Official Character Competitive Impressions - Tourneys, Tiers, Theories, Tactics

[Asdioh]

I like how Nairo vs Marss is literally

The sensei pulling out all the stops to show that there is always someone stronger, to never stop improving. Scared of how he'll do in future majors.


Did you guys notice how during top 8, 90% of ledge pressure was just standing in shield, waiting to punish the getup option? Especially in Zero vs Dabuz. Ledge stand was chosen almost always, I guess the other options are just that reactable? I do think people didn't go offstage to hit Rosa's poor recovery often enough, but Rosa went off and kept trying to hit Sheik, but invincibility is too good.

 

[Wtfwasthat]

The only change sheik could possibly need is removing invincibility on the startup of vanish, OR make it so the second part of vanish does not have a hitbox

 

[Xeze]

The only change sheik could possibly need is removing invincibility on the startup of vanish, OR make it so the second part of vanish does not have a hitbox

I second this. Sheik with a worse recovery would be much more bearable. It's frustrating when a character that already has an excellent ground and air game can recover for free.

 

[Flux0r]

I like how Nairo vs Marss is literally

The sensei pulling out all the stops to show that there is always someone stronger, to never stop improving. Scared of how he'll do in future majors.


Did you guys notice how during top 8, 90% of ledge pressure was just standing in shield, waiting to punish the getup option? Especially in Zero vs Dabuz. Ledge stand was chosen almost always, I guess the other options are just that reactable? I do think people didn't go offstage to hit Rosa's poor recovery often enough, but Rosa went off and kept trying to hit Sheik, but invincibility is too good.

That's because the ledge-trump mechanic allows for stuff like that.

I personally dislike the ledge-mechanics here in Smash 4.

The ledge-trump mechanic makes alot of recoveries free. It's more about covering your opponents ledge-options instead of edge-guarding them. It boils edge-play down to a guessing game and nothing more.

I think it would be totally fine, due to the amount of ridiculous recoveries in this game, but it could unfortunately make the game even more unbalanced.

Sheik could dominate even more. Characters that rely on ledge-snapping becomes alot worse.

The low-tiers would be even more low-tier. Little Mac and Ganondorf are now G-tier.

 

[Wtfwasthat]

I second this. Sheik with a worse recovery would be much more bearable. It's frustrating when a character that already has an excellent ground and air game can recover for free.

Exactly. they can already not get hit during the beginning of vanish and on the off chance they mis-input and land on stage its still rarely punishable due to the hitbox. Just my two cents, I dont think she needs to be nerfed in any other way

 

[Nobie]

I'll gladly take making some recoveries so-called "free" in exchange for not screwing over certain characters with bad recoveries because they got ledge-hogged (Falcon, Dorf, etc.). I know all of this interesting play developed because of ledge hogging and such but it's such an inelegant facet of previous Smash games.

Re: Lack of Bowser representation, I decided to just search through the names of the players to find any notable Bowsers who might have drowned in pools, and I found pretty much no notable Bowsers who even ATTENDED the tournament. No Chaos, no King Kong, no Le Troof, etc. I might be missing someone but it just seems that for some characters they just didn't have any decent reps going in, let alone reps in the top 32.

 

[TurboLink]

The thing is, Rosa is an intended counter to Ness, and one of the few cases I can think of where it's almost explicitly put out there by the developers. I can't really think of many other character-specific tips that encourage the use of a particular tool against a certain character (although as I'm writing this I'm starting to think maybe there is one with regards to FLUDD and LM or someone similar).

On a positive note I'm happy to see Ness re-cementing himself where he needs to be. Also to whoever said that most of these results reflect what we'd already know, I'd disagree and point to TL and DK, ESPECIALLY the former. I legitimately think TL is between 20th-25th and that's a lot better than I think a lot of people used to have him as (somewhere in the mid 30's).

• F.L.U.D.D. – F.L.U.D.D.'s water is great for stopping fighters like Ness and Ike from recovering with their up specials. Try to keep it charged and ready!

Source: http://www.ssbwiki.com/List_of_tips_(SSB4-Wii_U)#Mario

 

[Spinosaurus]

Utilt utilt utilt upsmash. 30-40% done
Bomb to follow up + chip damage - 70-80%
You're at death % to fsmash.

Damage output isn't the potential damage you can dish out, a big part of it is how reliably and consistently you can deal that damage. You're just theorycrafting here.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Damage output isn't the potential damage you can dish out, a big part of it is how reliably and consistently you can deal that damage. You're just theorycrafting here.

Hyuga must have done an impossimbly good job directly translating that so-called theorycraft into hard results then.

 

[C0rvus]

Just noticed but were there any Wario's at G3? I assume Reflex didn't go. There's a character that is on the fringe of high tier. Hopefully we see some results going forward.

Also I would love to be proven wrong about Yoshi. He's got great physics and great buttons but his combo game and grab game are poor. I don't see high tier personally, but I know there's more to the character. I certainly can't play him well.

 

[L9999]

Mii Gunner and Swordfighter are low mid tier at least. And not garbage tier. Mii Brawler is Top15...
... if tournaments finally run the correct rulesets. Poor Mii Mains. They Metagame cannot even advance. I could imagine Mii Gunner and Swordfighter being higher mid tier but their metagame doesn't advance because the rules screw them so not one is encouraged to play them, because they could be screwed by ruleset changes anytime.

Good thing Beast 6 allows at least one of their best sets (even though I don't like that solution; shoutouts at MLG for the best ruleset) but I think I'll be the only Brawler player there..

[/QUOTE]
Kinda my point. They ARE garbage with no customs and I want them to not be garbage REGARDLESS of ruleset. I play Brawler too, albeit as a disrespect/fun character and CASUALS tell me no because they are "banned" so I beat them up with Ness or Rosa when I wanted to play Mii Brawler and have fun playing a character I like.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Hyuga must have done did an impossimbly good job directly translating that so-called theorycraft into hard results then.

Good on Hyuga.

Don't see how that changes how much work Toon needs to put in to rack up that damage compared to most characters. It speaks more about Hyuga than the character.

Just noticed but were there any Wario's at G3? I assume Reflex didn't go. There's a character that is on the fringe of high tier. Hopefully we see some results going forward.

Reflex didn't go, he attended KiT16. There were Waymas, Jeepy, Nasubi and C4 but they all drowned in pools.

 

[Yikarur]

Is Mii Brawler top 15 due to matchup unfamialrity or just because or his insane reward/early kill potential? There are so few mii brawler players so its hard to know. It's unfortunate that Mii's meta is being restricted and I cant see any future for them sadly because of how the smash community does not like any change to the system(except when it comes to nerfing zss/sheik)

I play a lot Mii Brawler in germany and germany has them free from the very beginning. The people have adapted to the match-up and the early Helicopter Kick kills rarely happen anymore. And I still don't feel like this character is anything worse. He has a really good mobility, insane damage output, combos and frame traps, a killing frame 8 upB OoS (most grabs are frame 7 in comarison) a really strong disadvantage state and recovery thanks to feint jump.
I really wish these character's metagame would get pushed forward by more players but the current ruleset inconsistency makes it impossible even though all 3 Mii's have a lot to offer.

(Talking about Guest Mii's + Free Moves like at MLG)

Kinda my point. They ARE garbage with no customs and I want them to not be garbage REGARDLESS of ruleset. I play Brawler too, albeit as a disrespect/fun character and CASUALS tell me no because they are "banned" so I beat them up with Ness or Rosa when I wanted to play Mii Brawler and have fun playing a character I like.

There is no reason for the devs to buff them to make them good "regardless of ruleset" if they are never meant to be played as 1111 because nothing in the game implies that they should be played this way and thus all moves are coming in mind when balancing them.

E: my quoting skills suck

 

[AnEventHorizon]

I'll gladly take making some recoveries so-called "free" in exchange for not screwing over certain characters with bad recoveries because they got ledge-hogged (Falcon, Dorf, etc.). I know all of this interesting play developed because of ledge hogging and such but it's such an inelegant facet of previous Smash games.

Re: Lack of Bowser representation, I decided to just search through the names of the players to find any notable Bowsers who might have drowned in pools, and I found pretty much no notable Bowsers who even ATTENDED the tournament. No Chaos, no King Kong, no Le Troof, etc. I might be missing someone but it just seems that for some characters they just didn't have any decent reps going in, let alone reps in the top 32.

To add onto that, here is a post attempting to detail the highest placing each character got at Genesis. While looking around in order to add info on the missing characters, I noticed a distinct lack of Shulk mains (Artyruu, Silentdoom, Jerm (the non Texas Jerm), Jayroach) and Ganondorf mains (Ray Kalm, Pon, Gungir, Vermanubis, Bloodynite) who went. Pon recently outplaced Selena (the Japanese Meta Knight main who came to genesis) at the last Umebura right before Genesis.

EDIT: Found a Shulk main, FOcast, who placed 5th in round 1 pools, but that was all

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Speaking of hard results if we're wise we're going to value the data of G3 extremely high. Captain obvious stuff, I know, but I really think we should call time upon the days where we'd place Pikachu in top 8 or Mario in top 5 for whatever reason. Facts are facts and you can't argue against Diddy heavily contributing to Zero's win. He made it to top 8 almost entirely with Diddy and it's highly likely that even as solo Diddy he'd reach the top 4. There simply is no justification for having Pikachu above Diddy or Mario above MK at this point.


Uber tier: [ordered]
Top tier: [unordered]
Very high tier: [unordered]

[This is my evaluation of the metagame with heavy consideration of the G3 results, not really my personal opinion. I'm not convinced that Rosalina is top 5 and I still think Ryu is a top tier character. But arging against facts and data is a losing battle that I have no interest in].


I think it's very clear by now that Villager has to be way up there. You can argue about Ranai's individual skill all you want but that amount of success and consistency he has running this character solo cannot be ignored or attributed entirely to the player. Ally is a fantastic player and Mario is a good character yet he doesn't win big tournaments nor does he reach the top 8 at G3 with solo Mario. His results are impressive but do not come close to match his success in the Brawl era where he'd run top tiers all the way. I don't think it'd be fair or accurate to say that Ally isn't as good a player as Ranai is. Villager is just a better character than Mario. Ranai also doesn't have the same streaks of inconsistency that ESAM does at the moment, which is a really remarkable thing to sayw because ESAM used to be Mr.Consistent pretty much throughout the whole Brawl era ... but again, Villager is just plain the better character.

People like to call out Yoshi for his results and call him mid tier after his G3 performance - really? Like Yikarur said, 3x top 64 is by a no means a bad showing and his metagame only just started to move forward recently with the uprise of The Wall. In sum Yoshi did better than characters like Wario [repped by Waymas and Nasubi] or Ike [Ryuga, Ryo, SM] so people are definitely jumping conclusions way too fast here.

 

[TurboLink]

Good on Hyuga.

Don't see how that changes how much work Toon needs to put in to rack up that damage compared to most characters. It speaks more about Hyuga than the character.

Speaking of damage. Look at what I found. A chart showing damage output rankings. (It's pretty old so Roy, Ryu, Lucas, and Cloud aren't on there.)

Toon Link is in the same rank as Marth.

 

[Smog Frog]

where's relative to the other characters on the little list? he had a very strong showing at g3(1 in top 8, 2 in top 16)

 

[Plain Yogurt]

To add onto that, here is a post attempting to detail the highest placing each character got at Genesis. While looking around in order to add info on the missing characters, I noticed a distinct lack of Shulk mains (Artyruu, Silentdoom, Jerm (the non Texas Jerm), Jayroach) and Ganondorf mains (Ray Kalm, Pon, Gungir, Vermanubis, Bloodynite) who went. Pon recently outplaced Selena (the Japanese Meta Knight main who came to genesis) at the last Umebura right before Genesis.

EDIT: Found a Shulk main, FOcast, who placed 5th in round 1 pools, but that was all

Oh so there's a different Jerm who plays Robin then? I was about to be super confused.

 

[Luigi player]

Alright, here's the top 64 at Genesis 3...

Spoiler: 1st-64th

Top 8:

1 Zero
2 Dabuz
3 Ranai
4 Void
5 Fow
5 Nairo
7 Larry
7 Marss

9th:

Ally
Mr.R
Shaky
Hyuga

13th:

6WX
Earth
Esam
Tyrant

17th:

Ito
Komorikiri
ONI Heero
Xzax
Fatality
SlayerZ
Trela
Cacogen

25th:

Trevonte
MrConCon
Zinoto
Nakat
DK Will
RIN
Nietono
Rain

33rd:

Akiro
Umeki
Tweek ()
falln
Angel Cortes
Zex
DJ Jack
Zan
Jerm
8bitman
Seagull Joe
Teb
Vinnie
MVD
Salena
Tearbear

49th:

Raptor
Nick Riddle
Captain L (?)
Apachai~
Big D
9B
Abadango
Jtails
K9sbruce
The Wall
J!
False
Ribs
Mister Eric
Xaltis
Karna (?)

Feel free to fill in the blue ones for which I'm not sure about their character(s).

 

[Flux0r]

where's relative to the other characters on the little list? he had a very strong showing at g3(1 in top 8, 2 in top 16)

My personal bet is somewhere along the lines with Mario and Luigi. Overall good results from players like NAKAT, Shaky, Ribs and of course FOW. Amazing air-game and grab game helps when shielding is such a strong option. Rosalina is a huge problem.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

where's relative to the other characters on the little list? he had a very strong showing at g3(1 in top 8, 2 in top 16)

Hard to say because I'm not sure how much the G3 results tell us about Ness' individual matchups. Calling him top 10 wouldn't be a stretch though.

 

[AnEventHorizon]

Alright, here's the top 64 at Genesis 3...

Spoiler: 1st-64th

Top 8:

1 Zero
2 Dabuz
3 Ranai
4 Void
5 Fow
5 Nairo
7 Larry
7 Marss

9th:

Ally
Mr.R
Shaky
Hyuga

13th:

6WX
Earth
Esam
Tyrant

17th:

Ito
Komorikiri
ONI Heero
Xzax
Fatality
SlayerZ
Trela
Cacogen

25th:

Trevonte
MrConCon
Zinoto
Nakat
DK Will
RIN
Nietono
Rain

33rd:

Akiro
Umeki
Tweek ()
falln
Angel Cortes
Zex
DJ Jack
Zan
Jerm
8bitman
Seagull Joe
Teb
Vinnie
MVD
Salena
Tearbear

49th:

Raptor
Nick Riddle
Captain L (?)
Apachai~
Big D
9B
Abadango
Jtails
K9sbruce
The Wall
J!
False
Ribs
Mister Eric
Xaltis
Karna (?)

Feel free to fill in the blue ones for which I'm not sure about their character(s).

Wintermelon43 is right, just look here
Jerm - Robin
Apachai - Ryu
Akiro - Sheik

Plain Yogurt Yes a different one, I checked more because for a second I thought Shulk almost made it into top 32 (this Jerm lost the match to top 32 to Nairo)

 

[Wintermelon43]

Alright, here's the top 64 at Genesis 3...

Spoiler: 1st-64th

Top 8:

1 Zero
2 Dabuz
3 Ranai
4 Void
5 Fow
5 Nairo
7 Larry
7 Marss

9th:

Ally
Mr.R
Shaky
Hyuga

13th:

6WX
Earth
Esam
Tyrant

17th:

Ito
Komorikiri
ONI Heero
Xzax
Fatality
SlayerZ
Trela
Cacogen

25th:

Trevonte
MrConCon
Zinoto
Nakat
DK Will
RIN
Nietono
Rain

33rd:

Akiro
Umeki
Tweek ()
falln
Angel Cortes
Zex
DJ Jack
Zan
Jerm
8bitman
Seagull Joe
Teb
Vinnie
MVD
Salena
Tearbear

49th:

Raptor
Nick Riddle
Captain L (?)
Apachai~
Big D
9B
Abadango
Jtails
K9sbruce
The Wall
J!
False
Ribs
Mister Eric
Xaltis
Karna (?)

Feel free to fill in the blue ones for which I'm not sure about their character(s).

Dude, just check the SSB Wiki, They have the top 128 or however much and all their characters

Edit:Sorry if that line on the top meant anything, I never even typed that in lol.

 

[HeavyLobster]

To add onto that, here is a post attempting to detail the highest placing each character got at Genesis. While looking around in order to add info on the missing characters, I noticed a distinct lack of Shulk mains (Artyruu, Silentdoom, Jerm (the non Texas Jerm), Jayroach) and Ganondorf mains (Ray Kalm, Pon, Gungir, Vermanubis, Bloodynite) who went. Pon recently outplaced Selena (the Japanese Meta Knight main who came to genesis) at the last Umebura right before Genesis.

EDIT: Found a Shulk main, FOcast, who placed 5th in round 1 pools, but that was all

Don't believe any top Ganon main has attended an American national event thus far, at least not if we mean by that Kalm, Verm, or GanontheBeast, or the Japanese Dorfs. The best Dorf that went to Genesis 3 was Swoops and got like 5th in round 1 pools.

 

[Radical Larry]

I second this. Sheik with a worse recovery would be much more bearable. It's frustrating when a character that already has an excellent ground and air game can recover for free.

Add Sheik's Bouncing Fish dealing less damage and KB, F-Air having more ending lag and start up, F-Tilt having much more endlag, Needles dealing no KB near the end or having less range and have her throw combo ability nerfed to the list.

 

[Yikarur]

ah The other Yoshi didn't make the Top64 cut. I thought he'd be up there. So it's 2 Yoshis in Top64 at least.
nice.
http://www.ssbwiki.com/Genesis_3#Smash_Wii_U_singles

here are all characters. Props @ whoever made this list and put it up there.

 

[TurboLink]

Add Sheik's Bouncing Fish dealing less damage and KB, F-Air having more ending lag and start up, F-Tilt having much more endlag, Needles dealing no KB near the end or having less range and have her throw combo ability nerfed to the list.

The last thing Sheik needs is less knockback.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Glad to see a D3 make it into Top 50, at least.

Smooth Criminal

 

[ARISTOS]

Speaking of hard results if we're wise we're going to value the data of G3 extremely high. Captain obvious stuff, I know, but I really think we should call time upon the days where we'd place Pikachu in top 8 or Mario in top 5 for whatever reason. Facts are facts and you can't argue against Diddy heavily contributing to Zero's win. He made it to top 8 almost entirely with Diddy and it's highly likely that even as solo Diddy he'd reach the top 4. There simply is no justification for having Pikachu above Diddy or Mario above MK at this point.


Uber tier: [ordered]
Top tier: [unordered]
Very high tier: [unordered]

[This is my evaluation of the metagame with heavy consideration of the G3 results, not really my personal opinion. I'm not convinced that Rosalina is top 5 and I still think Ryu is a top tier character. But arging against facts and data is a losing battle that I have no interest in].


I think it's very clear by now that Villager has to be way up there. You can argue about Ranai's individual skill all you want but that amount of success and consistency he has running this character solo cannot be ignored or attributed entirely to the player. Ally is a fantastic player and Mario is a good character yet he doesn't win big tournaments nor does he reach the top 8 at G3 with solo Mario. His results are impressive but do not come close to match his success in the Brawl era where he'd run top tiers all the way. I don't think it'd be fair or accurate to say that Ally isn't as good a player as Ranai is. Villager is just a better character than Mario. Ranai also doesn't have the same streaks of inconsistency that ESAM does at the moment, which is a really remarkable thing to sayw because ESAM used to be Mr.Consistent pretty much throughout the whole Brawl era ... but again, Villager is just plain the better character.

People like to call out Yoshi for his results and call him mid tier after his G3 performance - really? Like Yikarur said, 3x top 64 is by a no means a bad showing and his metagame only just started to move forward recently with the uprise of The Wall. In sum Yoshi did better than characters like Wario [repped by Waymas and Nasubi] or Ike [Ryuga, Ryo, SM] so people are definitely jumping conclusions way too fast here.

While Genesis 3 is incredibly important in terms of the sheer skill density of it's players, we need to remember that this is just one tournament. To use it as the end all be all in terms of evaluating character rankings would be to inflate the rankings of whomever showed up to this tournament alone.

is an amazing character but trying to stamp out where this character lies in this point in time seems like a fool's endeavor. We should not be making conclusions about the character at this time- more data is needed to be able to figure out where it lies. The dearth of any other Villager in top 64 is also a point to mention, though we can argue that US (and the rest of the world's Villagers) are not good.

being mid tier depends on what your definition of mid tier is; IMO, if you think is mid-tier, Yoshi goes there as well. was missing his best player in Reflex so I don't think that's too big a concern. underperformed, no question there.

 

[williamsga555]

Damn, I didn't know Big D made it that far. Amazing stuff from him.

Does make me wonder where our penguin friend fully fits in at. I'm pretty convinced he's really poorly off, but how bad is another question. Might be above Smash 4's definition of "garbage tier" maybe? Maybe?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

The dearth of any other Villager [...]

There are other Villager players?

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Damn, I didn't know Big D made it that far. Amazing stuff from him.

Does make me wonder where our penguin friend fully fits in at. I'm pretty convinced he's really poorly off, but how bad is another question. Might be above Smash 4's definition of "garbage tier" maybe? Maybe?

He's definitely above that. You're just not gonna see him break even (e.g. mid-tier) any time soon.

Also helps that Big D is nothing short of amazing on his own as a player. M2K isn't the only notable person he's taken down in this game, after all.

Quick edit:

~ Gheb ~

jokes aside, there's Villyness, MJG (whomp whomp whomp, though), and a few others. Villyness being the major notable one besides Ranai.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Spinosaurus]

was missing his best player in Reflex so I don't think that's too big a concern.

On that note, he won KiT16 (~80 entrants). Mostly Wario, but he used Mewtwo too.

 

[DblCrest]

Was wondering where Jtails got to. Glad to see he's still using Diddy.

Fun fact :I've had some success using Kirby's stone to gimp Sheiks using Vanish but I'll check if it still works after all this time.. *Goes *

 

[Fatmanonice]

Damn, I didn't know Big D made it that far. Amazing stuff from him.

Does make me wonder where our penguin friend fully fits in at. I'm pretty convinced he's really poorly off, but how bad is another question. Might be above Smash 4's definition of "garbage tier" maybe? Maybe?

Near the top of low tier and I'd argue that him and Bowser Jr are on almost equal footing. are definitely worse while maybe a smidge better or a little worse than those two.

 

[Sinister Slush]

ah The other Yoshi didn't make the Top64 cut. I thought he'd be up there. So it's 2 Yoshis in Top64 at least.

Was gonna say, who was this mysterious 3rd Yoshi, cause the only others I knew about was firefly and doom but they both lost round 1 in Round 2 pools so 129th place basically.

being mid tier depends on what your definition of mid tier is; IMO, if you think is mid-tier, Yoshi goes there as well. was missing his best player in Reflex so I don't think that's too big a concern. underperformed, no question there.

All 4 of these characters along with Tink the pits and a couple others seem like they'd fit into the high Tier area, like top 15-25.

Also are we all in agreement that Cloud is possibly top 10?

 

[TTTTTsd]

Also are we all in agreement that Cloud is possibly top 10?

I'm entertaining the idea, solely because Komorikiri used him for most of the tournament and placed so high and Cloud is just one month old. 17th is not a bad result at all for an entirely new character.

 

[Yikarur]

Spoiler: Genesis Top64 Character representation

14
7
4
4
4
3
3
3
3
3

2
2
2
2
2
2
2

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

26 different characters in Top64
Every character played more than twice is considered a potential Top10 character.

Everytime I've seen Komorikiri playing I've seen him playing Sonic except for the set against Mr.R where he got pretty much bodied. Cloud is probably not a Top10 character. He is just the easiest character to play in this game while being good at the same time.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Speaking of hard results if we're wise we're going to value the data of G3 extremely high. Captain obvious stuff, I know, but I really think we should call time upon the days where we'd place Pikachu in top 8 or Mario in top 5 for whatever reason. Facts are facts and you can't argue against Diddy heavily contributing to Zero's win. He made it to top 8 almost entirely with Diddy and it's highly likely that even as solo Diddy he'd reach the top 4. There simply is no justification for having Pikachu above Diddy or Mario above MK at this point.


Uber tier: [ordered]
Top tier: [unordered]
Very high tier: [unordered]

[This is my evaluation of the metagame with heavy consideration of the G3 results, not really my personal opinion. I'm not convinced that Rosalina is top 5 and I still think Ryu is a top tier character. But arging against facts and data is a losing battle that I have no interest in].


I think it's very clear by now that Villager has to be way up there. You can argue about Ranai's individual skill all you want but that amount of success and consistency he has running this character solo cannot be ignored or attributed entirely to the player. Ally is a fantastic player and Mario is a good character yet he doesn't win big tournaments nor does he reach the top 8 at G3 with solo Mario. His results are impressive but do not come close to match his success in the Brawl era where he'd run top tiers all the way. I don't think it'd be fair or accurate to say that Ally isn't as good a player as Ranai is. Villager is just a better character than Mario. Ranai also doesn't have the same streaks of inconsistency that ESAM does at the moment, which is a really remarkable thing to sayw because ESAM used to be Mr.Consistent pretty much throughout the whole Brawl era ... but again, Villager is just plain the better character.

People like to call out Yoshi for his results and call him mid tier after his G3 performance - really? Like Yikarur said, 3x top 64 is by a no means a bad showing and his metagame only just started to move forward recently with the uprise of The Wall. In sum Yoshi did better than characters like Wario [repped by Waymas and Nasubi] or Ike [Ryuga, Ryo, SM] so people are definitely jumping conclusions way too fast here.

Mario is definitely not top 5. He's pretty common in tourneys as an "easy" pick, but he's behind at least all the other characters you mentioned as well as Ryu and probably Pika even if he wins 1 on 1 vs. him. That would put him outside top 10. Top 15 seems fine, but it's pretty clustered at the top and we need to be stricter about top 15 since close to half the characters in the game have shown the ability to get relevant results at majors, and just saying "top 15" for any mid tier that gets top 32 at a major doesn't reflect reality.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Top 15, but yeah. Cloud is a great character with room to grow. I feel like with that growth, however, counterplay is going to emerge that presses Cloud's eminent weaknesses to the fore. Mr. R's surgical play versus Komo should be a testament to the beginnings of this.

Fatmanonice

Samus and Shulk are definitely better than D3, bud. Lucina is also definitely worse than he is.

Smooth Criminal