The Official SBR-B Brawl Tier List v3.0

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

LOLLLLLLLLLL

f***ing ingenious revelation right there.

Living til 180% is very possible with good DI. But if he's sent at a bad trajectory gimping him is easy.

Even if good Link's don't get gimped very often.

 

[da K.I.D.]

good links get gimpped all the effing time, if they didnt, link would be a decent character

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Watch Legan and Deva play.

 

[Col. Stauffenberg]

I always get a kick out of how Link mains seem to think that living longer through good DI is a unique character trait.

 

[da K.I.D.]

I always get a kick out of how Link mains seem to think that living longer through good DI is a unique character trait.

Im fairly certain that link and ike can alter their knockback trajectory by means of DI to a greater degree than other characters in the game. not to mention the fact that link is deceptively heavy. his fastfall helps his momentum cancel a lot since he falls like a brink and his back air is above average in speedfor the purpose of momentum cancling

 

[DMG]

No no no.

Every character can DI the same directions/get the same paths. The difference is horizontal/vertical weight/resistance. That affects the paths slightly. Alone with Weight and floatiness.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

good links get gimpped all the effing time, if they didnt, link would be a decent character

^This. If people are smart, they will use extremely low knockback moves when they can to gimp. Higher percents with better knockback means DI is much more effective. For MK, Nair is a far better move to use to try to get gimps than Fair.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I always get a kick out of how Link mains seem to think that living longer through good DI is a unique character trait.

Referring to what DMG said, because of Link's weight, resistance, and momentum canceling he can live about as long as Snake can if people are kind enough to not try and gimp Link.

 

[Masterchef1123]

I think Snake and Sonic are pretty head to head for the most part
However it all comes down to luck and timing for snake
And it all comes down to skill for sonic

 

[da K.I.D.]

You meant to say It all comes down to the sonic being skilled, and having amazing timing and luck for that particular set.

 

[The Truth!]

Honestly, I agree that Kirby is too low for my comfort zone on their tier list, definitely different from what I think he should be.

Relevant topic: I've only seen evidence that if anything point to Pikachu going lower (MUs seem less **** from when he first moved up a bunch, and not a marginally better rep/success at tourneys since his rise), I think he'll stay as is pretty much, but some radicals claim him to be better than he is. What's the thought on this character, seeing as how little discussion I've heard on him in this entire tier list discussion?

You've said this a few times so I feel like you have something to say, lol. Care to elaborate on your points?

 

[phi1ny3]

So when Pika was on the rise, his MU v. D3 was like 65:35 advantage, and his Fox MU was like 80:20. It's clear that Pika didn't have so much besides CGs going against these particular characters (or at least not enough) because once these and some other characters learned the MU, Pika's numbers started to decrease (now Pika v. D3 is like 55:45, and fox is more like 65:35). Anther and other mains like BadnewsBear have been doing a good job, but I haven't heard of any major tournaments, might just be from Anther's brief MIA status for a spell, but I think the only tournament with really big names that Anther has placed top 4 or so was Bootcamp, which wasn't like Ally/M2K/ADHD/statewide **** infested, although then again I guess one win might be all you need.
Correct me if there are more tourneys that have been won or at least top 4 with crazy good entrant names.
I may just be underrating pika now that I think about it, I really think he's a solid character though, just not Top tier like what some people think he is. I think that he's going to stay as he really has the build for that tier, but his MUs and placings need to improve.

 

[da K.I.D.]

Pikachu seems to me to have the trappings of everythign that makes a character great in this game.

Ways to gay really good characters, CGs on many top tiers.
Amazing manuverability, he has a good running speed, and at least an average fall speed and horizontal mobility. and he has the QAC which gives him some of the best manuverability in the game, albeit at the cost of making him as big as bowser for a small moment.
normally, hes small, which although it takes away from his range slightly (he still has some moves with great range.) along with his manuverability, it makes him really hard to hit, which is always a plus.

for a light character, he has a fckin FANTASTIC momentum cancel. i think his like 20 frame up air to completely neutralising side b, is probably second only to the bucket interms of helping a character survive.

hes one of the very few non-plank-able characters in brawl, since his projectile curves ledges,

t-jolt is a great camping tool, since it have very little commitment.

has great set ups for kill moves, like falling fair and rising up air.

and last but not least, he has a 0- risk kill move with infinite priority, that he can use to follow up other kill moves that dont quite do the job, he can gimp with it, and most importantly IT KILLS YOU FOR DOING SOMETHING CORRECT!

when you get hit by a kill move, you are supposed to momentum cancel, but pikachu kills you for doing this with thunder.

not to mention down smash is a minigame seperate from everything else entirely, and he can plank with the best of them.

hes amazing at edgeguarding snake, which he can initiate from anywhere on the stage with a low % grab

his offstage game vs falco is very good, which, again, he can do at almost anytime.

down smash wrecks ICs and combined with his ability to kill a non-DIing nana at 40 with thunder2, hes very good in that matchup.

he can run circles around DDD.

and he fares well against most other characters, and even tho mk and marth can give him the **** pretty well, I heard it said about pit a couple pages back, that he can camp all of his bad matchups to a winnable status, and pikachu is the same way.

and this is all just stuff that people are doing now. I think if anybody can master the up air footstool locks (which can be used to punish out of shield) and a couple other niche things with the character. he has the potential to be top tier.

of course... I could also just be biased because pikapika! is the number 1 ranked player in my region curently...

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Pikachu seems to me to have the trappings of everythign that makes a character great in this game.

Ways to gay really good characters, CGs on many top tiers.
Amazing manuverability, he has a good running speed, and at least an average fall speed and horizontal mobility. and he has the QAC which gives him some of the best manuverability in the game, albeit at the cost of making him as big as bowser for a small moment.
normally, hes small, which although it takes away from his range slightly (he still has some moves with great range.) along with his manuverability, it makes him really hard to hit, which is always a plus.

for a light character, he has a fckin FANTASTIC momentum cancel. i think his like 20 frame up air to completely neutralising side b, is probably second only to the bucket interms of helping a character survive.

hes one of the very few non-plank-able characters in brawl, since his projectile curves ledges,

t-jolt is a great camping tool, since it have very little commitment.

has great set ups for kill moves, like falling fair and rising up air.

and last but not least, he has a 0- risk kill move with infinite priority, that he can use to follow up other kill moves that dont quite do the job, he can gimp with it, and most importantly IT KILLS YOU FOR DOING SOMETHING CORRECT!

when you get hit by a kill move, you are supposed to momentum cancel, but pikachu kills you for doing this with thunder.

not to mention down smash is a minigame seperate from everything else entirely, and he can plank with the best of them.

hes amazing at edgeguarding snake, which he can initiate from anywhere on the stage with a low % grab

his offstage game vs falco is very good, which, again, he can do at almost anytime.

down smash wrecks ICs and combined with his ability to kill a non-DIing nana at 40 with thunder2, hes very good in that matchup.

he can run circles around DDD.

and he fares well against most other characters, and even tho mk and marth can give him the **** pretty well, I heard it said about pit a couple pages back, that he can camp all of his bad matchups to a winnable status, and pikachu is the same way.

and this is all just stuff that people are doing now. I think if anybody can master the up air footstool locks (which can be used to punish out of shield) and a couple other niche things with the character. he has the potential to be top tier.

of course... I could also just be biased because pikapika! is the number 1 ranked player in my region curently...

^^^ is the pika hype i've been talking about. He's such an overrated character.

 

[da K.I.D.]

for the most part im the only one I know that hypes pikachu, Ive been saying hes top tier since 08.

If you disagree Id like to know why, if you look in the first few paragraphs youll see that I dont think hes perfect, but I do think hes good enough for top tier.

I mean you know a character is stupid when they have TWO different chaingrabs...

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Er, KID, about Pikachu's aerial horizontal speed...

Most people consider Ike's to be "horrible", but Pikachu is slower horizontally.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=236133

Ya might wanna rephrase some parts. >_> Because if Ike has bad horizontal movement speed, Pikachu ain't average.

Either that or I get to flame more people again for being clueless about Ike. :D

 

[Blackrider213]

and last but not least, he has a 0- risk kill move with infinite priority, that he can use to follow up other kill moves that dont quite do the job, he can gimp with it, and most importantly IT KILLS YOU FOR DOING SOMETHING CORRECT!

I didn't quite understand what move you're talking about here. Are you referencing thunder? And could you perhaps elaborate a little bit more?

 

[phi1ny3]

I think there's a lot of good and a lot of bad emphasized.
For example I think thunderguarding is somewhat overrated and very dependent on the MU's you're up against, ones with better control offstage will get past it really well (MK is an obvious one that comes to mind).
He has a lot of strong attributes, like a lot of poking to bait responses combined with the tools to react, but at the same time I still see his kill power leave much to be desired until this lock thing becomes consistent.
Also I think quick attack is a double edged sword, works really well for a lot of purposes but people really forget how to fight it which is why I think it remains mostly effective offensively, if people learn about it's enlarged hurtbox the thing is kind of gimmicky.
I think he stays where he is, but I wanted to spark discussion on the character because I noticed that he was probably the one with fewest discussion going on about him, which probably confirms his ability to retain his tier position come the next tier list.


Edit: And yes, he's referring to thunder.

 

[DanGR]

for the most part im the only one I know that hypes pikachu, Ive been saying hes top tier since 08.

If you disagree Id like to know why, if you look in the first few paragraphs youll see that I dont think hes perfect, but I do think hes good enough for top tier.

I mean you know a character is stupid when they have TWO different chaingrabs...

He cannot approach or kill very well. His only good kill moves being undiminished n-air and the occasional upsmash/fsmash from direct reads.

Because he doesn't have many approaches he's forced to try to jump around the opponent to create openings, similar to Wario, but not as good.

And while he does have a nice chaingrab, his grab range is... awful. He's somewhere in the tier below top, imo.

Besides those bad traits he's incredible.

edit: As was said earlier, his QACing is really gimmicky. It doesn't take a genius to hit him out of it- only good timing and a nice, quick attack like MK's n-air or something. With the ICs I just pivotgrab him out of it, lol. It's pretty useless when Nana is with me.

 

[Blackrider213]

Just to get this clear, is da K.I.D. referring to the weird thunder effect when you get hit multiple times by thunder for massive amount of damage?

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

for the most part im the only one I know that hypes pikachu, Ive been saying hes top tier since 08.

If you disagree Id like to know why, if you look in the first few paragraphs youll see that I dont think hes perfect, but I do think hes good enough for top tier.

I mean you know a character is stupid when they have TWO different chaingrabs...

That right there is what i'm talking about. Both of pika's CG only work until about mid percents. None of which are like the IC CG or D3 CG. Yet it's hyped as if it's game changing when it's not. It's more along the lines of Falco's CG. Just good to wrack damage.

 

[Zankoku]

Maybe it's just me and my Melee player thoughts but I've never been one to think free damage is "just good."

 

[The Truth!]

I'd say pikachu's kill options are above average, but many people seem to be unaware of what they are

I posted this not too long ago, but I guess since were discussing pika it might be more relevant now.

Awhile ago I made a list with top pika players that compares match-ups rather then rates them, which is more accurate imo. Others here might find it interesting too (and I feel like advertising it, lol) and its relevant to the thread so Ill go ahead and post it here. I would suggest reading the threads first two posts to understand what youre seeing.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=241619

Pikachu's Match-up Rank List​

Top​

​

Meta Knight
Olimar
Mr. Game and Watch
Wario
Ice Climbers

High
Marth
Diddy Kong
Lucario
Snake

Middle
Luigi
Peach
Ness
Kirby
Rob
Zero Suit Samus
Pit
Toon Link
Falco

Low
Sonic
King Dedede
Lucas
Zelda
Donkey Kong
Wolf
Mario
Ike

Bottom
Bowser
Fox
Link
Yoshi
Shiek
Captain Falcon
Pokemon Trainer
Samus
Jigglypuff
Ganon​

Also, take it with a grain of salt. Its 4 months old, a few things would change i.e. characters such as Ike would move up and Wario would move down.

Marth is an overrated mu btw, at least according to the people I asked.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I think it's funny that Pikachu has more trouble with so many of those characters over Pokémon Trainer.

And Dedede, and Wolf, and Falco, for that matter. >_>

 

[DanGR]

That right there is what i'm talking about. Both of pika's CG only work until about mid percents. None of which are like the IC CG or D3 CG. Yet it's hyped as if it's game changing when it's not. It's more along the lines of Falco's CG. Just good to wrack damage.

Falco's chaingrab is... awesome and relatively easy to get the grab for, depending on the opponent, of course. It IS a game changer for Falco, UNLIKE Pikachu's which is very difficult to set up. Falco doesn't even really need his chaingrab to still be an awesome character. T_T

Beginning your stock with 70%+ isn't anything to scoff at... and it happens all the time because there are too many options of Falco's for you to watch out for.

 

[Ripple]

Falco's chaingrab is... awesome and relatively easy to get the grab for, depending on the opponent, of course. It IS a game changer for Falco, UNLIKE Pikachu's which is very difficult to set up. Falco doesn't even really need his chaingrab to still be an awesome character. T_T

Beginning your stock with 70%+ isn't anything to scoff at... and it happens all the time because there are too many options of Falco's for you to watch out for.

falco's chain grab stops at like 20 something on most characters. it should only be 30 some %

how are you taking 70% from falco unles you are fox or wolf? and I don't even think it'll last that long

 

[phi1ny3]

Just to get this clear, is da K.I.D. referring to the weird thunder effect when you get hit multiple times by thunder for massive amount of damage?

Naw, that thing only works well on Lucario and is SDIable.
He means using it for edgeguarding purposes or the occasional read.

And yes, QAC stuff gets dealt with by good walls if done properly.
CG is hard to setup compared to Falco and imo is not as rewarding since Falco has a much better control game that gets worse when he's in the lead.

Nair and usmash are like his only reliable killers with what resembles faint setups. His edgegame though imo is pretty amazing, thunder does work on certain characters really well, as does getting nair in a scenario like that which increases his capability. That and the fact that Pika is like one of the best in recovering, so many options for the character.

Edit: @Ripple, I think he means with the boost smash or other followups after the last one.

 

[Zankoku]

falco's chain grab stops at like 20 something on most characters. it should only be 30 some %

how are you taking 70% from falco unles you are fox or wolf? and I don't even think it'll last that long

From what I remember it goes up to 40% on the majority of the cast, and is then ended with a usmash, which takes it up to around 60%, or a dair for wakeup punish possibilities.

It only goes up to 20-30 on characters like Yoshi, Olimar, Toon Link.

It doesn't really work on characters like Peach, Marth, Jigglypuff.

It goes up to like 55% against Dedede.

 

[DanGR]

falco's chain grab stops at like 20 something on most characters. it should only be 30 some %

how are you taking 70% from falco unles you are fox or wolf? and I don't even think it'll last that long

A normal setup will do about ~10%ish if one was used- anything from a laser to a jab cancel, n-air, or d-air-> grab.

He gets 3 guaranteed dthrows on Olimar (without perfect timing, in which case he gets 4-5 apparently) + a free d-air/gatling combo which leads to other really safe, great followups. If he manages to grab again shortly afterwards he can do another dthrow combo.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=164990

edit: Ninja'ed. Curses.

 

[phi1ny3]

Lucario's another one where he can only get 2-3 dthrows but then falco dair does a lot of nice followups for him if used correctly.

 

[Kinzer]

Disappointed to see Jiggs still so low, we all know her obv. flaws, but taking a look at her air game, and her decent matchups against some high-tiers, I don't think she deserves to be 34 out of 37.

I think another major problem some characters suffer from on the tier lists is under representation. If there are 30,000 MK and Snkae users out there, and only 30 Jiggly users, of course Snake and MK are going to be higher ranked.

Personally, I'd move Jiggs up to E, or even bottom D tier, simply because of her air game, I'd move Lucas up a couple of spots, take Sonic back down, and move PT down a couple notches. It's pretty lame that some characters move up simply because they're counters to MK or Snake.

Excellent reasoning as to why Sonic should move down.

"Take him down because I don't like him." SBR material right here.

Sonic a Snake counter?

I'd like to hear why.

Wynaut?

Espy sent Razor to losers in the latest HOBO though.

Yay.

 

[Chuee]

Sonic can't kill snake. Thats why.

 

[The Truth!]

Theres a few things here I disagree with, but here are the main ones.

Pikachus grab sets ups are really good and nowhere near that difficult. Along with his great speed and grabbing mechanics similar to falco, pikachu has a very solid grab game. His only caveat is his grab range.

Regarding QA, the hitbox iirc is only extended vertically when hes stopped in the middle and at the end. The move itself is versatile enough so that its very unlikely the opponent would guess its path or landing time and location unless spammed or used predictably. I wouldnt call that anymore gimmicky then anything else that can be punished when predicted.

As for kill moves you have T2, Utilt/Usmash/dsmash to thunder, fsmash (sweetspotted and unsweetspotted), Usmash, dair, utilt, and ftilt. I'd say on average pika kills around 120% and dies around 140-150%.

Anyways as far as his matchups, I dont think anything in particular has changed. There was probably just a lot of over hype when the CG's came out with new people thinking he would be an easy character to win with. In general pika has nothing worse then 60:40, but for the most part doesn't really easy wins either and is a difficult character to learn. That hasnt changed too much for the last several months.

As for pikachus position I agree that he likely wont move. Olimar really doesnt deserve to move above him at all, rofl, but I could see Ice Climbers going up and potentially DDD and GW moving below. I do think he has a lot more potential, but based on how things exist where he is now is most likely correct.

 

[Kinzer]

Sonic can't kill snake. Thats why.

Spoiler

wynaut?

Oh.

Anyway, I don't like Pikachu. He chaingrabs, camps and walls with Thunder.

 

[da K.I.D.]

Er, KID, about Pikachu's aerial horizontal speed...

Most people consider Ike's to be "horrible", but Pikachu is slower horizontally.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=236133

Ya might wanna rephrase some parts. >_> Because if Ike has bad horizontal movement speed, Pikachu ain't average.

Either that or I get to flame more people again for being clueless about Ike. :D

my bad, i didnt realise that about his air speed, how ever Im more confident in the statement that his aerial acceleration is atleast average.

and last but not least, he has a 0- risk kill move with infinite priority, that he can use to follow up other kill moves that dont quite do the job, he can gimp with it, and most importantly IT KILLS YOU FOR DOING SOMETHING CORRECT!

I didn't quite understand what move you're talking about here. Are you referencing thunder? And could you perhaps elaborate a little bit more?

Just to get this clear, is da K.I.D. referring to the weird thunder effect when you get hit multiple times by thunder for massive amount of damage?

no, I mean this

when you get hit by a kill move, you are supposed to momentum cancel, but pikachu kills you for doing this with thunder.

when you get hit by pikas strong verticle moves, most people will momentum cancel to keep from dying, but the majority of the time, momentum canceling does nothing but guaranteed the upcoming thunder.

He cannot approach or kill very well. His only good kill moves being undiminished n-air and the occasional upsmash/fsmash from direct reads.

He doesnt have to approach, pikachu has a really good camp game.
and pikachu has a ton of kills moves that can be set up and comboed into..
up air to double jump nair is a kill combo. just for one example
he can camp your landing with the last hit of down smash, which is stupid strong. and he has setups that dont kill you but simply put you off stage, which is a great position for pika.

Because he doesn't have many approaches he's forced to try to jump around the opponent to create openings, similar to Wario, but not as good.

once again. pikachu camps you so he doesnt have to approach

And while he does have a nice chaingrab, his grab range is... awful. He's somewhere in the tier below top, imo.

I think hes top tier, but im just one guy.

Besides those bad traits he's incredible.

edit: As was said earlier, his QACing is really gimmicky. It doesn't take a genius to hit him out of it- only good timing and a nice, quick attack like MK's n-air or something. With the ICs I just pivotgrab him out of it, lol. It's pretty useless when Nana is with me.

its very unlikely the opponent would guess its path or landing time and location unless spammed or used predictably.

I agree with this. also everything else the truth said is pretty much right.

That right there is what i'm talking about. Both of pika's CG only work until about mid percents. None of which are like the IC CG or D3 CG. Yet it's hyped as if it's game changing when it's not. It's more along the lines of Falco's CG. Just good to wrack damage.

I never said it was game breaking, i never even said that was what made him good, I just said that one character having 2 CGs is stupid, and you can tell the really good characters cause they tend to have really stupid characteristics like that.

 

[Blackrider213]

Oh, I understand now. Thanks for clearing up about momentum cancelling leading straight into a guaranteed thunder. I hate it when I do that sometimes.

 

[da K.I.D.]

EVERYONE does it, because thats what your supposed to do...

Its like getting jab locked BECAUSE you teched an attack...

its backwards and stupid.

 

[Sharky]

From what I remember it goes up to 40% on the majority of the cast, and is then ended with a usmash, which takes it up to around 60%, or a dair for wakeup punish possibilities.

It only goes up to 20-30 on characters like Yoshi, Olimar, Toon Link.

It doesn't really work on characters like Peach, Marth, Jigglypuff.

It goes up to like 55% against Dedede.

nah it goes to 40ish on yoshi

 

[PikaPika!]

EVERYONE does it, because thats what your supposed to do...

Its like getting jab locked BECAUSE you teched an attack...

its backwards and stupid.

People need to keep doing it

 

[GunmasterLombardi]

falco's chain grab stops at like 20 something on most characters.

What? We're in 2009 bud, get up here