Low Tiers and The Tournament Scene

M.K · Feb 16, 2009

How do these two posts by a Smash Back Room member make you feel?

First question: Why does this matter? I'll answer my own question, it really doesn't. I'm in the SBR and I helped vote on this list. Everyone was pressuring for a tier list, people wanted one soooo bad so we worked our hardest to come up with a list that was satisfactory to most people. We focused most of our efforts dissecting the top tiers, mid tiers etc...Checking to see who beats who, why? What the most frequent top tier matchups are, how they relate to each other, etc. We tried pretty hard to cover the rest of the cast too, however, in order to get a satisfactory list, we focused our efforts on the characters that...hmm...how do I say this...

ACTUALLY MATTER!

As time goes by and the tier list is revised, we'll probably gain more perspective into lower tiers, AKA the characters that don't matter. Until then, respect the fact that we choose to evaluate higher tiers more, since they matter more.

Not gonna lie, it's not really the SBR that doesn't care about low tiers, it's pretty much just me LOL.

Either way though, even if I mained a low tier and I WASN'T in the SBR, I'd still prefer a tier list focused more towards accurate high tiers, rather than low tiers. Or to put another way, most of the effort focused on high tiers.

But yeah, I think low tiers are pretty stupid to be honest. BUT! Not as stupid as mid characters trying to be good, that have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Example: Rob. Here we have a character that's not really bad, but not really too great either. He camps a lot and tilts stuff, Dsmash, you guys know the drill.

What's really stupid is all the R.O.B. stuff that is so standard and everyone uses, it doesn't take skill and people should not even BOTHER playing with the character because of it. Like, when you're in the air and R.O.B. throws out a neutral air to go through your airdodge. I want to just pause the game and tell the person:

Listen man. Your character's not that good. You just did something that takes absolutely no skill, but you probably think you're good for it. To be honest, you should probably just play Meta Knight and spam Tornado, because it's essentially the same thing.

I would much, much rather fight a tourney of all Meta Knights that know what they are doing, then a tourney full of diversity. It's like, why bother playing such STUPID characters? Pick the top tiers and get it over with, ****.

Yes, I'm being mostly completely serious with this post.

Edit: PK Nintendo: I'm pretty much the only person ever with this attitude. Don't think the whole SBR is like this.

Also, I play Pokemon Trainer for fun, so it's not like I don't understand the concepts of low tiers. However, I acknowledge the fact that my low tier character is absolutely worthless, and never try to do anything with him besides be funny with him/fun teams matches.

Personally, I am sickened. With all the complaining about the "narrow" viable tournament options in a competitive world, here we have the authority of the Smash Competitive scene telling us that "narrow" is all we are going to ever get. Why stop playing Low Tiers in comparison to High Tiers?
Simple Reason: The High Tiers are more defined (stated in the quotes) while the Low Tiers are shrouded in ambiguity. Who knows what they are capable of? Aren't they just "the leftovers"?

The tier list might as well be :

Top Tier
High Tier
Everyone Else

So here are a few questions to ponder:

What can you, as a low tier character mainer, do to increase your character's level of respect in the tournament scene?
What can we, as a community, do to help the SBR form accurate tier lists with knowledge on EVERY character and not those "deemed viable"?

deepseadiva · Feb 16, 2009

Who is this, or must we ask PK?

Otherwise, the entire thing is personal opinion of course, but the whole ROB nair thing is really scrubby...

ftl · Feb 16, 2009

As a low tier character mainer, to increase your character's level of respect, you can get good and win; if you start placing high in big tournaments and start beating the top players despite the "low tier" you're maining, that may change people's minds on whether your low tier is actually low tier.

Even better, figure out ways to play the low tier character to get around his weaknesses, and have people all across the country start consistently placing with him.

Rhox · Feb 16, 2009

It is my sincerest hope that the two people who posted those comments are one day completely ***** in a tournament by a Captain Falcon.

Unlikely, but oh how sweet the irony would be.

Brave Hippo · Feb 16, 2009

ftl said:
As a low tier character mainer, you can get good and win; if you start placing high in big tournaments and start beating the top players despite the "low tier" you're maining, that may change people's minds on whether your low tier is actually low tier.

Even better, figure out ways to play the low tier character to get around his weaknesses, and have people all across the country start consistently placing with him.

Making a statment like that and having a Falco icon by your post is pretty ironic, dont you think? As much as I disagree with this persons opinion, we cant start flaming them because they gave out there thoughts in a chat room. I think we should just end this thread right now, before heads start rollin'.

M.K · Feb 16, 2009

Brave Hippo said:
Making a statment like that and having a Falco icon by your post is pretty ironic, dont you think? As much as I disagree with this persons opinion, we cant start flaming them because they gave out there thoughts in a chat room. I think we should just end this thread right now, before heads start rollin'.

Not just a chat room, but the Official SBR Tier List 2.0 thread.

Just check pages 179-181.

Da-D-Mon-109 · Feb 16, 2009

I agree, despite that I use Lucario, that focus shouldn't be on just "high tiers". Low tier characters (such as another favorite, Mario) should work together on learning new techniques and figuring out how to destroy the higher tiers. Then, they should go out and prove it, like a revolution, only with Brawl. LOWER TIERS! BE THE AMERICAS TO OUR BRITAIN, AND SHOW US THAT YOU CAN STILL STAND TALL AND KICK BUTT! Except against Lucario and I. I'm willing to fight you all.

But seriously, get out there and show all of those who think you are bad what you can really do!

Neon Ness · Feb 16, 2009

Being shrouded in ambiguity gives us the advantage of surprise. A lot of people don't know what a good Sonic or Ness might look like in a tournament. But everyone knows the Meta Knight matchup because he's at the top, and it's almost a necessity to know how to bring one down in a tournament. Less matchup experience will only get us so far, though. Even though the concept of a tier list is pretty ridiculous in itself, there's no arguing that some characters simply have the advantage over others. Because of this, a lot of people see these better characters as their key to victory in tournaments. That's why tournaments are crawling with Meta Knights, Marths, and Falcos... Several characters at the bottom are disadvantaged against such characters. Thus, human skill is a bigger factor in attaining fame for your low tier character. You'd have to go into a tournament with like NinjaLink or Ally skill level to place big consistently with someone like :ness:

.

Oh, wait! The people who place with high tiers are at NinjaLink and Ally skill level!

So what we have here is that low tier mains have to be 3 times as good as people at this skill level to place consisitently, because you need enough skill to override your low tier's flaws, and override the mastery that expert players have; people who play high tiers need not deal with the former as much. It's such a difficult feat that most would call it impossible. But hopefully someday someone will be able to pull it off.

But to be honest, I'm not surprised that there are people (or maybe just this person) who don't care about our characters. Realistically, I don't expect most high level players to care about the characters in the lower rungs of Brawl's cast. It probably seems a little silly for the Pittsburgh Steelers to sit down and spend time thinking of ways to overcome the Detroit Lions.

Flayl · Feb 16, 2009

This really didn't need it's own thread >_>

Anyways if your character is above average, it should show by multiple people placing high in decent tournaments.

Every character is below average until it proves otherwise.

The truth is lower tier characters are lower tier because they don't have what it takes.

Anyway the only thing people can do to educate SBR on lower tier chaarcters is to play (and win) against their members. Bowser got pretty high in the first tier list because of Kish Squared, basically.

Recoil · Feb 16, 2009

Brave Hippo said:
Making a statment like that and having a Falco icon by your post is pretty ironic, dont you think?

I think his sentence should have been rephrased as: "You can get good and win, as a low tier character mainer,; if you start placing high in big tournament". - shrugs -

And I pretty much agree with what ftl said.

Dream Chaser · Feb 16, 2009

Its not really about respect for the character. That shouldnt really come into the equation.
People play the so called higher tier characters because people say that they are better than the others. Its certainly true that tires exist, but making a tier list encourages people to believe that they can only to well with certain characters. Everybody plays them more and finds effective ways to use that character. Then other people watch what they do and try to emulate their performance. Pretty soon there is only a narrow list of tournament viable characters simply because everybody thinks they are good (which might not be the case). This could easily be started when one person finds an effective way of using a character before someone found one for other characters.

Brave Hippo · Feb 16, 2009

Meta-Kirby said:
Not just a chat room, but the Official SBR Tier List 2.0 thread.

Just check pages 179-181.

Really? Well. Im going to have to go check that out. See what context this post was used in.

hippiedude92 · Feb 16, 2009

Boss ***** this thread completely considering the fact he consistently places around top 5 at least with Mario beating the living crap outta all those Mks wh0res.

Flayl · Feb 16, 2009

hippiedude92 said:
Boss ***** this thread completely considering the fact he consistently places around top 5 at least with Mario beating the living crap outta all those Mks wh0res.

Doesn't he use Luigi vs MK?

ph00tbag · Feb 17, 2009

The first post has nothing wrong with it, really. The second one is a bit scrubby when it talks about ROB, but it gets the rest right. Low tiers don't matter. Some people might be able to make some impressive headway with some of the low tiers, but making them tournament viable is not imaginable at this point, and therefore they don't matter in a tourney-level tier list.

Browny · Feb 17, 2009

Neon Ness said:
Realistically, I don't expect most high level players to care about the characters in the lower rungs of Brawl's cast. It probably seems a little silly for the Pittsburgh Steelers to sit down and spend time thinking of ways to overcome the Detroit Lions.

bad analogy is bad

To be accurate, you would say you dont expect MK mains to discuss the falcon matchup in any great detail (which is indeed what happens). the SBR doesnt represent one 'team' (character), theyre meant to be an external, unbiased judge on every character.

Shiri · Feb 17, 2009

I'll be honest; you guys are thinking way too hard.

I've been playing characters, since 2003, that are not only low tier, but do not belong there. I play the good characters, and I play the best characters, as well. Of course the gap is quite large between the good and the bad, and of course the best players are going to pick the best characters, AND OF COURSE the collective they form (regardless of the caliber of player they house) is going to focus on the good and the best.

This is not news.

It's not about low tiers going out and winning. It's never been about that. If you want an idea of this, look at Sonic. END OF STORY. Even the quote you have up says that this particular person does not care if low tiers win. It's about the bad characters and how they'll never be the good characters.

So relax. You're stressing yourself out. Play who you want. Beat people. If you win, good on ya. If you don't, you'll be joining the hundreds of players everywhere who seek to better themselves and their characters overall, even if it's only a little bit. If you don't agree with those quotes and you're upset that it comes from a representative of the authority of competitive Smash, then you don't have to subscribe to their way of thinking. They only have as much respect from you as you choose to give them. If you think they're right, awesome. If not, they're just a bunch of names of people who probably don't matter to you making decisions you could care less about.

All I'm saying is it's nothing to stress over. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Levitas · Feb 17, 2009

In terms of raw numbers, you're gonna see more people playing good characters at tournaments than bad ones. Therefore, the interest of the SBR should naturally focus more on the good ones.

It would be wasteful not to.

BentoBox · Feb 17, 2009

If you are to impose yourselves as an authority, don't half-*** your job. That is all.

Shiri · Feb 17, 2009

I dunno, like I said earlier...they only have as much authority as you give them, I think.

M.K · Feb 17, 2009

Shiri said:
I'll be honest; you guys are thinking way too hard.

I've been playing characters, since 2003, that are not only low tier, but do not belong there. I play the good characters, and I play the best characters, as well. Of course the gap is quite large between the good and the bad, and of course the best players are going to pick the best characters, AND OF COURSE the collective they form (regardless of the caliber of player they house) is going to focus on the good and the best.

This is not news.

It's not about low tiers going out and winning. It's never been about that. If you want an idea of this, look at Sonic. END OF STORY. Even the quote you have up says that this particular person does not care if low tiers win. It's about the bad characters and how they'll never be the good characters.

So relax. You're stressing yourself out. Play who you want. Beat people. If you win, good on ya. If you don't, you'll be joining the hundreds of players everywhere who seek to better themselves and their characters overall, even if it's only a little bit. If you don't agree with those quotes and you're upset that it comes from a representative of the authority of competitive Smash, then you don't have to subscribe to their way of thinking. They only have as much respect from you as you choose to give them. If you think they're right, awesome. If not, they're just a bunch of names of people who probably don't matter to you making decisions you could care less about.

All I'm saying is it's nothing to stress over. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

This makes me feel alot better! Thanks Shiri. However, it still hurts to hear it from someone who builds the tier list that grants some characters so much criticism for being low on the tier list just because they are the "leftovers".
Do I like it that Pokemon Trainer is considered the 6th worst character in the game, when his tournament results are better than 11 characters both above him and below him in the current tier list? Do I like it when I see that Ivysaur is easily gimped, yet there are multiple ways of dealing with it? Squirtle and Charizard are monsters, Wall of Pains, Grab Release Combos, insane boost smashes/grab range, decent horizontal/vertical recovery, etc.

Frankly, I could go on for....forever, but I'm just trying to illustrate the point. You are completely correct, Shiri, but it damages the unity of the competitive scene if some people choose to disregard the SBR as supreme authority, and it sickens me that people like the person I quoted are the ones in charge.

Neon Ness · Feb 17, 2009

djbrowny said:
bad analogy is bad

To be accurate, you would say you dont expect MK mains to discuss the falcon matchup in any great detail (which is indeed what happens). the SBR doesnt represent one 'team' (character), theyre meant to be an external, unbiased judge on every character.

...Right you are. Well, I've never been great with analogies. But hopefully the rest made sense.

Oracle · Feb 17, 2009

Yup. Low and bottom tiers by themselves are not tournament viable. That's why they don't matter

Amazing Ampharos · Feb 17, 2009

People get so concerned with tier lists when it really doesn't matter. If everyone thinks your character sucks versus everyone thinking your character is amazing, it doesn't change anything. Your character has been able to do all of the same things from the day the game came out and will always be able to do those things. I mean, you are just playing the game in general to win, and you have the unlimited right to pick whichever character you want to do that. If people value your character lowly, it really doesn't affect you.

On the other hand, it's important to be personally honest about your character. If your character really sucks (and the SBR list can't tell you this; only you can tell this), you should really rethink using that character. If it's really the best you personally can do to win it's the right choice, but maining a low tier to prove some silly point about using the character you like or whatever is a quick path to defeat. Deluding yourself into thinking a bad character is good is foolish too; be careful to be honest with yourself as you have pretty much no external signs to differentiate between characters the whole community is very, very wrong about and characters who really are very bad at winning. It's not as worrysome in brawl as in other games since this game is secretly really balanced; people usually just give up instead of finding solutions to things that give them trouble so they think the game is worse than it is.

Rhox · Feb 17, 2009

I pretty much agree with Shiri and Meta-Kirby's last statement.

Dream Chaser · Feb 17, 2009

Almost everybody here is working under the assumption that the characters listed in the lower tiers characters are actually bad.
From the start, almost everybody was saying that metaknight is unbeatable and so now an army of MK players have come up with some very effective strategies.
What would have happened if everyone said that MK was bad?

Read the Amazing Ampharos post.

The_Prince · Feb 17, 2009

just take a look at chudat though. he transformed the melee ice climbers. who knows? something revolutionary might happen.

Neon Ness · Feb 17, 2009

Dream Chaser said:
What would have happened if everyone said that MK was bad?

Uh... no one would believe them?

Levitas · Feb 17, 2009

Dream Chaser said:
Almost everybody here is working under the assumption that the characters listed in the lower tiers characters are actually bad.

I dare you to disagree.

Melomaniacal · Feb 17, 2009

I'm pretty much the only person ever with this attitude. Don't think the whole SBR is like this.

So why are we making a thread about one person again? This is one guy's opinion, who cares.

Schwaumlaut · Feb 17, 2009

Saying Pokemon Trainer is bottom tier is like saying Pluto's a planet. If the evidence holds up, great, if not, we'll call it something else.

In other words, names are only useful insofar as they reflect reality. Please provide more evidence that the current tier list is wrong.

Dekar173 · Feb 17, 2009

Schwaumlaut proves quite eloquently that join date does not dictate intelligence level. Suck it, squares!

On topic:

tier lists are organized in order to tell us which characters are "tourney-viable" and those who aren't. That is all they're really meant to do, not to mention it's pretty awesome to see statistics for video games.

Saying your character is low-tier doesn't mean you can't use him, it just means that your skill would most likely be put to better use playing as a top-tier character.

Saying "my character doesn't belong in bottom tier!!!" doesn't prove your point, going out and winning tournaments (or even just placing well consistently) does (as stated).

The guy being quoted by OP has the right mentality, sort of. All characters matter in the end (which is the part that he didn't acknowledge) but top-tier characters are ultimately more important than low-tier, as sad as it makes me to say that :[

Yuna · Feb 17, 2009

What exactly seems to be the problem here? This is just one person airing his personal feelings.

He happens to think that Low Tiers don't matter. So what? It's just his personal view that people shouldn't play Low Tiers Competitively since they aren't very viable (not in Brawl).

As for the Tier List talk itself, he's absolutely right. When the first couple of tier lists are created, who cares about the Low Tiers? It's not like they're gonna matter. What matters are the top echelons of characters as those are the most important to place as accurately as possible.

Then as time goes by, you make the tier list more accurate overall.

He's not saying "'narrow' is all we are going to ever get. Why stop playing Low Tiers in comparison to High Tiers? Simple Reason: The High Tiers are more defined (stated in the quotes) while the Low Tiers are shrouded in ambiguity." at all!

He's saying "Stop playing manurey characters" + "The first couple of revisions of the tier lists will be quite inaccurate internally in the lower tiers because the most important thing to get right is the very top echelon of characters. Then we can spend more time getting the ranking of Bottom Tier right".

It's like Low Tier fanboys hunt around for the slightest "insult" to their characters to wage wars by thoroughly misinterpreting/strawmanning what people say into infinity.

Browny · Feb 17, 2009

please people, stop saying things like
" going out and winning tournaments (or even just placing well consistently) does (as stated)."

we have proven, multiple times, that this is not be the case at all. the tier list is ALL personal opinion at the moment.

LuLLo · Feb 17, 2009

I really, REALLY don't get why people want to place high with a low tier character to ''prove'' something, if you win against a good MK with Link, it proves you're very good with Link, not that Link should be higher in the tiers (commonly know info, I know, but it seems people are forgetting sometimes...).
Also, I've seen some people in this thread saying that ''The SBR should do their job and also give attention to the lower tiers''...But who exactly knows what ''the job'' of the SBR is? It's certainly not ''trying to make low tier characters better'', it's more like ''making the tourney scene better overall'', which would be to focus on the top tier characters that everyone uses. It provides a better tourney scene, since it's all about winning, and you generally win with high tier. The improvement of low tier (as well high tier) characters is done by the Character Specific Boards, don't think the SBR helps you out with everything, if you want to make your character better, do it with your community, don't think the SBR takes the time to do that, because they do what's best in their interest and the interest of the competitive community, and it's certainly not paying attention to low tier characters, which are not competitively viable. YOU should make them viable, with your COMMUNITY.

ftl · Feb 17, 2009

djbrowny said:
please people, stop saying things like
" going out and winning tournaments (or even just placing well consistently) does (as stated)."

we have proven, multiple times, that this is not be the case at all. the tier list is ALL personal opinion at the moment.

And the best way to INFLUENCE the opinion of those people? To show that their opinion is wrong, by winning where they expect it to be impossible.

Palpi · Feb 17, 2009

I main Ike, and he is bad and I still main him knowing that I have a pretty decent chance of losing to a high or top tier character even if they aren't as good of an actual player, but I think there should be a lot more.. observation on the mid - low tier characters, but as yuna stated, it is just 1-2 people's opinions so it really shouldn't be that big of a deal other than that you may or may not agree.

_Keno_ · Feb 17, 2009

The tier list doesn't really matter unless you're the type of person that changes their character based on it.
Its not like "oh sweet, Peach just moved up 6 spots" and then my skill magically increases ten-fold. :laugh:

RyuKen! · Feb 17, 2009

I don't believe in the tier list, i think it depends on the skill of the player.

Palpi · Feb 17, 2009

Ofcourse the skill of the player matters, but I main and lost to a d3 player. I then 2 stocked him with metaknight who I don't even like to play and I think i suck with him. Imo.. beleive in tier lists.

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