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Tier list

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Revision as of 10:31, March 23, 2015 by 216.227.245.50 (talk) (copied nearly word for word from wikia, plus contains shameless self promotion)
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In gaming, a tier list is a list that ranks all characters based on the strength of their fighting abilities and their potential to win matches under tournament conditions, assuming equal skill on the part of each player. A tier list is decided based on the analysis of the following:

  • The metagame and the effectiveness of the characters' strategies
  • Each character's moveset and statistics
  • Each character's matchup spread
  • Each character's tournament results

Tier lists are commonly made for fighting games that are played on the high competitive level, such as Mortal Kombat 9. Some games that aren't fighting games, but have large character sets, such as the Pokémon series, can also have their own tier lists.

The metagame of each game in the Super Smash Bros. series encompasses all the currently known techniques and strategies that have proven useful during tournament matches, thus, the tier list for each game ranks and measures the expected competitive performance of every character, based upon analysis of these techniques and strategies. The most widely accepted tier lists in the English-speaking community are those produced by the Smash Back Room on Smashboards; the first tier list for Super Smash Bros., however, was produced by GameFAQs.

Individual matchups affect, but do not ultimately determine, characters' tier list rankings. Often, a particular character will carry a supposed advantage over another character — such a matchup is known as a counter. However, some characters have an advantage over a character that is higher on the tier list. For example, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Peach holds an advantageous matchup against the Ice Climbers, but suffers from matchups poorer than the Ice Climbers' against nearly every other character in Brawl. While she can be considered a counter to the Ice Climbers, Peach is still ranked lower than the Ice Climbers on the tier list (due to poorer overall matchups, among other reasons). Thus, if two players at the top of the known metagame played a match with Peach and the Ice Climbers, the tier list alone could not predict the outcome of the match. Furthermore, tier lists do not rank characters relative to the numerical average of their matchup scores.

How much matchups affect a character's ranking is mostly on how well they perform against the more common characters in tournaments. For the most extreme example, in Brawl, a character's matchup against Meta Knight is a major part of their ranking, as Meta Knight is so ubiquitous in Brawl tournaments that a character cannot feasibly perform well if they are significantly countered by him. As a result, many characters, such as R.O.B., Pit, and Ike, perform noticeably worse in competitive play and suffer a significant drop on the tier list because of their inability to effectively fight Meta Knight. Other characters get boosted by their effectiveness at fighting top/high tier characters, such as Wolf, who despite having a few notable counters, is ranked rather highly in large part because his ability to go even or near even against the entire top tier and several high tier characters. On the other hand, performing especially well against lower tier characters has much lower impact on a character's competitive success and tier position. The most prominent example, King Dedede, harshly counters many borderline and lower tier characters, even moreso than top and high tier characters do besides Meta Knight. However, Dedede is in return countered by many of the top and high tier characters in Brawl (including the aforementioned Meta Knight), the characters he'll play against much more often in tournaments, thus preventing him from doing as well in tournaments as the top/high tier characters do, resulting in a lower tier ranking.

Super Smash Bros. tier list

For a list of all Smash 64 NTSC tier lists, see List of SSB tier lists (NTSC).

The following is the Super Smash Bros. tier list produced by the 64 Back Room. The numbers below the characters are their average ranking during the voting for the tier list. It is current as of September 20, 2011. [1]

Super Smash Bros. Tier List #4
S A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6-7 8 9 10 11 12
PikachuIcon(SSB).png KirbyIcon(SSB).png CaptainFalconIcon(SSB).png FoxIcon(SSB).png YoshiIcon(SSB).png JigglypuffIcon(SSB).png MarioIcon(SSB).png SamusIcon(SSB).png DonkeyKongIcon(SSB).png NessIcon(SSB).png LinkIcon(SSB).png LuigiIcon(SSB).png
1.10 2.18 3.42 3.75 4.85 6.46 6.49 9.28 9.49 10.02 10.33 11.67

Super Smash Bros. Melee tier list

For a list of all Melee NTSC tier lists, see List of SSBM tier lists (NTSC).

The following is the eleventh Smash Back Room Super Smash Bros. Melee NTSC tier list. It is current as of July 26, 2013. [2]

Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #13
S A B+ B-
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
FoxIcon(SSBM).png MarthIcon(SSBM).png JigglypuffIcon(SSBM).png FalcoIcon(SSBM).png SheikIcon(SSBM).png CaptainFalconIcon(SSBM).png PeachIcon(SSBM).png IceClimbersIcon(SSBM).png PikachuIcon(SSBM).png YoshiIcon(SSBM).png SamusIcon(SSBM).png LuigiIcon(SSBM).png DrMarioIcon(SSBM).png
1.68 2.36 3.18 3.56 4.66 5.82 6.84 8.74 9.62 9.69 10.11 12.23 12.61
C+ C- D F
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
GanondorfIcon(SSBM).png MarioIcon(SSBM).png DonkeyKongIcon(SSBM).png YoungLinkIcon(SSBM).png LinkIcon(SSBM).png MrGame&WatchIcon(SSBM).png MewtwoIcon(SSBM).png RoyIcon(SSBM).png PichuIcon(SSBM).png NessIcon(SSBM).png ZeldaIcon(SSBM).png KirbyIcon(SSBM).png BowserIcon(SSBM).png
14.83 15.53 16.42 17.31 17.66 17.95 20.22 21.63 22.07 22.78 23.49 24.26 25.74

Super Smash Bros. Brawl tier list

For a list of all Brawl NTSC tier lists, see List of SSBB tier lists (NTSC).

The following is the eighth Super Smash Bros. Brawl tier list produced by the Smash Back Room. It is current as of April 25, 2013. [3]

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Tier List #8
SS S A+ A-
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
MetaKnightIcon(SSBB).png IceClimbersIcon(SSBB).png OlimarIcon(SSBB).png DiddyKongIcon(SSBB).png MarthIcon(SSBB).png SnakeIcon(SSBB).png FalcoIcon(SSBB).png
1.000 2.344 3.375 3.750 5.813 5.844 6.375
B C+ C C-
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
PikachuIcon(SSBB).png ZeroSuitSamusIcon(SSBB).png WarioIcon(SSBB).png LucarioIcon(SSBB).png KingDededeIcon(SSBB).png ToonLinkIcon(SSBB).png WolfIcon(SSBB).png FoxIcon(SSBB).png MrGame&WatchIcon(SSBB).png PitIcon(SSBB).png ROBIcon(SSBB).png PeachIcon(SSBB).png
8.000 8.656 9.844 11.656 12.531 13.094 14.438 15.219 15.844 16.563 18.031 18.500
D
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
KirbyIcon(SSBB).png DonkeyKongIcon(SSBB).png SonicIcon(SSBB).png IkeIcon(SSBB).png ZeldaSheikIcon(SSBB).png SheikIcon(SSBB).png NessIcon(SSBB).png YoshiIcon(SSBB).png
20.750 21.281 21.844 22.625 - 24.063 24.406 25.938
E F
28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
LuigiIcon(SSBB).png PokémonTrainerIcon(SSBB).png LucasIcon(SSBB).png MarioIcon(SSBB).png SamusIcon(SSBB).png BowserIcon(SSBB).png CaptainFalconIcon(SSBB).png LinkIcon(SSBB).png JigglypuffIcon(SSBB).png ZeldaIcon(SSBB).png GanondorfIcon(SSBB).png
27.688 27.781 28.094 30.344 31.406 31.938 33.219 34.000 34.813 35.375 36.844

Super Smash Bros. 4 tier list

There is no widely-accepted or widely-referenced tier list for either version of Super Smash Bros. 4 because the metagame is early in development. Once a tier list is released by the Smash Back Room, it will be placed here.

See also

External links

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