Metagame
In gaming, a metagame refers to a set of commonly used strategies developed and employed by a competitive community. In competitive Smash, "the metagame" usually refers to the trends in strategy that appear in high-level competitive play under tournament conditions, as these tactics are often more influential than metagames of lower-level play. The metagame is not static; it evolves over time as players adapt to counter frequently used strategies, and new strategies are discovered or become popular.
For example, suppose tactic A is effective and popular within a gaming community and tactic B offers advantages over tactic A, but is considered a poor choice in most other circumstances. Some players may employ tactic B in response to tactic A, creating a shift in strategy. Tactic C, while usually effective, may be avoided because of its vulnerabilities to tactic A. Eventually, tactic A may become less common, as more players begin to use tactic B to counter it. As a result, tactic C may then return as a common strategy, or an entirely new effective tactic may be discovered, creating another shift in strategy. These shifts are examples of the way in which the metagame progresses and develops over time.
At the top level of play, "the metagame" can specifically refer to the the habits and skills of the highest performing players. These players focus on employing strategies to win against the small number of other top players who compete with them, as opposed to the trends among players who do not perform as well as they do.
Routine analysis of the metagame has allowed the community to draw conclusions about the relative performances of playable characters in Smash Bros games, and publish them in the form of character tier lists. Each tier list changes over time, alongside the development of the metagame it references, and is updated as significant changes occur.
Examples of Changing Metagames in the Smash series
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- Among the most well-known changes of the metagame for Brawl came with the growing dominance of Meta Knight; amid his high speed, transcendent priority hitboxes, and surprisingly high power in comparison to his weight and size, the metagame for Brawl was criticised for becoming too centralised on Meta Knight. Characters such as Pit and ROB fell because of their inability to deal with him, and other professionals had to adopt strategies in order to prevent their characters from becoming nonviable; a notable example is Marth's grab release to dair combo, which is noteworthy for only working on Meta Knight. The use of Meta Knight himself also came under scrutiny, particularly after KTAR 6, where 5 players out of the final 8 used Meta Knight.
- ADHD is often credited with bringing Diddy Kong into the top tiers, eventually briefly usurping Snake on the tier lists; ADHD had used Banana Peels to an extent never seen before, causing Diddy Kong to quickly dominate the ground game in matches, which some observers claimed led to Diddy Kong having an even stronger control of the ground than Snake.
- Ike was notable for being the only character in Brawl to constantly fall places with each subsequent revision of the tier list, and many speculated that he would eventually fall and get stuck in the bottom tiers; San, however, caused an immediate reversal for the character by learning to use his jab to his advantage. Ike later made it back to his original 25th spot on the tier list, and his placement is now considered stable.
- In Melee, Marth was initially seen as relying too heavily on C-stick spamming and roll dodging, traits that led to his medium-high tier placement, but a negative low-level image to him. Ken Hoang, however, is often credited with single-handedly bringing him to the top of the tier list, particularly with the introduction of tactics such as dash dancing and wavesmashing, as wellas a greater focus on aerial combat in matches. These two traits, however, also led to lowering of other characters; Zelda, notably, dropped from the middle to the low-bottom tiers after aerial combat became an important facet in Melee's tournament scene.
