I know this may get many people up in arms, but I strongly feel that a Tier list is simply irrelevant for Brawl.
Melee was a fast paced fighter based on good recovery and making your opponent fall short of grabbing the ledge. The tier was based on which characters could shfflana the best, chain the best, and simply, keep the opponent away from the ledge. It ended with Sheik, Fox, Falco, and Marth dominating the game, and the entire metagame became backwash of the same techniques over and over again.
In Brawl, however, recovery is barely an issue. Most characters have a sufficient amount of recovery to almost ALWAYS save them if the attack doesn't instakill. The loss of wave dashing and l-cancelling and a slower...more airy engine meant more strategic gameplay, as dodges count for everything and speed is based on how fast u can dodge and pull of an attack. Combo's are much more difficult to pull off and more rewarding.
While in Melee each character was forced to play similarly to succeed, Brawl promotes individuality. Meta Knight thrives on his fast swordsmanship and while Ike dominates on his slow heavy attack style. However, Meta Knight could never play the slow, heavy, smash attack based attack style that Ike plays, and vise-versa.
Characters like Kirby and Bowser have been balanced out, and although slow, clunky characters like Ganondorf have gotten even slower (Bowser has sped up though...) his boosted attack power really makes a difference in Brawls new engine.
It's all balanced out and it all makes sense. Players make new play styles based on the character and none of them play the same. A tier is meaningless because an extremely skilled Ganondorf player can destroy a Pit fighter. I have yet to lose to any Marth while playing as Lucario, and I was unable to play Pit well, but I've seen good players use him to the fullest and still be beaten by a better player using Bowser or Dedede. It's all balanced out. You need to understand your character and you need to have skill. Practice makes perfect.
EDIT: After a quick glance at the tier thread, everyones choices for top tier is very similar. This proves my theory even more
~Remian
Melee was a fast paced fighter based on good recovery and making your opponent fall short of grabbing the ledge. The tier was based on which characters could shfflana the best, chain the best, and simply, keep the opponent away from the ledge. It ended with Sheik, Fox, Falco, and Marth dominating the game, and the entire metagame became backwash of the same techniques over and over again.
In Brawl, however, recovery is barely an issue. Most characters have a sufficient amount of recovery to almost ALWAYS save them if the attack doesn't instakill. The loss of wave dashing and l-cancelling and a slower...more airy engine meant more strategic gameplay, as dodges count for everything and speed is based on how fast u can dodge and pull of an attack. Combo's are much more difficult to pull off and more rewarding.
While in Melee each character was forced to play similarly to succeed, Brawl promotes individuality. Meta Knight thrives on his fast swordsmanship and while Ike dominates on his slow heavy attack style. However, Meta Knight could never play the slow, heavy, smash attack based attack style that Ike plays, and vise-versa.
Characters like Kirby and Bowser have been balanced out, and although slow, clunky characters like Ganondorf have gotten even slower (Bowser has sped up though...) his boosted attack power really makes a difference in Brawls new engine.
It's all balanced out and it all makes sense. Players make new play styles based on the character and none of them play the same. A tier is meaningless because an extremely skilled Ganondorf player can destroy a Pit fighter. I have yet to lose to any Marth while playing as Lucario, and I was unable to play Pit well, but I've seen good players use him to the fullest and still be beaten by a better player using Bowser or Dedede. It's all balanced out. You need to understand your character and you need to have skill. Practice makes perfect.
EDIT: After a quick glance at the tier thread, everyones choices for top tier is very similar. This proves my theory even more
~Remian