List of SSB tier lists (NTSC)

The tier list of Super Smash Bros. is less well-known than its sequel counterparts, mainly due to there being a smaller competitive community for the game. The following is a list of the known tier lists.

First tier list (March 11, 2008)
The first list was created by the Super Smash Bros. community on GameFAQs, unlike the tier lists of other games, which were created on Smashboards by the Smash Back Room.

Second tier list (September 28, 2009)
The second SSB tier list was created by the N64 community on SmashBoards.

In this tier list, Fox went from 4th place to 2nd and it is so far the only tier list to place him, or anyone other than Pikachu, higher than Kirby. Ness severely dropped from 3rd place to 8th, mainly due to how prominent and exploitable his terrible recovery had become. Captain Falcon went up one place. Mario, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong each went up two places. Jigglypuff dropped three places. Link jumped up one place, leaving Samus at the bottom of the list.

Third tier list (September 20, 2011)
The third SSB tier list was created by the Smash Back Room.

Little has changed from the previous tier list. In this list, Kirby went from 3rd place to 2nd, making Fox drop one place. Link and Luigi are now tied at the second-to-last spot. Ness dropped one place, making Jigglypuff 8th place. Pikachu stayed at the top of the list where it has gained its own tier.

==Fourth tier list (May 12, 2015) == The fourth and current SSB tier list was created and discussed by the Smashboards N64 Community. A total of 86 people voted on the tier list, but there were a few notable smashers who didn't vote such as, , and.

Many changes advanced the Smash 64 metagame after nearly four years since the last tier list, including Hyrule Castle being banned and Dream Land becoming the sole neutral.

made an outstanding leap from dead last to eighth, by far the biggest gain in transition between Super Smash Bros. tier lists. no longer keeps a tier for itself when joined it in the highest tier, while they kept their positions at 1st and 2nd respectively. switched with for 3rd, favoring the former, as with the banning of Hyrule Castle, Fox becomes weaker overall on Dream Land. rose to 5th place in A tier, the second-highest tier, with many dedicated players placing Top 8 in tournaments with him. rose two places. on the other hand, lost two places due to several Mario mains dropping him within this four year period. is now put last on the tier list. A large number of these changes, though in particular in the bottom 5, were highly contested.

All discussion of the tier list were delegated to this thread while all voting occurred in this thread, run by and BananaBolts with Madao and others moderating. The tiers are not officially ranked into groups, but it can be inferred that S is the top tier, A is high tier, B is mid tier and C is low tier.

Tier list chart
This table shows the ranks of each character through all of the tier lists, as well as a numbered description of their change in rank each time. "Change" lists how much a character's position changed between the two tier lists it is in between. "Highest" represents a character's highest position, "Lowest" represents their lowest position, and "Difference" lists the difference between the highest and lowest position. "Overall change" represents a character's change between the first tier list and the current tier list. Changes of three places or more will be bolded. In case of a tie (Link and Luigi from the third tier list), the higher number is stated first.

* = tie