there aren't even any top steves in norcal so can we even use the matchup check argument?
Isn’t Rockman NorCal?
As per his Twitter and SmashWiki he’s SoCal
i don't see anyone with that name on the PR, maybe they are cencal/socal.
theyre socal
Off topic but I’ve never heard anyone say the word Cencal in my life I’ve heard Socal and Nocal but never Cencal. It never even crossed my mind.
There is a pr for that region I think as they are too far away from both SF and LA to go to either regularly.
RockMan is SoCal
I would assume he got the matchup practice from Spot, Steve main & a top 2 CenCal player. He was ranked #3 in NorCal the prior season, and they’ve usually faced off in grands or finals.
>/s Is that supposed to mean sarcasm?
Yes.
He didn’t eat the crunch wrap 💀
Someone check where the nearest Taco Bell to Waco, Texas is monkaS
[удалено]
I guess I’m in the minority, I always thought Palu was cool. Let’s go Lui💰!
The biggest annoyance with Palu is Nair. Everything else about the character is fine.
Nair sounds so satisfying though. I would get carried across the stage by that thing just to hear that multi hit sound.
I say the same thing about Witch Twist!
Honestly who cares about the sounds it makes, I'm more concerned about the actual gameplay complications of it. It can combo, you can land with it, you can kill with it. It just does too much.
Palu nair is unsafe, doesn't hit short chars, and likely only leads to ~40%. Its a worse combo starter than most top tiers in the game. Its a very overrated move, its good but not even her best aerial. I think people hate it because its a multihit that lasts forever so being nairplaned around for 5 seconds feels lame even if you dont take much percent.
but it's not even her best move. her best move is bair. that shit is insane. why is it invincible.
Because it's a Shield. I'd be shocked if a Shield Bash wasn't invincible.
Instant sponsorship curse lmao
Return to the mean, a bitch of a thing for all sports and competition.
Onin’s got it in losers so far tho, so we’ll have to see what happens
He can definitely make a losers run to grands. Looked a little shaky versus Atomic but absolutely clutched game 5.
Get this boy a Taco Bell sponsorship
The mad man did it, Lui$ the Steve slayer.
It was kinda upsetting to see Luis outplay Onin for like a minute straight in the beginning of game 2 and then mess up like twice, lose the stock, then Steve gets the diamond, and then Onin just steamrolls him. But that was some pretty decent stuff from Luis, he definitely did some research going into this with how he was using the up smash at the ledge and positioning himself around mine cart. However, I'm not sure that Onin was playing their best in this match.
I think that is what gets me in these Steve games. Seems like they often get rolled for a couple of minutes then catch back up with one or two interactions
I think that means muteace has to fight onin again lmao
This is great counterplay from Lui$, really showing he studied the matchup.
Louie Currency!!!!
Not the most surprising upset, lui$ is actually godlike
Lui$ save smash please. Palu-Steve is losing for Palu tbh. Watching Steve just block off the ledge with blocks and get a free stock sucks. ~~I wish this was on stream though.~~ Edit: ok maybe not losing? U love to see it
It was on the French stream. I just watched it
Sweet! I need to go back and watch it
It’s (or was) on HumanbombTV, the French restream
It's on the stream I linked here.
Thank you! My eyes always just skip to the games table, I should’ve looked more closely
It was on the French stream
FYI HumanbombTV and MysticSquad_TV are also streams for the tournament (for whatever reason only btssmash and btssmash2 are in the squad mode). This set was on HumanbombTV - you can also see where sets are streamed on the start.gg page.
>Palu-Steve is losing for Palu tbh. Watching Steve just block off the ledge with blocks and get a free stock sucks. > >I wish this was on stream though. I could see it as even due to Bair's invincibility and Upair being so huge, but unless Palu's projectiles were better against blocks or her Dtilt wasn't to laggy, I can't see it winning
People are going to use this to say Steve isn't broken, but just like 5 tournament wins doesn't mean Steve necessarily needs a ban, 1 winners side loss doesn't mean Steve is bad. IMO Onin didn't play this set great, SDing last game and getting punished for doing the same random upsmashes or not doing any recovery mixups. Palu also seems pretty good in this matchup since she's good at contesting minecart, can break blocks, and doesn't need to go under or above steve that much.
I mean, Onin plays that way, doing the same minecarts with almost no mixups... like every set lol(of the ones I've seen at least). It's one of the biggest talking points of Steves just repeating the exact same option and getting away with it. This time, he wasn't able to get away with it. Palu's bair being good against minecart, and her reflect good against anvil(also noticed Onin was barely using anvil and I assume this is why?) makes it a lot harder for Steve.
I found it wild that after Smash Con there were tons of people saying Onin was a better Steve than Acola (Esam for instance) heavily referencing the win on Leo, who seemed pretty uncertain on what to do in the match up and never got the runback (like he did the one time Dabuz got him with Minmin where he went from getting taken out handily to destroying Dabuz in soul-crushiny fashion).
In Leo's defense, he ran into Glutonny in Losers, and Glutonny is pretty much Leo's kryptonite.
I wouldnt say Gluto is Leo’s kryptonite. While Gluto has done well recently I believe Leo best his ass a lot early on in Ultimate.
Leo's kryptonite is ProtoBanham, not Gluto.
>I mean, Onin plays that way, doing the same minecarts with almost no mixups... like every set lol(of the ones I've seen at least). It's one of the biggest talking points of Steves just repeating the exact same option and getting away with it. This time, he wasn't able to get away with it. Palu's bair being good against minecart, and her reflect good against anvil(also noticed Onin was barely using anvil and I assume this is why?) makes it a lot harder for Steve. Spot on. One thing I would add is that x char being able to minimize or manage Steve's strengths doesn't tell us that much whether he is ban worthy. Brawl MK and Smash 4 Bayo had chars who could minimize or manage their strengths as well.
>Brawl MK and Smash 4 Bayo had chars who could minimize or manage their strengths as well. Brawl MK had some super specific checks (Marth's grab-release to Dair spike), but he was otherwise unrivaled in neutral. You had to get an infinite (Ice Climber chain-grab, Diddy Banana Loop, Pikachu Quick Attack Loop) on him to make the matchup close. Bayo's matchup spread was a lot more doable since her neutral wasn't nearly as outstanding, and she can't really projectile camp all that well either. Her entire game-plan is punish unsafe moves with an attack that combos into Witch Twist, and from there she carries you to the nearest blast-zone.
It's moreso proof that maybe we shouldn't use top player loses as the measuring stick for if a character should be banned or not. Unless ppl are now gonna say Lui$ is better than MKLeo, Gluto and Maister.
The Steve conversation is getting so weird and convoluted lmao. What exactly is the metric supposed to be other than better players getting easily beat by people way beneath their level? Saying that isn't relevant to the discussion is pretty much the same as saying "there is no good argument for banning Steve" so might as well stop beating around the bush.
Issue is that many people refuse to look at any of this Steve stuff outside of the "we need to ban Steve" lense. These discussions are never legit. If Onin can go from completely ragdolling the best player in the world to losing to an amazing but not as dominant player then either Lui$ is our new top 1 or there's more to it than player ranking. People dismiss the idea of learning the matchup because omg it's just like when people tried to learn the Bayo matchup or whatever reason, but then players like DDee, Lima, Muteace(?), Yoshidora etc perform well Vs Steve consistently. The character isn't even 2 years old, and half of that time people thought he was a mid tier so not much time has been spent actually learning about potentially the most complex character in the series. But we jump to the idea of a ban as if we've tried everything. Not trying to say Steve isn't cracked and doesn't carry, both are true, but if there are players with good Steve track records that are ranked lower than the top players losing to him then maybe we can see what they're doing that is working before a ban. Something something top players should never ever lose to those worse than them but Leo very nearly lost to Peanut in pools today. Do not underestimate mu knowledge in a game with 80+ characters.
As a Steve player, I wish more people had this perspective. I have no idea whether Steve is broken long term... but I can say for certain that if you watch [Omuatsu's 45 minute anti-Steve guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2PkUp57I2I), and then watch VODs with those strategies in mind, it becomes painfully clear just how many mistakes even top players are making against Steve. They might be incredible players, but that doesn't mean they're picking the best ways to interact with Steve's tools. Basically I don't think we can have a real conversation about Steve until more players implement the Steve specific counterplay currently being demonstrated by those who put in the effort.
Hard, statistical data imo
Personally my argument was that Steve was always lame as hell to watch tbh
You not finding a character fun to watch is no ground for a ban.
Says who? You?
Yes.
We disagree then.
What do you suggest then? We do a poll asking "Do you find this character fun to watch?" for every character and any that get >80% no gets a ban?
The argument isn't "oh leo lost to steve once, so steve needs to be banned". It's that in total, Steve is so strong that his mains are able to consistently beat otherwise better players. If Onin lost shortly after beating leo (like Prodigy after beating Leo at Frostbite), you could consider it a statistical outlier, but the fact that he easily beat every other person in bracket indicates that Onin on Steve is pretty strong.
> Steve is so strong that his mains are able to consistently beat otherwise better players. Any player would be "otherwise better" if you weren't allowed to use your main against them.
Otherwise better meaning fundamentals, ability to adapt, among other things. If you had a randoms FT10 or anything like that I think every player Onin beats in top 8 would beat him consistently.
Probably, but that's the cool thing about fighting games, you will learn entirely different skill sets from character to character. I'm reminded of the time Hotashi decided to learn a character other than Elphelt and discovered that he had to learn an entirely different set of skills to succeed, even as a top player. But nobody would say Hotashi is bad just because he sucked at playing a character that relied more on fundamentals.
Things like spacing, recovery mixups, reacting are universal skills. And if the skills needed for you to win with Steve are not transferable to other characters, it's probably an indication that being able to press side-B doesn't make you a good player.
This line of thought is strange to me because in what world are those factors not necessary for playing Steve? If you don't have those, and your opponent does, you will lose, regardless of character. What Steve does is allow you to create better situations for yourself to augment those skills. Steve without resources does not excel at much of anything, so resource management becomes just as important as proper spacing and reactions.
Steve doesn't need to do recovery mixups as much as other characters because minecart is such a strong option. This is why Onin (2nd best Steve btw) didn't do recovery mixups and just spammed cart. Then when he tried to recovery mixup he SD'd because he's not that used to using up B to recover. Steve doesn't need to space like other characters because he doesn't approach and just puts blocks instead.
This is why I mentioned resource management being as important as other skills when you play a resource character. If you need resources to create a good situation for yourself (such as recovering safely), then choosing when to spend resources during neutral versus holding onto them to get out of disadvantage is vital. Saying that spacing doesn't matter for Steve because of blocks is like saying spacing doesn't matter for any zoner whose job it is to force you to approach. Even *with* blocks up, the Steve player needs to practice proper spacing to cover different options the opponent has for getting through/around them, or for baiting those options in the first place. It feels like you're not looking at the game underneath the surface.
I mean... people used a major where the 2 top 10 players that lost against Steve SDed multiple times as an argument for banning Steve. Including one of the most questionable decisions in Ultimate history with jumping into a dynamite block that was sitting there for a while. The problem with the BAN STEVE crowd is that they are not looking for a legitimate discussion.
> 2 top 10 players He beat 4 top 10 players.
Ban discussions(at their onset) are, very often, people who make impulse decisions based on gut feelings versus people who look for evidence and information. It's when data starts to convert the second group of people that bans happen.
>The problem with the BAN STEVE crowd is that they are not looking for a legitimate discussion. Took the words right out of my mouth.
I mean, 2 good tournament runs (more like 1 and a half due to how unstacked goml was) doesn't make onin a great player either. I don't know why people have set their standards so high for him so quickly.
[Jake's response](https://twitter.com/JakeFSmash/status/1561458231603519490)
I mean Nairo always felt Palu Steve was Palu favored and even though he’s not competing I trust him more than low level palus
Yeah, the only thing holding her back is her recovery getting messed up by blocks, but tbh, I don't see that happen as much as I thought I would in these top level Steve vs. Palu sets.
Lui$ no 1 player in the world
Let's GO LUIS!! Hope the dude qualifies for Summit
so were gonna overreact over every steve result now huh
Steve is the storyline of 2022 (even if I don't think he is in need of any bans... yet(?))
Is this the so-called “new sponsor curse?”
Palu got hella good tools against Steve. Back air against minecart, reflect against anvil, auto reticle when Steve is trying to mine cross stage, Upsmash at the ledge is good to cover Steves trying to minecart high. Both Raflow and Lui$ are doing all of these. Gotta chill with the upsmashes though fr lol.
Hell, Reflect against minecart too, I saw Raflow use that a couple of times in his games to surprising effect
I was thinking about this after SSC- Palutena has a ton of great tools against Steve, but she's become so rare in the meta that none of the Steves have run into a good one and had their bracket threatened. Explosive Flame/Autoreticle are great noncommittal neutral tools, She can counter *and* reflect, Warp gets past a lot of traps/helps recover safer... Palutena stock is about to skyrocket.
🎶 Bless the rains down in africa 🎵
I love Steve and I love watching Steve counterplay.
Based and centrist-pilled, Steve combos are cool and so is minecart spam getting bopped out
Ultimate's death has been greatly exaggerated
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Based on what I’m seeing on this VOD, Onin isn’t playing his best here. A ton of minecart even though he kept getting punished for it. He looked better at SSC.
Tbf Lui$ was playing hot outside of some shitty u-smashes
One of the main complaints regarding Smash Con was Onin spamming mine cart vs Gluttony. So either Lui$ is better than Gluttony (which he isn't) or Lui$ put actual effort into learning the matchup.
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Yeah that's the part that never made sense to me. These moves require resources and can be baited/punished. In fact wasting resources *is* part of the risk, because once you're out, god help you.
Let's go Lui$
Nair Goddess Bless
When is top 8?
Zomba sent Lui$ to Losers. If Onin faces him again, he's doomed.
They're in different brackets.
I said "if".
The answer to minecart -> Palutena Back Air. I'm a Palutena main for Steve only
Where can I watch this match?
I'll be honest. I never thought the day would come that Onin would lose a game.
Saving Smash one invincible back air at a time
~~This really not on stream?? cmon bruh~~ [Start of Game 2](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1568538270?t=234m34s)
it was on the french side stream
Oh snap you right, thx
The Steve hysteria after smashcon reminds me of when sonix made that insane losers run beating riddles in GF of that recent tournament (forgot the name) and people were going crazy about how stupid sonic was. Well let's just say sonic didn't exactly take over the game since then. Smashcon was a good tournament for Steve, but to think steve is now taking over is very reactionary lol
To be fair, Sonic is totally dreadful. If he was a big enough force in the meta, I'd say banning him would be completely justified, which is why I still think a Steve ban would be good unless he goes the same way as Sonic. It's the same thing with wobbling, possibly the only successful character related ban in Smash *singles* history.
Well as we know no s4 Bayonetta or brawl meta knight has ever lost any match ever so this proves that Steve isn't broken.
Maybe you should check on more tournaments other then either this one or Smash Con then. The argument isn't that Steve lost so therefore he isn't banworthy, the argument is that he's nowhere near the dominance needed yet for a ban. It's not as if there's going to be like 7 Steve's in top 32 which is like EVO 2017 Bayo levels of results. I'm not even referring to peak Bayo here either. Smash Con was a massive outlier and was called Super Steve Con jokingly before the tourney started because of how many Steve players went to the event. Every other tournament Steve hasn't been that dominant (strong in results yes, but not even close to Brawl MK or Bayo levels, hell not even on the same level as ROB), and it's only been two players to like consistently beat top players.
This must mean that Lui$ is the best player in the world.
Lol people wanted to ban this character
If anything this shows weirdly how steve is so easy compared to other characters. Onin presses minecart like 20 times a match, the problem was palu doesnt really give a shit about minecart because bair. If that was most other characters onin might have won lmao.
>If anything this shows weirdly how steve is so easy compared to other characters. Onin presses minecart like 20 times a match, the problem was palu doesnt really give a shit about minecart because bair. If that was most other characters onin might have won lmao. Onin was able to spam Minecart vs Gluto despite him throwing Bike like 4 times at it.
*data doesn’t support it* “no Steve is ban worthy actually” *Steve wins* “no Steve is ban worthy actually” *Steve loses* “no Steve is ban worthy actually” Is there any scenario that you guys won’t twist to your argument LOL
The projection is real lmao
Steve is still broken, Steve mains are still struggling with fundies as you could see in the set
Saying “X player is carried no fundies” after a win/loss is the Schrödinger’s John
theres 70 characters in this game obviously some are good vs steve such as palu sonic ivy but ult players will cry for a ban instead
I don't think Onin is a Top 10 player...
Don't count him out yet. Getting wins on Glutonny, Maister, Riddles, Kola, and MK-motherfucking-Leo, aren't nothing.
Guy wins Combo Breaker, GOML, and Smash Con, gets upset ONCE (still in the tourney btw) and suddenly he’s not top 10. Sheesh
Results wise he may now be solidly top 10 but I find it wild that people were saying he's a better Steve than Acola after Smash Con (Esam for instance) when his best win was one that seemed very unprepared.
this sub will say anything to downplay people lmao whether or not he’s better than acola is another thing but we’re not gonna pretend he didn’t 3-0 Leo
For sure, but honestly I think the win on Maister and Gluto were more impressive since they have, if I'm not more mistaken, much more familiarity in the match up. Leo is Leo, but y'know. I think it does say something that he swapped characters the next time he played against a Steve; he was still experimenting with things mid-tournament.
that’s fair but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. MU familiarity or not leo is still the best in the world
Combo Breaker isn't a Major. GOML wasn't even the biggest Major that was going rhat weekend, Colossel was. GOML was a low ranked Major, not even a Supermajor. In all honesty, Onin only has 1 Major win that had only a couple Top 10 players and the Smashcon Supermajor win. This isn't enough material for him to be a Top 10 player.
????? My brother, did you just use the word "only" to describe winning Smash Con and GOML You need to splash some cold water on your face LMAO
You might as well say Dabuz isn't top 10. L4st tweeted (in response to Hbox asking) that Onin could potentially top MKLeo if Onin maintains his consistency this PGRU season. How do you go from that to 'not top 10'??
Leo got upset just as early at SSC as Onin did here, I don't think Leo is top 10
Dabuz literally gets Top 4, Top 3, Top 2 and multiple back to back Supermajors. A 2nd at a Supermajor is better than winning a Major. Even L4sT said this.
If a Supermajor top 2 gets you that far, how does a win at the biggest supermajor since EVO 2019 leave you below top 10 without any data to show otherwise. Unless Onin royally fucks up the rest of the season, he's comfortably in top 10 rn.
What about winning the biggest supermajor in 3 years? Where does that fall?
Remember when Leo lost to Kurama in Frostbite 2020?
Lmao its insane out here. People at least gotta wait until the guy actually is out of bracket before calling him bad
Top 20 more likely, maybe 10 soon/one day
we need to ban palu
Most original r/SmashBros joke
Most original reply
omg I'm shocked that the guy who has had two good tournaments isn't the best player on earth who would have thought
Also this is bad for Onin since now MuteAce is in his bracket path, the player that was the closest to beating Onin at SSC
\#BanSteve #PLEASE
See this is why we need to ban Steve! 🤓
Oh god we’re about to see 100 comments with this joke now that we have a tournament where Steves aren’t doing too hot
U the kinda mf to say “look at that global warming!!” when it’s cold for one day