BBR Weekly Character Discussion #5: Snake

Because I need some cheering up after the Dutchies lost the World Cup finals to Spain.

For those who missed the first four, consider:
-Strengths/weaknesses
-Matchups
-Tournament performance
-Current tier list placement and potential for the future

I have some input of my own, but it's basically meat riding Ally and seconding everything he says.

First of all: He says "Nom!" when he eats a piece of food.

Now for the less important stuff:
Snake is probably one of the best known characters in the whole game, since he is the second-placed character on the tier list, one of the most played tournament characters, and thus a lot of people know what he can do.

To summarize:
Snake is easily one of the best characters in the game, if not the best (not counting MK). He has insane abilities that border something I'd call broken.
He has one of the best projectile games in Brawl, his grenades, USmash mortar and mines being perfect to control the stage, so a defensive Snake who camps well is almost unapproachable without at least some damage taken. He has some of the best shields and OoS options in the game, a good (yet easily abusable) recovery, and he is heavy, so most Snakes don't die until well 200%.

Snake's no piece of cake in the offense either, though, having insane moves in his arsenal, such as the Jab and the FTilt, as well as the DACUS. His approaches are dangerous, especially when he has planted mines and grenades. He also has one of the best KO moves in the game (UTilt), having a hitbox with the size of a living room (FTilt has that, as well, just to mention). He also has a great techchasing game with his DThrow. He also has the best crawl in the game, enabling him to simply crawl towards a lasering Falco.

Snake's only weaknesses are, pretty much, all things that are located in the air. His mobility there sucks balls, and his aerials are garbage since they are so slow and predictable. Should Snake hit with one of em, though, prepare to get pwned hard, as they do juicy damage and knockback. Offstage, he doesn't have to offer much, as well, Snake usually relies on edgeguarding, I've rarely seen a Snake trying to take the risk and go for an FAir spike or something.

As for the matchups, Snake literally wrecks a whole ton of characters, especially in Mid and Low Tier, with very few exceptions being disadvantageous or even for him across the board, most notably Dedede, who is considered being pretty much the only true disadvantage Snake has in the cast. I think most Snake matchups are rather well known, so I don't need to elaborate on them.

Well said yet again, Joel.

Snake is nearly unapproachable for many characters, and is definitely the "most broken" character in the game. I don't see him passing up Metaknight any time soon, but I think he's a lot closer to being just as good as MK than people think.

I very strongly disagree with the idea that Snake is anything but the 2nd best character in the game-- an idea that has, for some reason, been gaining popularity lately... there just isn't another character that even comes close to dominating in the ways that Snake does.

Nearly unapproachable

One of, if not the best camping games

Extremely good punish game

Extremely good range

Ridiculous damage racking with f-tilt and grabs to tech-chase

GRENADES

Best kill move in the game, hands down

Extremely heavy-- rarely dies before 200%

Best killpower + best survival = best comeback potential of any character

Very difficult to gimp his recovery when played correctly, and the extra damage he takes from C4'ing himself is negligible

etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.


Yeah, he sucks in the air-- it doesn't matter. He's completely ridiculously awesome in every other aspect, and it's nearly impossible to get him in the air and keep him there for a kill when he's played right.

He has no disadvantaged matchups whatsoever, save DeDeDe, who is a VERY MINOR issue at worst. Add to that the fact that he flat out obliterates several characters... Snake is phenomenal.





Snake is just really, really good, and honestly if it weren't for the whole planking / ledge grab fiasco with MK, I think he would be a strong contender for best character in the game. As it stands, there's no way he should be any lower than second.

He should also definitely be in the same tier as MK... those two are definitely together in a class of their own (I very strongly believe that MK is NOT in his own tier above Snake).

HELL YEAH, ally, ITS TIME TO SHINE Baby! this will be very evil post made by me, but i've been waiting for a while

So sorry but, Ill start by saying you all suck and don't know what you guys are talking about. Step up your approach game.

Snake is definatly not 2nd, 1st, or 3rd best. WHO EVEN PLACES WELL WITH SNAKE, oh please, don't say me because I think that's mostly where everyone friggin bases on.

but ay, no one is talking about how CO18 beat me with his d3 (I haven't taken a set from in yet in a tournament, CLOSE but I didn't =( ) How about Mikehaze who is still 2-1 in sets vs me? MARTH and D3 have beaten me, the best user of the so called BROKEN character, SNAKE!

How about Swordgard's clutchy ICS? He found out how to approach Snake, how to counter grenades, Why? because Snake is slow, predictable and if you play smart (Lots of people lack of this), Snake is easy to approach.

How about how Hunger beat me twice in tournament? Wario has the tools to easily get into Snake's 'broken' range. Bite will destroy a Shielding Snake and if I'm not wrong, has advantage vs utilt from above.

Now tournament placings:









Other than me (consistantly places 1st and 2nd)
Fatal who places 1-2-3 in HIS REGION (New England) and not top 10 in any national
Razer who places 1-2-3 in HIS REGION (Texas, with Diddy Kong and Lucario beating him most of the time, and Dojo) doesn't place top 10 at Nationals
.... who else? Candy who for the first time in 2-3-4 months, got 2nd at some regional/local tournament losing to Kirby (Chu) Oh Wait Apparently it's impossible to get in Snake's defence with Kirby as I was told, I wonder how Chu did it.

Yeah def 1st-2nd-3rd material right there folks, keep going.

His moves:

Ftilt is only good to rack up dmg yep, true I think it does a lil too much but being one of his only reliable moves, I can't say its not fair. shielding this move, will let you punish snake.

Utilt: being one of his only killing move, I can't say it's not fair , shielding this move will let you punish snake.

bair, being his 2nd best killing move, can't say it's not fair , SHielding this move, will let you punish snake.

NAIR: A move where u can smash DI the 1st hit, if not, the 2nd, if not the 3rd if not then you suck. Terrible and doesn't ever kill if you SDI it, A + is you get to hit Snake after it!

Dair: Kinda like Nair, A LIL harder to DI but same concept, same reward.

Jab: one of snake's best move... if connected with ftilt correctly LOL, otherwise, get ready to get punished.

Grenades: Snake's apparently "BROKEN KILLING PROJECTILE". Learn to predict grenades, you guys make me cry, they are predictable and any reflecting character like falco can make em the most useless thing ever.

C4: VERY STRONG MOVE, pretty predictable unless the stage is very dark. Mostly used for recovery (thanks lord he has this or he would def be crap)

Dsmash. lol shield it, bye.

Usmash: Annoying move to use and pretty useless against projectile users.
Nikita: almost useless, recovering from the top is its best use.
Cypher, Crappy mobility good to use with C4. other than that, it'll never kill you.

Dtilt: Not a bad move, def snake's 4th best killing move.

basically his moves is all about...




and....




Counterpicks:

Snake can get CP'ed in ALOT of stages where he doesn't have the advantage, ain't no MK here.

CGABLE: Sadly this char can be cg'ed then massively hurt during recovering time for having no mobility.

Oh did I tell you that if u cg Snake or get him out of stage early, he will come back with 80%+? that's an excellent lead, Snake can die before 130%, stop overusing your killing moves for ur own sake.

People I believe that can beat or go even with him:

MK (he beats Snake in a lil adv 55-45)

Falco

Marth

D3

ICS

Wario

Diddy.. (50 50 or 55-45 Snake obviously but VERY possible, Gnes and ADHD are perfect exemple)

most of the char can do well vs him if they get him off stage.

keke ill wait for more replies

I think snake is 2nd best but I just think its a huge gap between him and mk and you cant really say that about snake ally there are still more snakes than most other chars. Theres you,razer,candy,fatal,bizkit,squall,hrnut,mvd,afro,infern, anti when he used him(though he switched since mk is the better option)etc. In comparison to other chars snakes are still placing better it's just it may not seem that way since mk completely overshadows him. I remember thinking the same about Dedede being alot worse then he was considered at the time and that there were only a few ddd's placing but then I realized if I go down the tier list there were even less of the other chars.

Its just mk is substantially the best imo. Diddy,Wario,Falco etc all have their problematic matchups as well

CO18 said:

I think snake is 2nd best but I just think its a huge gap between him and mk and you cant really say that about snake ally there are still more snakes than most other chars. Theres you,razer,candy,fatal,bizkit,squall,hrnut,mvd,afro,infern, anti when he used him(though he switched since mk is the better option)etc. In comparison to other chars snakes are still placing better it's just it may not seem that way since mk completely overshadows him. I remember thinking the same about Dedede being alot worse then he was considered at the time and that there were only a few ddd's placing but then I realized if I go down the tier list there were even less of the other chars.

Its just mk is substantially the best imo. Diddy,Wario,Falco etc all have their problematic matchups as well

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I still think if MK didnt exist, Snake would struggle more, but sadly with MK around, the metagame isn't even stable for real, its an HORRIBLE metagame right now. and all those snakes doesn't do well in nationals at all. yeah he might be used alot but he doesnt deserve that spot until proven (without mk being around killing dem Snake's potential fighters for breakfast)

If you're talking about "doing well at nationals", then there are only like 3 people who do that consistently... so I'm not sure how your argument of Snake "not doing well in nationals" means much :\

Also, of all of the characters you listed who you think are "capable of going even with or beating Snake", Snake is the most popular character and the most successful character.

"Falco, Marth, IC's, Diddy, Wario, D3" None of those characters are as popular as Snake. None of them win as much as Snake. You could probably argue that you might see D3 just as much / more, but that's mostly because everyone and their mom secondaries him. Hardly anyone actually mains D3.

Snake's options are punishable, but they have few openings and even when you do punish him, he can take 3x more punishment than just about any other character, and then still recover, hit you 4 or 5 times, and kill you before you kill him.

It doesn't matter that he's "punishable" because he only needs like ~5 good hits / reads a stock to kill ANYONE in the game. His weight, damage racking, and kill-power vastly outweight whatever insignificant amount of negativity that is brought on by his "slowness" or poor air game.


There really is absolutely no validity to the statement that "Snake doesn't do well except for Ally". You do significantly better than every other Snake, but M2K does significantly better than every other MK... and ADHD than every other Diddy...

Snake is undeniably popular and successful, and more so than any character other than Metaknight. That is a fact, a fact which is backed up by Ankoku's data, among other things.

lol yes i've been waiting for this one too

snake....my OLD main. i dropped him a while back cause well...he sucks imo. well maybe that's putting it to harsh. He's just not nearly as good as everyone says he is.

Yeah, he's super broken/dumb and has stupid kill moves with rediculous weight but that doesnt really matter if you don't get hit. Like Ally said, wario does very well vs snake so maybe this is just my character talking and not me but snake's weight is rarely a problem for me and it's really easy to get in on him. The most broken thing about snake imo is his dash attack cancel pivot grab, STUPID RANGE LITERALLY LIKE 3 1/2 WARIOS !!! but w/e.

-nades are by far the best thing about snake, without those things, he'd be completely useless.
-snakes 2nd best thing he has going for him is probably dthrow techchase, if you have ridiculous reaction time like ally, you will get a free 33% or more off one dthrow (dthrow -> ftilt)
-ftilt. damage racker but probably wont kill you until very high percents.
-uptilt...most likely the best reliable killing move in the game. super high power/range, w/e. everyone needs a kill move right?
-bair, probably snakes other best killing move but if the snake doesnt do the strong part, it's not going to kill. Also, very predictable move, punish this if snake misses.


Dont really care about the rest of his moveset, those are the big ones imo. Everyone knows snake's moveset, no need to go into huge detail.

Snake does have a very good mixup game but at the same time he doesn't. You sorta know what snake is going to do before he does it. He really doesnt have any really good approach. Most of his stuff can be shielded-> punish.

Couple bad matchups (mk/wario/falco/d3/marth) but has the tools to deal with anyone in the game imo.


I'd put him at 3rd or 4th. 3rd being if some other snakes step up like ally (highly unlikely) otherwise diddy and falco SHOULD both pass him.

MetalMusicMan said:

If you're talking about "doing well at nationals", then there are only like 3 people who do that consistently... so I'm not sure how your argument of Snake "not doing well in nationals" means much :\

Also, of all of the characters you listed who you think are "capable of going even with or beating Snake", Snake is the most popular character and the most successful character.

"Falco, Marth, IC's, Diddy, Wario, D3" None of those characters are as popular as Snake. None of them win as much as Snake. You could probably argue that you might see D3 just as much / more, but that's mostly because everyone and their mom secondaries him. Hardly anyone actually mains D3.



There really is absolutely no validity to the statement that "Snake doesn't do well except for Ally". You do significantly better than every other Snake, but M2K does significantly better than every other MK... and ADHD than every other Diddy...

Snake is undeniably popular and successful, and more so than any character other than Metaknight. That is a fact, a fact which is backed up by Ankoku's data, among other things.

Click to expand...

You know what's funny? When we use datas explaining why MK is blahblahblah, it's never taken too seriously, but we gotta take these seriously? give me a break o.O
And no, I think Gnes has been doing WAY better than ADHD lately. being popular doesn't mean = 2nd. Crappy Logic, lets all start using falcon, he'll def get 3rd 2nd by POPULARITY and placing since thats all the bracket will consist with like 3 high tier.

Even if you count GNES, that's ONE other Diddy, and Diddy still doesn't do well at ALL compared to Snake.


I definitely do not think popularity is the only thing that makes a character "good". It should actually be one of the last things that makes a character raise on the tier list.

However, I made that point because your entire argument is that "Ally is the only good Snake, so Snake must suck".

You are being quite contradictory.

DK def has the tools the beat snake as well. he edgeguards him well, can trade hits/KO snake w/ giant punch, and downB snuffs out grenade camping, not to mention lives as long and shouldn't be edgeguarded.

snake def isnt' 1st, but to say he's not even 3rd is kinna meh. i think he's 'top tier' w/ 3-4 other characters, and only passed by diddy maybe. not that it matters to his tier placement, but i find snake to be a relatively lazy character, since between the rock paper sciccors game of hit/block/shield his arsenal is pretty **** in fewer hits than most cuz of massive damage. Snake is def amazing at comebacks, especially if he can force, even winning oponents, to approach though his camping. but to be fair, he's a defensive character by nature, so those that can't force him him can def give him trouble.

Also, I agree with the Diddy statements. Diddy is the only character who I could see even possibly passing Snake at this point. I don't think he's there yet, though.


Discussions like this are why I wish we would just do our Tier list rankings by a mathematical summary of the matchup ratios for each character. It would probably be a lot easier to agree on. :\

I don't get how you guys can say that Diddy is the only one that can pass Snake. Falco is better than both of em. But alright. lol


am i the only one that agrees with ally on this? snake sucks =D

--yay Edreeses

I completely agree with Ally. If you take away just Ally, Snake is kind of overrated to be placed at #2. I think he is the fourth best, behind Diddy and Falco. Snake does better against MK than anybody in the game though, and that's why he can place. But he really wouldn't last if the tournament scene became more full of these other characters. So it's hard to say, because the fact is that MK IS there and WILL always be popular, so maybe that's just life and that's the reason why Snake is good. But even then I don't see any potential in his character to rise much, and I feel like Ally inflates everyones perception of Snake a lot more than, say, M2K inflates MK's perception or DEHF inflates Falco's etc. Snake is still very good but I consider him 4th best.

IMO a lot of people don't play the matchup right (including myself) For some reason, people tend to follow a playstyle mold with Snake. Ally is really successful because he gets creative and uses everything Snake has in his aresenal. What happens because all these snakes play the exact same is that people get used to this one playstyle and learn how to play against these snakes, but they don't truly know how to counter all what snake can do, so when they face a snake like ally they get totally confused. (this is what happened to me.) However, it's not that my character didn't have the tools to handle this, its just that so many and so many snakes play the same, even good ones, to the point where people don't know how to play the tr matchup. Example - People like ADHD had strugges with the matchup until they figured things out like being able to throw a banana out of shield in between his f-tilt hits.

I feel if people played the matchup properly Snake would be clearly seen as 4th best. And I think people play it wrong because for some reason or another, lots of Snakes out there are so tempted to play that one playstyle. Ally and Ult Razor get really creative and I wish more Snakes did this - if they did, I'd say Ally and Ult placing much worse TBH.

Snake's biggest strength is limiting your options and forcing you to play his game. At the same time I think his biggest weakness is being able to counter people who figure out his initial plan of trapping you. He doesn't have too many alternatives once you figure out how to get around his traps and tricks, it's just that it's really hard to figure your way around them.

ITT: Me agreeing with hunger and Edreese's **** post.

Well the idea of MK being gone is really quite irrelevant for this discussion. If we banned MK, we could talk about that, but since MK is in the game and won't go anywhere for this particular tier list, it would obviously be silly to ignore how good Snake is against him.

Falco is also good against MK and that is a big part of why he is rated highly-- you don't ever see anyone argue that "without MK, Falco would suck" or whatever like they do for Snake, though...


MK is in the game, so if someone is good against him specifically, then of course that counts for extra. It's that way in any game, why wouldn't it be? It makes perfect sense.

Snake still has great matchups across the board though, even without counting MK... so I'm not sure how he would drop so drastically if MK weren't around... again, it's really pointless to argue that either way at this juncture, though.

Look at the data again:



Snake is, at present, clearly #2. Even ignoring Ally, the top Snakes are outperforming non-MKs (...and getting crushed by MKs, but that's a story for another day.)

The interesting story, though is that Snakes appear to have capped out, apart from Ally. Assuming that the other characters are continuing to grow, Snake's reign as "clear best choice for players who don't want to sell their souls by selecting Meta Knight" could be coming to an end.

Or it might not. Time will tell.

Also, once we finally gather the guts needed to give Meta Knight the boot, I strongly suspect Snake's going to take a dive. Training for his myriad even-or-close-to-even matchups (even Link is one of them, lol) is much harder than being able to focus on only the few which don't almost-auto-lose to MK (...aka A tier).

I also think Ally is a bigger champion for Snake than any other character main is for their respective character. I might be somewhat biased because Snake doesn't do much in Europe, but whenever I look at American results such as those for MLG (admittedly, Razer never enters) I only see Ally breaching into the very top. There are definitely other Snake mains who consistently do well locally or break top 25 at major events, but the top 8 is ultimately what really matters. I think many characters have an evenish matchup with Snake, even if it's only the likes of Dedede and possibly Falco/Marth who really counter him. He's simply among the best top tier matchups for many characters to face, which makes it easier for Snake mains to drop a set. Ally displays a lot of creativity and I think that's what gives him the wins moreso than his character.

Looking at the character itself, lack of aerial mobility and a rather bad recovery are flaws he can't really compensate for despite extraordinary creativity. There's only so much you can do when your only choice is to get back on the stage itself rather than auto-click on the ledge like pretty much everyone else. Good players will not let Snake get back without having him eat damage, even if there are ways for him to prevent getting gimped. His weight lets him live long, but also makes it so his opponents have no problem racking up the damage and the only reason this hasn't been crippling so far is that he outdamages the entire cast with relatively few moves. He's difficult to play against, but once you get the experience you should find he's fundamentally flawed.

MMM: You kind of contradict yourself. You want a tier list based on matchup ratios, but at the same time you think we're not allowed to consider non-MK situations for a metagame where MK is overrepresented. In the end MK is just one matchup where Snake happens to do okay and his presence keeps some of Snake's bad matchups in check. We should simply let Ankoku's data be the tier list if we're not to consider that.

@ Marc about Snake being 'protected' by MK's A tier slaying. I am sure Snake players will lose to more marths falcos d3s etc since most of em will actually face Snake and not MK.

Right now I am playing different characters (Wario MK ICS) to learn and see if they can do something vs Snake and to understand how and why these MU are events or potentially winnable.

I just think Snake deserves 3rd or 4th at the moment. Grrr MK. be gone already!

Yeah, we are in agreement about MK's presence boosting Snake's image. I'd personally put at least Falco over Snake.

Marc said:

Yeah, we are in agreement about MK's presence boosting Snake's image. I'd personally put at least Falco over Snake.

Click to expand...

Same here.


I too believe snake is frankly overrated, he is a character with way too many flaws. He cannot camp all that well if you learn to pivot grab snake dash on reaction and to use his nades agaisnt him, since that will force him to shield at times allowing you to approach very easily.

Predictable uptilt is predictable too. Bad landing options means your kill moves are also easier to land.

I agree with Marc and Swordgard, but I dunno I still feel like he's second best.

What are all of Snake's bad match ups?

DEHF said:

I agree with Marc and Swordgard, but I dunno I still feel like he's second best.

What are all of Snake's bad match ups?

Click to expand...

MK, D3, Marth, Falco in order of hardest to easier.


Diddy and ics go even with him or very very close to.

How does ICs go even with Snake?

DEHF said:

How does ICs go even with Snake?

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Being Swordgard, that's how.

DEHF said:

How does ICs go even with Snake?

Click to expand...

Take a character that can't land, and put it against a character who punishes bad landing with a 0 to death.

Marc said:

MMM: You kind of contradict yourself. You want a tier list based on matchup ratios, but at the same time you think we're not allowed to consider non-MK situations for a metagame where MK is overrepresented. In the end MK is just one matchup where Snake happens to do okay and his presence keeps some of Snake's bad matchups in check. We should simply let Ankoku's data be the tier list if we're not to consider that.

Click to expand...

It's not at all contradictory. I'm simply arguing within the confines of the existing method by which we rate characters, which I believe is inferior to doing it by matchups.

If we had a matchup-based tier list, we would completely avoid any such issues. If we looked at all of Snake's matchups and he ended up being below Marth, MK, or whoever, his placement would be nearly-undeniable, whether it was 3rd, 4th, 5th, whatever, and we wouldn't even be having discussions such as this that clearly lack any sort of tangible evidence.

My arguments are assuming that I am to explain it based on how our tier lists are presently, and have always, been organized. Based on that, I have just as much credit to argue Snake being 2nd as I do to argue him being mid-tier. That doesn't really say much for our methods though, in my opinion :\

As it stands, we have a less tangible method of rating our characters, so *exactly* where they should be is difficult to get everyone to agree on, as some will inevitably rate characters higher because of MK, and others will say "it's only MK that makes him rated so high", etc. If we just went by matchups, that wouldn't happen.



I'm saying he should be rated highly because he does good against MK and that counts for extra because that's how we currently organize our tier lists. If we did them by matchups and he ended up being lower than someone, that would just be the way it went. Same for any other character.

I wouldn't argue it because it would be clear to see whether I was wrong or right. We would all spend our time talking about something that can actually be argued to a decision with a clear winner, individual matchups, and the tier list would just make it self.

It would drastically change certain characters' placings, but others would be similar to how they are now. Overall I just think it's a much more objective approach. I don't think you can completely avoid subjectivity on any tier list, but I it's a lot more calculated to do it by matchups. Its a decent amount of work initially but a lot less work everytime you re-assess the list.



Also, Ankoku's data shows tournament results, that's not at all the same thing as what I am talking about... not in the least.

Here's the thing: Ideally, Snake is not second best if you are looking solely at matchups. If you crunched the numbers, and gave each character a matchup total average ratio, Snake would be like 3rd-5th. Marth for example, matchup wise, is overall safer than Snake. However, we look at what happens in reality, and many of us would agree that Marth doesn't belong over Snake. Why? Because sure, Marth may have better matchups overall than Snake, but with MK in play so often he's faced up with worse odds than Snake overall.

MK's prominence in Brawl means that when considering how good the characters are, you have to factor them being played against MK more, for better or worse. Characters with good matchups against MK will benefit from MK being played the most. Characters with bad MK matchups will not like MK being around, and they will see less usage because of this. These things you have to factor in.

Basically, for a theoretical tier list, it would be like having 1 different character each per person in a tournament, and what placement that character is likely to receive. However this isn't what happens in reality.

Let's say that Dedede's odds, under normal circumstances, are 35:65 to beat that MK. Now, change it so that there are 4 MK's instead of one. What are the odds he will be able to do as well as before? Lower obviously. There are less spots for Ganondorf or Peach or Wolf or x character now with the increase of MK players. So now his odds are worse than before. This in turn makes Dedede less played, which opens up more spots for other characters.

Now Snake, who has trouble with Dedede, is boosted. MK increases, who he does alright against, and Dedede decreases, someone he has trouble with. In this environment, he is "boosted". These boosts and drops are what we try to read and factor into our tier lists.

I understand you think we should make the tier list more potential or pure matchup based. But it's too narrow and doesn't try to encompass the human element. Making a tier list based solely on matchups is quite easy. You can get a program to crunch numbers for you and spit out what characters have the best averages. What's harder to do is to say "Hey, because there is more MK around than what theory would expect or what matchups show us, this means that these impacts are felt on these characters, which means that those characters now look more viable/less viable, which affects the rest, and so on and so forth.

It's like writing a book about Poker Strategy. Sure, you could just say "Fold bad hands, play good hands" or tell people what is the best statistic move to make, but that doesn't explore the human aspect of variances from core theory or "standards". Our tier list is basically looking at the core fundamentals, and seeing what players are doing that deviates from it, and how this would impact things. I personally think that is what we should be aiming for, not just a matchup chart tier list.

Both alternatives have their ups and downs, and yes I agree on a matchup-based tier list characters like Snake would drop. There's nothing wrong with that imo though.

I definitely know exactly what you mean about how we currently do it-- I get it. It just seems like a lot of over-analyzing and never coming to a solid conclusion on anything. I dunno.

Regardless, if we aren't doing it based on overall matchups, why are we saying that "Snake is only high because of MK so he should be lower"? If we are trying to calculate the human / reality element to its fullest extent, then MK should count for a lot, since he's popular.

So again, if we are doing things the way that we already do them, I don't see how Snake could possibly be anything other than 2nd.

swordgard said:

Take a character that can't land, and put it against a character who punishes bad landing with a 0 to death.

Click to expand...

Do you have any vids of you playing a snake recently?

DEHF said:

Do you have any vids of you playing a snake recently?

Click to expand...

Since I'm talking to him now and he just linked me this, I'll just leave this here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3hXHF1tgSY

I agree. If that is our approach to it, Snake is clearly second IMO. He's not from a matchup perspective, but in real life he can claim that spot.

I would say that we should find a balance of how effective a character is in tournament, and vs. the rest of the cast. Neither MUs, nor tourney results, nor MU vs. MK should be an exclusive factor.

Also, Snake is good, but you guys are overrating him like crazy.

Impossible to approach? ROFL.

Wow @ the first two posts. The hyperbole is just silly.

Yes, Snake has crazy kill power, a strong camp game, and ridiculous weight.

Snake also lacks tools to approach, and IMO his grenade game is sort of like Diddy's banana game; it becomes less effective when the opponent learns to control it and not get hit by hit, but the Snake player usually is simply more skilled at it.

A lot of characters are capable of slowly outcamping Snake; dropping their projectiles when predicting his grenade pulls, instant throwing nades back (even if he makes you drop them, instant throw prevents you from accidentally inputting an attack that gets you hit), and playing keep away.

Snake doesn't have a very strong escape game, and characters like Wario can space around his attacks very well. Characters like Dedede can grab through all of his attacks, Falco can force him to approach and play keepaway, Marth can pressure him to the ledge and gimp him, and Metaknight pressures and gimps him and shuttle loops through everything.

Snake is still second best for the reasons described by DMG. In terms of the types of matchups you will face in tournament, Snake is the second-best choice. However, he's not in Metaknight's tier or in a separate category from other characters.

Snake doesn't actually outright beat anyone in A tier! He loses to Dedede and arguably (loses or goes even to) Marth, Wario, Falco, Ice Climbers, and Pikachu; and Diddy doesn't do that badly (a character that has no air game vs a character that controls the ground? granted, Snake is a fatty).

You don't start finding characters he ***** until lower B tier (Mr. Game & Watch, Lucario?)



Then there's silly statements like:

.joel said:

As for the matchups, Snake literally wrecks a whole ton of characters, especially in Mid and Low Tier, with very few exceptions being disadvantageous or even for him across the board, most notably Dedede, who is considered being pretty much the only true disadvantage Snake has in the cast. I think most Snake matchups are rather well known, so I don't need to elaborate on them.

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I'm sorry, but I don't see who Snake "literally wrecks" in Mid Tier, if we assume "literally wrecks" to be matchups worse than 60:40 Snake's favor.

Pit, Toon Link, ROB, Zero Suit Samus (Nick Riddle recently beat Ally), Donkey Kong, Peach, and Fox all have winnable matchups; Fox and ZSS might be pretty even, actually.

Crow! said:

Look at the data again:

Snake is, at present, clearly #2. Even ignoring Ally, the top Snakes are outperforming non-MKs (...and getting crushed by MKs, but that's a story for another day.)

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Do you have the data that shows how Snake does without Ally vs MK without M2K, falco without Dehf, etc? When you said "even ignoring Ally.." you made it sound like you do have access to the data, so i'd love to see it.

Pierce7d said:

I would say that we should find a balance of how effective a character is in tournament, and vs. the rest of the cast. Neither MUs, nor tourney results, nor MU vs. MK should be an exclusive factor.
.

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I completely agree!

Praxis said:

60:40

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Vote: Praxis

I hate you.

Also, yes, maybe I might've been a bit exaggerating, but I still think that Snake is an amazing character, and I'm actually pretty sure that all of my statements were pretty realistic.

Snake is #2.

MK filters out Snake's worst match-ups. No point talking about characters that can beat Snake if they get demolished by someone else who's not Snake i.e. MK, Falco, Diddy, IC's.

Performance-wise: Snake does the best behind MK. CO18 already listed most of the notable ones. It's obvious that Diddy's don't do as well as Snake's and Falco has only has one or two real representatives that are getting the job done in their region.

Character-wise: Snake is solid. There isn't a character he can't hold his own against. Even in his worst match-up (which I think is DDD) grenades completely interfere with DDD's chaingrab attempts. If need be dude can reset some (not all) situations with up+b to land on platforms on other parts of the stage. I like him a little over Diddy and Falco on paper, but not by much.

Snake is an amazing character, no one said otherwise but highly overrated.

.joel said:

Vote: Praxis

I hate you.

Also, yes, maybe I might've been a bit exaggerating, but I still think that Snake is an amazing character, and I'm actually pretty sure that all of my statements were pretty realistic.

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I've actually explained what I mean when I use ratios, so I'm allowed to. To repost:

50:50
Very even matchup. Definition should be fairly obvious.

55:45
No character has a true solid advantage, but one has seemingly better/easier tools,
or one character profits more from winning a rock/paper/scissors guessing game.

60:40
One character has clearly better tools in the matchup.
However, the other character does have responses him,
and the matchup is still winnable through outplaying the opponent
or out spacing his tools and countering with the weaker ones well placed.

65:35
One character has options that shut down the other's options.
Counterpicking should be considered, but it's not completely unwinnable,
but rather simply requires one player to far outplay the other.

70:30
Something about the character in the advantage completely shuts down
the other character. Counterpicking is heavily recommended -
or rely on them not knowing the matchup and you knowing it incredibly well.

Anything past 70:30
Seemingly unwinnable matchups

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Snake, in the hands of a good player, is fantastic.

Unfortunately, Snake is the biggest noob-friendly character ever once Meta-Knight is gone. Snake takes only a small bit of skill to use effectively, so lots of people can see an improvement if they use him (what?! I shielded and f-tilted three times and they're at killing percent?!), but the amount of effort it takes to push Snake into that upper skill level is a lot higher than with other characters. It's better to spend your time on another character than Snake.


Long story short, Snake has virtually no learning curve until the upper levels of play, and then it is a phenomenally steep learning curve.