Is Brawl more balanced than melee? **Take 2**

[Yuna]

The only points I've made that we've sort of danced around with in these past posts were that in Melee, you have more tools to mindgame and more hitstun so that you can combo. This allowed lower tiered characters to possibly beat top tier characters with enough skill from the player. In Brawl, you don't have these kinds of options for bottom tiered characters. I never said lower tiered characters were inherently able to take down top tiers... that's what makes them low tier, they're worse... I'm saying Melee gave you more breathing room... more options to work with. Brawl doesn't. A skilled smasher who has mastered a lower tier character in Melee has a better chance of beating a top tier than he does in Brawl. Those are my claims...

You're saying that this is incorrect? I'm not trying to be abrasive, I really just want to know.

For the love of puppies, no they didn't.

Because the tools also helped the Higher Ups on the tier list! Only they helped them much more than the lower downs! The Low Tiers still had to work a lot harder to win!

If anything, the techniques just widened the gap! Those already good became much better while those who sucked just became kinda OK!

Melee was not more balanced due to the existence of these "tools"! It was more balanced due to there being less BS and the gap between the inherent abilities of the various characters on the roster being smaller than it is in Brawl!

 

[Micahc]

here's my blog on aib about high level competitive melee

i think it applies nicely to what some people here seem to be saying.

 

[Radical Dreamer]

How is a **** matchup in Melee any better than a **** matchup in Brawl?

Because the **** matchups in Brawl come a whole lot closer to crossing line between unfairly difficult and impossible?

I've had a few people pestering me to pick Melee back up after years of not playing/having no one but a computer to play against. That's simply not happening. My feelings are shared by many people, most of which who never really played Melee in the first place. People can sit here and complain about the game being broken all they want, but the fact of the matter is that they don't want to be playing against people who would make them look like Sandbag all day, and would rather just pick up Brawl.

All this means is that the people you're talking about are *******. I played Melee for the first time in my life six years after it came out and I still lose about 90% of my games. Man up.

 

[Padô]

All of you guys are analysing a game play that came out by many years of melee pro-play, in the beggining of melee peach was unbeatable (for some reasons I won't but here because of laziness), then suddenly fox, falco, sheik and marth abruptly gone up on tiers lists. We can't compare the gameplay of a newer game, in case Brawl, with and old-pro-played game as Melee, tactics were much more improved there and the tactics that seemed pro on its beggining are now seen as weak tactics. The same can happen in melee.

Getting out of my words: Actually I don't think playing Mario Vs. MK, D3 Vs. Whoelsethatgetsinfgrabbed or matchups like that are impossible. Actually people that are firmily stated with your character as BUM can take an MK, and thats what we need, as someone said before, we need people with lets say like people who have chosen "non-normal" characters as their mains to beat up some with mains like MK D3 GaW and Snake or whoever is on a higher scale on the list.

By now, it seems impossible to me to judge which game is the most balanced but I can say that Brawl can be a lot more improved, as much as melee got or more.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

D3 has the most unbalanced matchups in the game.

MK is the best character in the game.

 

[cutter]

D3 has the most unbalanced matchups in the game.

Melee Sheik has more LOL matchups than DDD; just to let you know.

 

[Gimpyfish62]

that's actually not even close to true - the matchups that ddd dominates he dominates harder than anything i've ever seen before

 

[GofG]

All of you guys are analysing a game play that came out by many years of melee pro-play, in the beggining of melee peach was unbeatable (for some reasons I won't but here because of laziness), then suddenly fox, falco, sheik and marth abruptly gone up on tiers lists.

Yay, speaking from unknowledge.

 

[Zankoku]

Didn't Peach begin in mid tier, with Fox, Falco, and Sheik always being top 3, and Marth being #4 for a long time?

 

[GofG]

Err, Fox started out a bit lower than Falco, and Sheik was a league ahead of Marth and them, but yeah.

 

[Yuna]

that's actually not even close to true - the matchups that ddd dominates he dominates harder than anything i've ever seen before

That is not what was said.

What was said was that Sheik had more match-ups which were lol (quantity of match-ups) than D3, not that Sheik's lolish match-up were lolier than D3's.

All of you guys are analysing a game play that came out by many years of melee pro-play, in the beggining of melee peach was unbeatable (for some reasons I won't but here because of laziness), then suddenly fox, falco, sheik and marth abruptly gone up on tiers lists.

What could possibly make you think Peach was unbeatable at the start of Melee's lifespan?

The reason why Fox and Falco were late in becoming Top Tier material was because it took a while to discover how their shines could be abused... because the scene was young, inexperienced, untechnical, and tiny. And there was no one who was actively trying to research new techniques and people didn't really care much about new techniques unless someone showed up at a tournament and totally dominated with it.

That is no longer true.

 

[Grunt]

(a pro Mewtwo vs. a pro fox is a hopeless match).

how about a falco?

 

[Yuna]

how about a falco?

Also pointless.

 

[Pink murder]

I main kirby..why would i need a second main?

 

[Snowstalker]

that's actually not even close to true - the matchups that ddd dominates he dominates harder than anything i've ever seen before

Ice Climbers vs. Ganondorf (in Brawl) is even more broken.

 

[Gimpyfish62]

almost everyone vs brawl ganon is more broken - i honestly think that brawl sheik vs brawl ganon is the only match i've ever seen that i'd actually label 100-0 rather than 90-10 lol

 

[Sefe]

It has it's ups and downs like Melee but yeah i dont think it is I mean u can main one person I think Marth can beat any and everyone in the game.

 

[Padô]

No way I can wakeup people on this thread you all should read my last post at least and stop talking about playing styles again.

 

[Schwartz_Bruder]

Also pointless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qleu9Dw8Vqo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHkrM6NhEdY

 

[Deathcarter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qleu9Dw8Vqo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHkrM6NhEdY

I do not even recall EVER seeing Taj use Mewtwo in a serious tournament match. These are just friendlies. I can win 3 out of 10 friendly matches with a tournament player who was or was not serious during the matches, but it won't mean anything. Show us some video evidence of a low tier character (that goes for both Brawl and Melee arguers) beating a pro high tier character player in a serious tournament set.

 

[Schwartz_Bruder]

I do not even recall EVER seeing Taj use Mewtwo in a serious tournament match. These are just friendlies. I can win 3 out of 10 friendly matches with a tournament player who was or was not serious during the matches, but it won't mean anything. Show us some video evidence of a low tier character (that goes for both Brawl and Melee arguers) beating a pro high tier character player in a serious tournament set.

Did you not see the second match? LOL

Hell, I'll post some more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3jaGkE3Jy0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4uPXB9Yg9w

 

[jehonaker]

I'm one of the people that feels that Brawl is less balanced than Melee.
As evidence, let's look at the characters that do well competitively and some of the match-ups, as well as how many you can use without needing back-up:

Melee
So much is made out of the dominance of Melee's top tier. Fox, Marth, Sheik, and Falco are, indeed, rather brutal in differing ways.
However, the case can be made that the four High Tier characters in Melee are still usable. Jigglypuff, Peach, Capt. Falcon, and the Ice Climbers are all solid choices and tend to hold their own against the Top Tier.
Notice a trend? Only Sheik even approaches the kind of character you can "pick and play" and do well with, and even she's tough to get down. The other seven have tons of technical skill that you need to get down to use well.

Match-ups are also rather interesting. Sheik destroys lower tiers but has trouble against the top tiers. Falco and Fox are both just good characters, but those that can exploit their recoveries tend to handle them fairly well (even godawful Pichu and Mewtwo weren't utterly slain by them). Marth...I don't really know what his bad match-ups are, but he doesn't have that many.

Point is that there were those four dominators, four more that did well, and the others that would occasionally do something.


Brawl
Meta Knight.

I know the argument is clichéd. But Meta Knight is outright brutal. He has no disadvantageous match-ups at the present, and every Melee character had at least one. I believe he has five neutral match-ups: Snake, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Yoshi at 55:45, and Falco at maybe 50:50.
(I may be missing one, I'll freely admit. Sue me.)
The rest of his match-ups aren't as dominating as Melee Sheik had over some of the cast...lots of 60:40 and 65:35 matches, but they are still advantages at any rate.
He's winning over 50% of his tournaments, and that doesn't appear to change. You tell me that's not imbalanced.
Marth's match-ups are almost as ugly, but with more outright neutrals and one disadvantage (Meta Knight).

Let's look at the rest of the top tier, though. There's Snake, King Dedede, Mr. Game & Watch, Falco, and R.O.B.
Falco and Dedede are simply overpowering: Dedede single-handedly makes five characters impossible to use without a secondary (including Donkey Kong) and chaingrabs most of the cast to hell, and Falco has a chaingrab on all but a couple of characters that puts them in a hole to begin with (add the spike, and it's lights-out).
Snake, Mr. Game & Watch, and R.O.B. fill the role of the "good" characters that are up there because they don't really have flaws (or fewer flaws than anyone else).

Some of the High Tier (and presently Middle Tier) characters are still usable. Lucario, Olimar, Ice Climbers, Pikachu, Marth, Wario, Peach, Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong, Toon Link, ZSS, and Kirby are all decent characters, but each one has a match-up where they literally get eaten alive in that almost necessitates a secondary. Usually, though, it's against one of the six top-tier characters.
Of the low-tier characters, I feel that only Yoshi stands a chance on a routine basis in tournament play, but he also has some really ugly match-ups where a secondary is helpful.

What's the trend here? Meta Knight is the easiest character to "pick and play". Imagine that, the best character is the easiest to use.


Summary
In all honesty, Melee has more characters where you can main without needing back-up...all of High Tier (excluding the Ice Climbers, who are utterly mauled by Peach) and Top Tier, arguably. That's 7 out of 26.
Brawl has Meta Knight, Falco, King Dedede, Marth, and maybe Lucario, Snake, Olimar, Kirby, and Zero Suit Samus. If we count them all, that's 9 out of 37. I may be missing a couple, but no more than that, and I may be overestimating a couple.

7/26 is greater than 9/37. A greater percentage of Melee's cast is usable on their own and can hold their own without a back-up character.

By that logic, I feel that Melee has more balance than Brawl...at the present. Something may be discovered that evens the scales or tilts them further, but that's what I feel.

 

[KosukeKGA]

Samus, Ganondorf, The Marios, Luigi. They all stand a chance.

Yeah.

 

[metaXzero]

Samus, Ganondorf, The Marios, Luigi. They all stand a chance.

Yeah.

These days its harder to argue them though, since their are so few known Marios, Gannys, Samuss, and Luigis at this stage of the metagame.

 

[KosukeKGA]

And yet it is still a valid one.

 

[Nintendevil]

^ This.

Theres fewer playing low tier, but they're still just as useful as they where in Melee. I already posted the vids of Devas link beating DSF's Snake and MK. And yes, there are plenty of other cases where such things have happened.

 

[Dark Sonic]

^^Samus, Ganondorf, Dr.Mario, Mario, and Luigi are all mid tier in melee.

 

[ExCeL 52]

Yes IMO brawl is waaay more balanced then melee

 

[NES n00b]

To the people who say things like "people with more tech skill win in melee" and "barwl is more balanced," play Melee more than 5 minutes please.

 

[metaXzero]

And yet it is still a valid one.

But it puts up the illusion that they can't succeed anymore. Just saying.

 

[GofG]

To the people who say things like "people with more tech skill win in melee" and "barwl is more balanced," play Melee more than 5 minutes please.

You need to play Melee at a higher level than you currently do.

If someone has more tech skill than I do, they are going to beat me (although this is slightly character dependent). The beauty of Melee is that the techskill isn't REALLY that hard to learn, unless you want to play Fox.

Regardless, people with more tech skill do win in melee, and to say otherwise is lying. Luckily, the tech skill cap is fairly low, just like any other game.

What makes me angry is the people who say that brawl is more balanced than melee. Where we stand right now, you could make a half-decent argument that brawl is as balanced as melee, but you certainly can't say that brawl is MORE balanced than melee.

 

[Fletch]

What makes me angry is the people who say that brawl is more balanced than melee. Where we stand right now, you could make a half-decent argument that brawl is as balanced as melee, but you certainly can't say that brawl is MORE balanced than melee.

Eh, I think even arguing that Brawl is as balanced as Melee is pushing it. Not saying Melee is horribly balanced, but certainly better than Brawl. At least there were about 4-6 equal characters at the top as opposed to 1-2.

 

[GofG]

Eh, I think even arguing that Brawl is as balanced as Melee is pushing it. Not saying Melee is horribly balanced, but certainly better than Brawl. At least there were about 4-6 equal characters at the top as opposed to 1-2.

I agree; I think Melee is more balanced than Brawl, but at least I can understand why one might think that Brawl is just as balanced. I cannot begin to fathom how someone could think that Brawl was more balanced.

 

[Fletch]

Didn't Peach begin in mid tier, with Fox, Falco, and Sheik always being top 3, and Marth being #4 for a long time?

http://super-smash-bros.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_previous_tier_lists

Peach was always decently high, and Falco dropped to as low as #5, but this is generally correct.

 

[Veggi]

So much is made out of the dominance of Melee's top tier. Fox, Marth, Sheik, and Falco are, indeed, rather brutal in differing ways.
However, the case can be made that the four High Tier characters in Melee are still usable. Jigglypuff, Peach, Capt. Falcon, and the Ice Climbers are all solid choices and tend to hold their own against the Top Tier.

I'm just going to set a boundary here. I'm willing to guess that there is no one here that thinks that Diddy Kong is unviable in tournament play. Actually, a lot of people believe that he is very viable and someone who uses Diddy Kong would have no problem winning a tourney provided they had the skill to do it.

A tier list would show what characters were the best and therefore which ones would stand a good chance in a tourney. Now, recognize that there are 10 characters above Diddy Kong in the tier list. I could actually go down the tier list until probably the Ice Climbers and people would probably agree that they could do well. That's a lot of characters. Sliq can even place well with Bowser, as a Bowser secondary, it doesn't even seem like it would be much harder than using any other character.

Notice a trend? Only Sheik even approaches the kind of character you can "pick and play" and do well with, and even she's tough to get down. The other seven have tons of technical skill that you need to get down to use well.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the easiest is Marth.

Match-ups are also rather interesting. Sheik destroys lower tiers but has trouble against the top tiers. Falco and Fox are both just good characters, but those that can exploit their recoveries tend to handle them fairly well (even godawful Pichu and Mewtwo weren't utterly slain by them). Marth...I don't really know what his bad match-ups are, but he doesn't have that many.

Metaknight has trouble against Snake, Falco, a couple high tiers, Bowser, and Yoshi of all things. Falco and Fox sound like Snake, correct. Where Snake is an extremely good character, but every character with a meteor isn't afraid of him. Captain Falcon isn't slain by Snake, he has faster air and ground speed than MK, which helps him avoid his camp game better. He has much better aerial finishers against Snake and a meteor (Snake's most exploitable weaknesses.) Captain Falcon does better in both aspects, considering MK's amazing predictable Shuttle Loop doesn't stand up against all of CF's aerial finishers and MK doesn't even have a meteor. Snake definitely has bad match-ups, as DK I have the easiest time beating Snake than any other character in the game. Bair>bair>dair, gg Snake he can't do anything about it and DK screws him over in almost all the other parts of his game.

I know the argument is clichéd. But Meta Knight is outright brutal. He has no disadvantageous match-ups at the present, and every Melee character had at least one. I believe he has five neutral match-ups: Snake, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Yoshi at 55:45, and Falco at maybe 50:50.
(I may be missing one, I'll freely admit. Sue me.)

Diddy Kong

(instert over-used video of NinjaLink vs. M2K here)

Plus there are Marth, Wario, Fox, Wolf, ROB, and Game and Watch who don't seem to care about going against him at all. Sonic can punish everything and I recall hearing more than one Link main say they didn't have a problem with him.

The rest of his match-ups aren't as dominating as Melee Sheik had over some of the cast...lots of 60:40 and 65:35 matches, but they are still advantages at any rate.

If MK wins against a lot of low tiers, but his advantages arn't significant, and he goes even and loses against to some of the characters around him, I don't see how he is more of a problem than Melee Shiek who screwed over plenty of other characters.

He's winning over 50% of his tournaments, and that doesn't appear to change. You tell me that's not imbalanced

Last time I checked it was 33.5% or something and Melee Marth won 55% of significant tournaments.

Marth's match-ups are almost as ugly, but with more outright neutrals and one disadvantage (Meta Knight).

I don't get what you mean here.

Dedede single-handedly makes five characters impossible to use without a secondary (including Donkey Kong)

I have to agree here, he does.

and chaingrabs most of the cast to hell

The normal chain-grab doesn't make match-ups with it extremely hard. It is dependent on how much space is left on the stage as well when he can get the grab (which I admit is very often considering his large grab range.)

and Falco has a chaingrab on all but a couple of characters that puts them in a hole to begin with (add the spike, and it's lights-out).

Excessive chain-grabbing certainly isn't Brawl exclusive. Even Falco's only will go to like 40% on DK. Then it's fair game from there, once again he would also have to get the grab earlier than the percent the chaingrab stops on. After the spike the characters can survive other than a couple of them 3 from what I remember and some characters can put Falco in a disadvantaged position of they get spiked too early for it to be effective, like Captain Falcon. Captain Falcon's ability to edgehog and edgeguard people trying to edgeguard him is the reason I will never play Fox against a good Captain Falcon. I completely gave up because I got edgehogged every single time even after a successful drill shine OFFSTAGE.

Snake, Mr. Game & Watch, and R.O.B. fill the role of the "good" characters that are up there because they don't really have flaws (or fewer flaws than anyone else).

Sounds like a typically top-tier, plus they have undeniable weaknesses.

Some of the High Tier (and presently Middle Tier) characters are still usable. Lucario, Olimar, Ice Climbers, Pikachu, Marth, Wario, Peach, Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong, Toon Link, ZSS, and Kirby are all decent characters, but each one has a match-up where they literally get eaten alive in that almost necessitates a secondary. Usually, though, it's against one of the six top-tier characters.

The only character I recognize who would need is a secondary is Olimar, Donkey Kong, or ZSS. With DK needing one for Dedede, Olimar possibly needing one for Peach (low mid), and ZSS needing one for Wario? I don't know much about ZSS.

Of the low-tier characters, I feel that only Yoshi stands a chance on a routine basis in tournament play, but he also has some really ugly match-ups where a secondary is helpful.

If we're having a low tier stand a chance then it seems to be working against you considering everyone below like Ganondorf totally sucked.

What's the trend here? Meta Knight is the easiest character to "pick and play". Imagine that, the best character is the easiest to use.

Sounds like Marth who is tied for first with Fox, with Fox being comparable to Snake, who is among one of the hardest to use effectively in Brawl. Snake was the best until Chillin''s tier list came out making a majority of other people think other wise because it was the most credible of it's time.

In all honesty, Melee has more characters where you can main without needing back-up...all of High Tier (excluding the Ice Climbers, who are utterly mauled by Peach) and Top Tier, arguably. That's 7 out of 26.

Needing a secondary does not make the game unbalanced, if all characters needed a secondary it would make them even in that regard, correct?

Brawl has Meta Knight, Falco, King Dedede, Marth, and maybe Lucario, Snake, Olimar, Kirby, and Zero Suit Samus. If we count them all, that's 9 out of 37. I may be missing a couple, but no more than that, and I may be overestimating a couple.

What is this a list of?

7/26 is greater than 9/37. A greater percentage of Melee's cast is usable on their own and can hold their own without a back-up character.

Percentage wouldn't matter, the number of usable characters would be the only thing to make it better. For example if we went into Brawl or Melee and deleted all characters but one, it would be more balanced, but useless to discuss because it would have no value.

Personally I believe Brawl is more balanced. I mained Peach and Mario in Melee, and I used Pichu as my third character a whole lot. I stopped using him against my friends though because I knew from experience and his spot on the tier list that he was terrible. As a result I would only play with him against computers, and I would play Mario and Peach against my friends. The reason being is that I knew that if I used Pichu my friends probably wouldn't try as hard against me because it would be too easy to win and I didn't want to play a completely terrible character against my friends despite him being my third favorite character.

Next I tried playing as Bowser and admittedly I only used him against computers while I was testing him, but I felt completely overwhelmed and useless by the lvl. 9 Fox computer compared to when I used Mario or Peach that I didn't want to play with him anymore. I will play as the worst character in the game provided that the extent I can play with them will never be considered a joke.

In Brawl this is never the case, I have no problem winning against anyone using any character as Captain Falcon. Every one of my friends uses Captain Falcon as a secondary and the matches between our secondaries go even, and when I used Fox I felt I could never win against my friend's Falcon, so I counter-picked Mario. I knew all the tools Captain Falcon had and that he beat even Metaknight in a lot of aspects. From watching my friend, watching videos of Rebaz, Falcon combo videos, reading the boards and such I learned how to do a lot of things and I couldn't understand how people could think he sucked. Priority was the only thing that my mind wasn't changed on. I used to think his recovery was bad, then I watched a video of captain Falcon making it under Battle Field with his recovery. So I watched my friend manipulate it better than I could and I got better with it.

So I played with him, I used jab cancels, and the flubbed knee to uair combo offstage (that is an insane edgeguard by the way), I learned the timing for his knee, I could bait airdodges after a dthrow, and I learned how to psuedo-chaingrab with his fthrow, how to DI MK's tornado and punish it with a Falcon Kick through the top of it and how to grab release MK to an upsmash. I couldn't understand how CF was anything less than mid-tier against top-tier level in Melee while playing against MK and how it was even easier against Snake because his cypher was easy mode for CF's aerial finishers, then how CF actually seemed to be better at ground combo'ing than air combo'ing and that his ground game could be linked to his aerials that could kill well. Playing against people I knew or them playing against me using Captain Falcon, we all go as hard as we can against eachother because we all know that we can't just go easy on any character in Brawl and win.

Now on the reverse end there's MK who a lot of people want banned. He isn't even that good, his Mach Tornado is punishable (even after being caught in it), his Shuttle Loop is punishable and his supposedly best move, his down smash is punishable too. His down smash isn't even as good as Luigi's nair.

Luigi's nair
-comes out in 3 frames
-kills early
-hits all around him
-it's Wolf's shine power at getting out of chains, I'm convinced that it's impossible to chain Luigi in the air.
-easier to place because it can be used anywhere in the air
-Kills off the top (harder to DI)

MK's downsmash
-Front hits on frame 5, back on frame 10
-front hit has bad knock-back
-back hit has good knock-back, but comes out much slower
-leaves him vulnerable from above
-can't be used from the air, while Luigi's can be jumped from the ground.
-kills off the sides (easier to DI)

MK only has one reliable kill move, which is only is reliable in the back. His other moves can only gimp in the right situation. MK's air speed is slow, he has really bad shield stun, like you can just shield anything he does and counter right after, he sucks on Green Greens and FD, his vertical recovery is definitely not among the best in the game, SDI can get you out of some of his moves, he is not strong and only has one reliable kill move.

If Dedede's infinite wasn't here I could get some more credit for this.

 

[metaXzero]

Veggi. Are you seriously saying FALCON does better against Snake then MK.

 

[goldemblem]

I was reading it and even read after the meta vs falcon part, but some of those comments were just too stupid >_>

Balanced? mmmm...

Most of the cast on Brawl it's usable and has some chance against even the top characters, in Melee there are some horrible matchups between bottom and top, In brawl the only characters i think that some characters don't stand a chance against are metaknight and King Dededee, Meta it's a monster but D3 it's beateable if you are not using characters who can be infinitely grabbed.

 

[metaXzero]

I was reading it and even read after the meta vs falcon part, but some of those comments were just too stupid >_>

Balanced? mmmm...

Most of the cast on Brawl it's usable and has some chance against even the top characters, in Melee there are some horrible matchups between bottom and top, In brawl the only characters i think that some characters don't stand a chance against are metaknight and King Dededee, Meta it's a monster but D3 it's beateable if you are not using characters who can be infinitely grabbed.

Melee and Brawl both have horrible match-ups between bottom and top.

 

[Yuna]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qleu9Dw8Vqo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHkrM6NhEdY

Oh yes! This one amazing Mewtwo player (Taj) managed to beat this one Falco and Fox player (Forward) in friendlies (and this one tournament)! Obviously this means Mewtwo is viable in tournament play against Fox and Falco.

It's not at all just one amazing player, one of the best in the United States, being amazing with one of the game's worst characters and being able to take him far against players of lesser skill or players with little experience in the match-up!

Tell me, how many tournaments did Taj win or even place Top 5 with as Mewtwo? How many of those were bigger than 32 people and featured more than maybe 1-2 really good players?

It doesn't make Mewtwo viable. It makes Taj an amazing Mewtwo player. Why do you think almost zero Mewtwos besides Taj was capable of even making Top 5? Was there just no other good M2 player? Or was M2 just not that good, with Taj just being an amazing player?

In all honesty, Melee has more characters where you can main without needing back-up...all of High Tier (excluding the Ice Climbers, who are utterly mauled by Peach)...

No they aren't. It's a 60:40 or 70:30 match-up last time I checked. Hardly "utterly mauled". Besides, she's not even the IC''s worst match-up among the Tops and Highs.

For one thing, Peach is much easier to grab than, say, Fox.

If someone has more tech skill than I do, they are going to beat me (although this is slightly character dependent). The beauty of Melee is that the techskill isn't REALLY that hard to learn, unless you want to play Fox.

Untrue blanket statement. Mindgames are what wins in the end. Unless you have an inordinate lack of tech skill, if you have clearly superior mindgames, you will win.

You can afford a larger deficiency in tech skill vs. deficiency in mindgames and still win.

That is if you are both playing the same character. Of course certain characters suffer more/less from a lack of tech skill. But if both players are playing the same character, superior mindgames will most probably win either player the match, not tech skill, unless it's a low-level Fox-match.

Nobody cares if you can shine-combo someone across the stage if you can never hit with it!

http://super-smash-bros.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_previous_tier_lists

Peach was always decently high, and Falco dropped to as low as #5, but this is generally correct.

She was never "unbeatable" while the rest of the eventual Top and High tier were placed really, really low, as someone claimed.

Sheik has always been Top or close to the Top, but facts just get in the way sometimes.

I'm just going to set a boundary here. I'm willing to guess that there is no one here that thinks that Diddy Kong is unviable in tournament play. Actually, a lot of people believe that he is very viable and someone who uses Diddy Kong would have no problem winning a tourney provided they had the skill to do it.

A tier list would show what characters were the best and therefore which ones would stand a good chance in a tourney. Now, recognize that there are 10 characters above Diddy Kong in the tier list. I could actually go down the tier list until probably the Ice Climbers and people would probably agree that they could do well.

Using that same logic, we can go all the way down to Roy and he'd still be viable. Roy enjoys around the same odds as IC's.

That's a lot of characters. Sliq can even place well with Bowser, as a Bowser secondary, it doesn't even seem like it would be much harder than using any other character.

Nobody cares that one player can "place well" with Bowser. Tell me, how come Sliq can't even win or place better than 5th at a local biweekly. It's not even a major tournament where he has to go up against the best players in the U.S., it's a friggin' biweekly, yet his Bowser can only place 5th.

Oh yeah, Bowser is plenty viable there! When we say viable, we don't just mean "Can maybe place high if player by some of the best players in the world vs. not-so-good-players". We mean "Can win major tournaments against some of the best players in the world".

Diddy Kong

(instert over-used video of NinjaLink vs. M2K here)

This is called a match-up where a character who's lower on the tier list has an advantage (or at least it's a 50-50) over a character who's much higher up. This is not unique to Brawl and it does not equal more balance, either.

I TL;DR:ed the rest.

 

[Davy Jones]

I say Brawl is more ballanced.