“If your character loses to these characters you can not succeed in this meta. If your character’s worst MU is one of these characters and you still believe in your character, then make it happen, but you’re fighting an uphill battle.” (LarryLurr, Crown 3 watch-party stream, June 2023)
Without watching the video: Steve, Sonic, ROB, Kazuya, GnW. Larry agreed with me on this take. Some people would say Aegis but honestly I disagree, their recovery is just too exploitable and their win condition isn't as good as these characters.
I disagree with gnw. I don’t k it if this is mid level or top level but there’s only rly mister and maybe 1 or 2 more game and watches. Ur I agree with ageis. She doesn’t rly have any broken win conditions it’s just she pretty good all around
I should have went 5/5 went 4/5, had Aegis instead of GnW, because they’re prolific and and a matchup youll need to deal with, but they’re easier to deal with and less polarizing than GnW.
smash ultimate has a large roster, and individual player skill and experience also play a significant role in determining a character's effectiveness. I do want to say that the top 5 mentioned are pretty good but as should everyone know, different sources and experts may have varying opinions on the top 5 characters in the game. Great vid
Honestly I think minmin is highly underrated just cause of her popularity. With the exception of rushdown characters she basically negates the entire roster.
I would love to see a similar list of characters that effect the meta that you might not expect, since I was able to guess everyone on the list before I clicked on the vid lol
Ok but this is also just the 5 strongest ult characters in practice. Steve and Kazuya are late enough DLC that by the time the devs decided to call it quits they hadn’t seen enough or any nerfs like Min-Min and Aegis, and the other 3 were for some godforsaken reason never touched. Rob is especially egregious and the biggest failure of the ultimate devs because he was hyper-popular internationally for virtually the game’s entire dev support lifespan You can argue throughout the game’s history there were previously other super top tier meta defining characters as well, but they were sufficiently nerfed to just be very strong. Namely Palutena Joker Wario ZSS Wolf Lucina Pichu (which I’d unfortunately also argue are all more fun to play against than our current top 5 except maybe Rob is more fun to fight vs than og ZSS). The only other characters you can really consider to be top 5 in the game from power level are stuff like Pikachu and Shulk, but it’s been 5 years and we just haven’t seen enough from them to justify such a ranking. We got one evo Japan second place from Kome, and two regional major wins from Esam, that’s it. So yes, 5 most important = 5 most powerful.
No way you put Game and Watch over Cloud... idk if you saw those maps of each region's most played character, but Cloud was by FAR the most common one. He loses like two or three matchups at most and beats almost every other meta character such as Steve and G&W
Got 4 out of 5. I predicted Palutena instead of Mr. Game & Watch b/c among the fighters with a breadth of mentally impactful punishes from fundamental interactions, she has the most (which is part of why periodically we've seen vocal opinions think she's mostly "solved"). Shoutouts to the absolute pacesetters who are Min Min and pre-patch Wario, and maybe Pac-Man if he had more usage.
Cloud, Luigi, Olimar, Snake also more meta defining than GnW rn, while still being polarizing in many MUs. There's just this weird narrative about GnW bc he has to get cast as the 'easy one' at the top. That would be Cloud before GnW any day.
Aegis is definitely not in the same category as the 5 I mentioned. They might be pretty common, but they're moreso like Roy or Wolf category of being good but not hard countering or oppressing a large number of characters and the way they play doesn't make them a heavy match up check
Aegis is in the same tier of strength as Larry’s meta 5, but they can just die by accident due to their recovery which is something almost the whole cast can exploit
8:18 I love G&W (as a character in general) but even I have to admit, that up smash spam makes the match look so much less serious and competitive lmao
We do want to recognize that these characters are strong, but let’s not get as far to say they dictate the viability of other characters. This isn’t brawl where mk centralizes everything or melee with 10 viable characters, you can still very well win huge tournaments with losing matchups vs these characters.
Learning to be able to deal with Min Min is far more important than GNW imo. Gnw you can fundies your way through with good enough spacing on a good number of characters. Min Min meanwhile takes a whole playstyle adjustment to safely deal with consistently.
Honestly, I think I would take off Game and Watch and put in Snake. Mostly for the higher usage rate, and honestly, the snake mu is more complex than the GW mu.
I agree there's more you have to look out for regarding Snake, but he's still not as restrictive as Game and Watch. He is able to limit characters so much thanks to his options. Hell, he limits Snake from using most of his moves thanks to the threat of bucket lol
@LarryLurr yeah I can definitely see it. Bucket itself absolutely invalidates so much of the cast: they should've never given it a reflector. GW is definitely a must learn mu for certain characters that get shut down by their options, while snake feels like a universal pub stomper for inexperience. Maybe I'm just biased for fighting more snakes than game and watches, lol
not sure I agree with putting Sonic up there. He's not particularly common; at least, as far as the U.S. goes you're only gonna see one Sonic there doing very well in bracket. The others don't make it past t32. And he's not particularly oppressive either. Hard to approach sure but compared to most characters you still get more chances to "pick right. " He's an annoying matchup but that's really it
Agreed he's not a as common as Kazuya, Rob, and Steve but he's definitely oppressive at higher levels. Some characters legitimately don't have the tools to reliably hit Sonic in neutral and he has an incredible combo game/advantage state
@@LarryLurr Most of the characters played at higher levels are usually top tiers or characters that are pretty close to it. I feel like most of those characters have tools to contest Sonic, and then for the ones like Joker who do lose its not terrible.
@@lokks2130You can make that argument for every character that's on this list. The point is the characters I listed weed out the not so good ones and severely stack the odds against you if you're not playing a top tier or one that's close to it at major events
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“If your character loses to these characters you can not succeed in this meta. If your character’s worst MU is one of these characters and you still believe in your character, then make it happen, but you’re fighting an uphill battle.” (LarryLurr, Crown 3 watch-party stream, June 2023)
meh
Without watching the video: Steve, Sonic, ROB, Kazuya, GnW. Larry agreed with me on this take.
Some people would say Aegis but honestly I disagree, their recovery is just too exploitable and their win condition isn't as good as these characters.
yup this is pretty much my top 5 right now too
only other ones that seem to have big potential are min min and sora imo
Snake and Aegis are easy honorable mentions but makes sense out of Top 5.
I disagree with gnw. I don’t k it if this is mid level or top level but there’s only rly mister and maybe 1 or 2 more game and watches. Ur I agree with ageis. She doesn’t rly have any broken win conditions it’s just she pretty good all around
You can lose to the characters in the video if they suck. A bad aegis is trivial to fight.
Oh baby it’s Lurrin’ time
The CLOUD HYPE throwback at the start got me reminiscing
CLOUD HYPE
I should have went 5/5 went 4/5, had Aegis instead of GnW, because they’re prolific and and a matchup youll need to deal with, but they’re easier to deal with and less polarizing than GnW.
smash ultimate has a large roster, and individual player skill and experience also play a significant role in determining a character's effectiveness. I do want to say that the top 5 mentioned are pretty good but as should everyone know, different sources and experts may have varying opinions on the top 5 characters in the game. Great vid
This helped me cus i have tournament soon
Min min might be slightly more controversial than rob but knowing the rob matchup is definitely more important
Ultimate Try Not to Have the Corniest Characters Be Meta Relevant Challenge (Impossible)
I miss the days of Roy being meta
Only character I'd add is Snake due to how common he is, how weird the matchup can be to play and his pretty high winrate
Good top 5 tho
It's so sad we can't have any cool characters in this meta
Surprised to not see Snake on here.
Samus and MinMin are contenders imo
I can see them getting there, but I think they're not as universally seen everywhere yet imo
Honestly I think minmin is highly underrated just cause of her popularity. With the exception of rushdown characters she basically negates the entire roster.
Snake, Samus and Min Min
Nice vid. All the info I needed laid out in detail. Great job.
Bayo's have been poppin off a little recently
She's honestly so close to being pushed into being a top tier. Already the top of high tier Imo. There's also a lot of good Bayo players.
I would love to see a similar list of characters that effect the meta that you might not expect, since I was able to guess everyone on the list before I clicked on the vid lol
i can agree, these are all very prominent characters in the smash ultimate meta.
I'll believe in the pocket GnW when literally one person successfully pockets him for a few MUs.
Cloud/Aegis, Rob, Min Min, Kazuya, Samus
Ok but this is also just the 5 strongest ult characters in practice. Steve and Kazuya are late enough DLC that by the time the devs decided to call it quits they hadn’t seen enough or any nerfs like Min-Min and Aegis, and the other 3 were for some godforsaken reason never touched. Rob is especially egregious and the biggest failure of the ultimate devs because he was hyper-popular internationally for virtually the game’s entire dev support lifespan
You can argue throughout the game’s history there were previously other super top tier meta defining characters as well, but they were sufficiently nerfed to just be very strong. Namely Palutena Joker Wario ZSS Wolf Lucina Pichu (which I’d unfortunately also argue are all more fun to play against than our current top 5 except maybe Rob is more fun to fight vs than og ZSS). The only other characters you can really consider to be top 5 in the game from power level are stuff like Pikachu and Shulk, but it’s been 5 years and we just haven’t seen enough from them to justify such a ranking. We got one evo Japan second place from Kome, and two regional major wins from Esam, that’s it. So yes, 5 most important = 5 most powerful.
No way you put Game and Watch over Cloud... idk if you saw those maps of each region's most played character, but Cloud was by FAR the most common one. He loses like two or three matchups at most and beats almost every other meta character such as Steve and G&W
Got 4 out of 5. I predicted Palutena instead of Mr. Game & Watch b/c among the fighters with a breadth of mentally impactful punishes from fundamental interactions, she has the most (which is part of why periodically we've seen vocal opinions think she's mostly "solved").
Shoutouts to the absolute pacesetters who are Min Min and pre-patch Wario, and maybe Pac-Man if he had more usage.
Cloud, Luigi, Olimar, Snake also more meta defining than GnW rn, while still being polarizing in many MUs. There's just this weird narrative about GnW bc he has to get cast as the 'easy one' at the top. That would be Cloud before GnW any day.
Not somewone still living in 2020...
Dude, take it from me, a loyalist. Palu got MURDERED.
When Zero/Leffen gave my list shit when I didn't have GnW bottom 5...
Wolf should be in there. I’m OD with him 🥊
Haven't watched and I predict it will be steve, kazuya, rob, aegis and the last one maybe min min, gnw or joker
I’m sick of getting dunked on in esports this my last year imma make it rain
My guess is Steve, Kaz, Aegis, Cloud, Sonic
Would've let you borrow the car if you had that Glytch on you. 😔
Wait how do I get those characters, I have ultimate but I finished all the characters and don’t have those ones except sonic
Before watching I will guess:
Snake, Steve, Kazuya, Samus, and either Palutena or Cloud
Wait I change my 5th guess to ROB
This is almost my top 5
Other than Kazuya, IMO these are literally the best characters
Wait did he say Kazuya has a frame 7 jump squat? I thought every char in ult has frame 3
Everyone except kazuya
@@zate5355Thank God
@@zate5355 interesting
Its crazy I think this is just Muteace's carried list.
Aegis is missing bad here, way to many people got a pocket Aegis
yeah but they don’t win with it 😂
Aegis is definitely not in the same category as the 5 I mentioned. They might be pretty common, but they're moreso like Roy or Wolf category of being good but not hard countering or oppressing a large number of characters and the way they play doesn't make them a heavy match up check
@@LarryLurr so real larry
Aegis is in the same tier of strength as Larry’s meta 5, but they can just die by accident due to their recovery which is something almost the whole cast can exploit
Disappointing that piranha plant didn’t make the list
8:18 I love G&W (as a character in general) but even I have to admit, that up smash spam makes the match look so much less serious and competitive lmao
My guess before watching
5. Kazuya
4. Wolf
3. Steve
2. Aegis
1. ROB
We do want to recognize that these characters are strong, but let’s not get as far to say they dictate the viability of other characters. This isn’t brawl where mk centralizes everything or melee with 10 viable characters, you can still very well win huge tournaments with losing matchups vs these characters.
Mii Swordfighter
Think Snake should be mentioned
GOOD LUCK AT GOML LARRY
Aside from Rob and maybe game and watch this top 5 perfectly illustrates how this game is a fucking dumpster fire competitively
bro named the top 5 cringest characters LOL
Steve, Sonic, ROB, Kazuya, & GnW being the 5 most important characters in competitive ultimate is such a bad timeline.
fighters pass 2 lol
Learning to be able to deal with Min Min is far more important than GNW imo. Gnw you can fundies your way through with good enough spacing on a good number of characters. Min Min meanwhile takes a whole playstyle adjustment to safely deal with consistently.
Honestly, I think I would take off Game and Watch and put in Snake. Mostly for the higher usage rate, and honestly, the snake mu is more complex than the GW mu.
I agree there's more you have to look out for regarding Snake, but he's still not as restrictive as Game and Watch. He is able to limit characters so much thanks to his options. Hell, he limits Snake from using most of his moves thanks to the threat of bucket lol
@LarryLurr yeah I can definitely see it. Bucket itself absolutely invalidates so much of the cast: they should've never given it a reflector. GW is definitely a must learn mu for certain characters that get shut down by their options, while snake feels like a universal pub stomper for inexperience. Maybe I'm just biased for fighting more snakes than game and watches, lol
While Snake need to make multiple mix ups and set ups to be a treat, G&W just need to spam fair, nair and up B if you hit its shield.
gnw is easier to pick up and invalidates a lot more matchups
alternate title: The top 5 cancers in smash ultimate's meta
I swear to God, every time I see Z Fly 😂😂😂😂
I will add in this Aegis, Min min and Samus (europe meta).
not sure I agree with putting Sonic up there. He's not particularly common; at least, as far as the U.S. goes you're only gonna see one Sonic there doing very well in bracket. The others don't make it past t32.
And he's not particularly oppressive either. Hard to approach sure but compared to most characters you still get more chances to "pick right. " He's an annoying matchup but that's really it
Agreed he's not a as common as Kazuya, Rob, and Steve but he's definitely oppressive at higher levels.
Some characters legitimately don't have the tools to reliably hit Sonic in neutral and he has an incredible combo game/advantage state
@@LarryLurr Most of the characters played at higher levels are usually top tiers or characters that are pretty close to it. I feel like most of those characters have tools to contest Sonic, and then for the ones like Joker who do lose its not terrible.
@@lokks2130You can make that argument for every character that's on this list. The point is the characters I listed weed out the not so good ones and severely stack the odds against you if you're not playing a top tier or one that's close to it at major events
@@LarryLurr Larry, you are so right and your way with words just makes you so darn sexy.
No Aegis is honestly surprising
5 reasons to NOT play this game.
Of course they are all cringe
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