Hi, I’m BarnardsLoop. Since early 2016, I’ve been compiling character results data. While I mostly stuck to Smashboards throughout 2016, I eventually started becoming more active in my reddit postings as of 2017 in an effort to get my data more exposure to the general public.

This is a master post of sorts – of all data that I’ve collected and long breakdowns of it, from March 15th, 2016 to April 30th, 2017. I will be analyzing several characters and their data on the roster, along with how much certain players contributed, and average points gained by characters per month.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1A: Methodology & Tournaments Used

1B: The Data

1C: Points Per Month

1D: The Top Four

1E: Character to Player %s

2A: Direct Character Analysis

2B: Cloud

2C: Yoshi

2D: Mii Swordfighter

2E: Duck Hunt

2F: Shulk

2G: Link

3A: Clones & Miis

3B: Dark Pit & Dr. Mario

3C: Lucina

3D: Miis as a Unit

4A: Conclusion

4B: Credits

1A: METHODOLOGY & TOURNAMENTS USED

For 2017, my methodology has been the following:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xANyxbGsV8-JKT4PHyrIKbveXVqL93Y0Leb0NALmAsY/edit

For 2016, my methodology was the following:

https://smashboards.com/threads/tournament-placing-database-scoring-project.437773/

The methodology I used has been the backbone of the scoring, which is used for a number of smaller projects.

All tournaments used in the 2016-2017 timeframe are held here, in my Smashboards-hosted database:

https://smashboards.com/threads/tournament-placing-database-scoring-project.437773/

1B: THE DATA

Full Results, 2016 and 2017 + both combined:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pqzrnT3zacfv7kjYNHyJI2c9wSLvS4k-54WfUqlGQfg/edit?usp=sharing

Upper Category (3-5) Results Only, 2016 and 2017 + both combined:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ESe7Sr3TIFWcttdwYmdIIohRwRB78XfKS6cLgoseyes/edit?usp=sharing

Character Points Per Month:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWyGQZZN0PSjsVJb1_65TohcdpR9G-hH9k05UkRxo5A/edit?usp=sharing

Character Points By Player, 2016: (50 Pages)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aFQmO35q-gTs8hQRrmws8GVRFk_oLv9IbcVtw655Z_Y/edit?usp=sharing

Character Points By Player, 2017: (26 Pages)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CkLrUozNjHIT4HpO7Ll1GnpLYAHSmCdVCS2yvYKjZQo/edit?usp=sharing

Percentages players contributed to characters:

2016: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wTVTspU0anOhOBKGMe_k6AAlPvEDQ3vvFiJWOVei-Kk/edit?usp=sharing

2017: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JeYbqcxddq8tPNwXsebh-pBRSjaDSRclriTMorH0XoU/edit?usp=sharing

Graphs for the percentages players contributed to characters, 2016-2017: (Sorted alphabetically)

2016 Part 1 http://imgur.com/a/UKatg

2016 Part 2 http://imgur.com/a/tM74R

2016 Part 3 http://imgur.com/a/AcXsB

2017 Part 1 http://imgur.com/a/3w7uu

2017 Part 2 http://imgur.com/a/9Wjgx

2017 Part 3 http://imgur.com/a/tW0rg

1C: POINTS PER MONTH

The first area of research was to see how many points a character earned per month on average and compare 2016 and 2017’s results to see who has risen and who has declined.

Keep in mind that this is comparing 2 different scoring systems, albeit the differences are fairly small when it comes to character points obtained. Instead of straggler 9th-13th place players at low-level regionals scoring a number of points for certain characters, those points now tend to come from the extended number of placements counted for major events, or from the increased number of low-entrant regional Top 4s used.

Notable gains from 2016 to 2017:

Bayonetta, 99.4 to 127.3 per month from 2016 to 2017. Cloud, 115 to 133,1 per month from 2016 to 2017. Lucina, 5.2 to 20.5 per month from 2016 to 2017. Shulk, 6.8 to 15.1 per month from 2016 to 2017. Duck Hunt, 8.4 to 15.1 from 2016 to 2017. Luigi, 24.8 to 28.3 per month from 2016 to 2017. Villager, 23.8 to 28.1 per month from 2016 to 2017. Olimar, 21.7 to 25.3 per month from 2016 to 2017. Pit, 13.5 to 15.5 per month from 2016 to 2017. Mr. Game & Watch, 10.7 to 12.5 per month from 2016 to 2017. Samus, 8.7, to 9.1 per month from 2016 to 2017. Dark Pit, 0.5 to 3 per month from 2016 to 2017.

Generally, increases correlate to top mains coming into fruition or becoming more active. In a 2016 graph linked above, MJG outscored Ranai in contribution to Villager’s score during 2016, but this changed significantly in 2017 with Ranai’s increased attendance. Further evidence of this exists in Villager’s Upper Category score (which is biased in favor of higher skill pools) dramatically increasing by nearly 100%, putting the character in a comfortable 12th.

Some characters here are self evident. Lucina increased due to her becoming a common secondary, Olimar increased due to Shuton’s increased international activity, Shulk has increased due to quality performances from Kome/Nicko/M, Luigi has increased due to Elegant’s performances at majors, Duck Hunt has increased due to the activity from his 3 primary Japanese mains, and so forth.

The obvious conclusion is that top players pretty heavily influence scores.

Notable losses from 2016 to 2017:

Declines were largely across the board and ranged from 5-10 points in most cases. I will list some particularly large swings.

Yoshi, 24.7 to 7.2 from 2016 to 2017. Sonic, 89.1 to 71.5 from 2016 to 2017. Ness, 37 to 27.3 from 2016 to 2017. R.O.B., 36.4 to 19.7 from 2016 to 2017. Wario, 15.5 to 8 from 2016 to 2017. Ike, 14.6 to 6.3 from 2016 to 2017. Little Mac, 13.9 to 4.6 from 2016 to 2017. Palutena, 11 to 3.6 from 2016 to 2017. King Dedede, 5.7 to 0.8 from 2016 to 2017.

Yoshi in particular carried a massive drop. While Sonic’s drop was narrowly larger, comparatively, Sonic continues to carry solid results – one of which (NicoNico Tokaigi) was seldom documented by the character ranking. I will go over this in a later section, as seen in the Table of Contents.

Other notables declines can be explained by a number of factors, from mains dropping characters to players using those characters underperforming. Declines may also be caused partially by the different standards for tournament usage in my database from 2016 to 2017.

One common effect of using Top 16s universally in 2016 was the “straggler effect”, where mid-low tier characters would often score within a top 8 or top 16 and garner 1-3 points for their character. The sheer length of the 2016 Characters By Player document – a staggering 50 pages – compared to the nearly halved 2017 document is due to the large list of names for each character.

As a result, top mains now contribute more of a % towards their character as straggler scorers decline due to more rigid standards in certain areas of data collection. I’ll go over more character specific later.

1D: THE TOP FOUR

For some months, an echelon of characters slow built points and separated themselves in medium-fashion from the rest of the cast. Diddy Kong, Sheik, Cloud, and Bayonetta all carry the top score. The only area where this is not the case is Upper Category 2016 Final, where Bayonetta places 8th. In all other rankings, the four characters are the top 4 in some order or fashion, with Sheik generally being 4th.

While Sheik was second on the final 2016 update, it should be noted that Cloud and Bayonetta made significant gains that likely would’ve outpaced Sheik long-term, as evidenced by Cloud taking her over in the long-track and Bayonetta’s progressive catch-up.

This is often reflect at the high level, as these are 4 of the most common characters to see in top 8s, naturally giving them a high score.

1E: CHARACTER TO PLAYER %S

For this section, I decided to make charts and files noting how much a particular player contributed to the character they used. This was done through my extensive tournament file and this was also the primary source of delays regarding the project, as this took 30-40 hours in total (if not longer) to properly compile.

It should be understood that a player contributing the most points to a character does not explicitly imply that player is the best with said character. Because I document a large number of Regional tournaments, in 2017 in particular – it’s more likely for a long list of regional results to eventually pile over a short list of major results. For example – Marss has contributed more to ZSS’ point pool than Nairo has in 2017, but this is because I use a good number of tournaments from New England for both player and character data.

This is extremely important. While there is generally a correlation between the top scorer and best main, if a perceived best player of X character hasn’t contributed the top number of points, it’s likely because the player who achieved the largest number of points attended a large number of tournaments at the regional level while the perceived best player attended less tournaments. This by itself has no implication on player skill.

This effect is because this character ranking was never adjusted or designed to be a player ranking, but I thought it’d be interesting to see who contributed how many points to their character.

As a result, of course, the complete data is slightly more regionally inclined. Nonetheless, it hasn’t appeared to skew certain characters in one direction or the other.

I have 110 graphs linked in the above imgur albums. Most aren’t worth analyzing in great detail, but they’re nonetheless useful for people interested in the data. I will reference these stats and other stats as I bring up individual characters.

2A: DIRECT CHARACTER ANALYSIS

I won’t be doing all 58 for the time being, but I will be doing some exceptional cases worth analyzing.

2B: CLOUD

During the scoring phase, I uniquely took Cloud’s results and specifically noted which of those results were secondary. The reason? Cloud persistently has scored the top of the list for several months by a small-to-medium margin despite not garnering the best national results. Is it a sign of things to come? Is it inflation?

Well, as noted in this post, the list is partially regionally inclined. One reduction method was to limit the number of results used from regionals (changing the system from universal top 16 usage to a scaling system dependent on skill pools) to get results that more accurately represent the top of the metagame.

This change did not seem to stifle Cloud, however, excluding general regionals caused a noticeable drop, implying some of his high score is due to regional inclination.

What about counting secondary usage?

This turned out to give interesting results. When you exclude secondary results, Cloud’s score drops to be in between Sheik and Diddy Kong – a comfortable third. This wasn’t a universal secondary drop, mind you, as certain players consistently use the character beyond occasional pocket usage or specific scenarios. The secondary notes are the in 2016 and 2017 “Character by Player” files linked in “The Data” section.

Doing this allows us to interpret the following.

Cloud, as a solo-character or co-main, is comfortably Top 4 in results regardless.

When adding the rest, you can conclude that his results are inflated somewhat by secondary usage and regionals, but that he’s far and away the most used (and possibly best) secondary in the game.

Full Stats:

1st in 2017 Standard Method

2nd in 2016 Standard Method

2nd in Combined Standard Method

3rd in 2016 Upper Category Method

3rd in 2017 Upper Category Model

2nd in Combined Upper Category Model

Difference in secondary usage for 2016 and 2017 Standard Models:

2017: Primary: 496 Secondary: Roughly 36.5

2016: Primary: 1000 Roughly 92.5

2C: YOSHI

Yoshi’s data has been an interesting affair to go over. In my earliest days of data collection – pre-Genesis 3 era – I took notice that Yoshi, despite then being perceived as high tier, had very little to his name in terms of strong national-level results. Firefly, as far as I could tell, had the best result among Yoshi mains with a 5th place at PAX Prime 2015. While this is considered a National, the skill drop off is steep and noticeable.

Since then, and even early in Smash 4’s history, the character has largely been relegated to 49th placings at Supermajors through a number of different mains – Sky Williams at Apex 2015, Raptor at GENESIS 3, and Papa Wall at EVO 2016.

I feel like his middling results and lack of definitive “best player” capture that Yoshi has been a severely overrated character – existing in a False Vacuum high-tier position before more recently tumbling down to mid-tier. Even in mid-tier, a large number of characters considered far worse have accomplished more than Yoshi has at the high level, including significant placements or wins.

In fact, here’s a solid list of characters with more accomplishments ranked below Yoshi on the current 4BR Tier List:

Pit – Earth’s performances abroad.

Lucas – Taiheita’s performances in Japan and at SSC 2016, defeating Marss.

Robin – Dath’s performances in mid-late 2016.

Wario – Glutonny’s 3rd placement at Smashdown World, defeating ANTi and Kameme.

Duck Hunt – You3, Raito, and Brood’s international performances.

Shulk – Kome and Nicko’s results in the last 2-3 months, including big wins over Tweek & ANTi, among others.

Link – T’s rise to prominence and his run at Civil War.

Samus – IcyMist and ESAM’s recent contributions, including hits on Dabuz, Ally, & Locus.

These are the least debatable, more likely exist on an arguable level.

Of course, a character not having a main good enough to break through the top level doesn’t necessarily mean the character is bad. Taking away the top level main from most characters would be devastating to a character’s meta. Bowser Jr.’s steep decline from 2015 from a mod tier to undisputed low tier is the poster child for this, with similar long-term declines coming in from Wario and Ike.

However, it’s also worth pointing out that unlike certain low tiers – ala Bowser Jr. – Yoshi’s playerbase is significant, including numerous international Yoshi mains. However, outside of a couple of exceptional cases that ring more true of Prince Ramen to Palutena (ala Seth beating Pugwest – a much smaller scale event by comparison) Yoshi has mainly been a regional threat with little to no national prominence.

Knowing my track record, Royal Flush will be the weekend Raptor breaks out with the character, but this is all long-term pertinent data that strongly indicates Yoshi has the data of a low tier character at worst and a lower-mid tier character at best.

2D: MII SWORDFIGHTER

Mii Swordfighter is unique. Among the vast number of charts – 110, to be exact – you many notice a small discrepancy. Why not 116? 58 for both years? Well, there’s nothing to collect or utilize. Because Mii Swordfighter is the only character on the roster to never, ever score a point.

Not sure of there’s much else to add onto this point. He’s simply an anomaly. None of the Mii Fighters have particularly good scores to begin with, but Swordfighter has no agreed upon “best” and no real notable users to begin with outside of a now-retired Trela using him in 2015.

With my stricter methodology for tournament collection in place, unless I sample something obscure, it’s unlikely the character will ever score.

2E: DUCK HUNT

Duck Hunt is one of the most improved characters in terms of results. As explained briefly with Villager, this likely has to do with increased activity from his mains – You3, Brood, and Raito – alongside good results from an upcoming MI Duck Hunt main named “Ozone”.

With more representation coming into the fold and his top 3 mains travelling abroad and taking names, the character was was bound to make serious headway. Zinoto, ZeRo, ANTi, and Larry Lurr have all fallen to Duck Hunts – and the number will likely continue to increase, with Duck Hunt players seemingly retaining good results in Japan, where more match-up familiarity exists.

For 2017, the three Duck Hunt mains take in 82.4% of all Duck Hunt results.

2F: SHULK

A dedicated fanbase earns its victory in the form of Shulk’s recent limited successes, with the bulk of his points – 76.8%,to be exact – going to Kome and Nicko. One a sudden breakout player from Kyushu, Japan, the other a SoCal resident that slowly climbed his way up through 2016 and 2017.

While he’s made significant gains all around despite past irrelevancy (reflected by his Upper Category increased from a mere 7 points in 2016 to a full 41 so far in 2017) it’s still worth pointing out that his success has largely been relegated to regional victories and sets on top players.

His meta development still has a fair distance to go, but he’s looking more mid-tier every month, especially after Kome’s strong track record in Kyushu and both Nicko and Kome’s success and narrow out-of-top-32-placements at Civil War.

2G: LINK

One question might float – if Link just got his best-ever result, why no significant point increase? This is likely due to a combination of factors. T is inherently an inconsistent player (albeit this has lately been improving, and his placement at Frostbite could largely be faulted on his remarkably difficult bracket) and he’s the only Link main bringing in consistent results for the character on a regional basis.

As a result, the overall increase from 2016-2017 has been minimal, but it’s very likely that Link’s results will far surpass his 2016 numbers by the end of the year if T carries on his current track record.

3A: CLONES & MIIS

One important thing to understand from the data is that certain characters simply won’t score quite as well due to specific circumstances. Let’s take six characters.

3B: DARK PIT & DR. MARIO

Dark Pit is often perceived as a worse version of Pit, only being useful for specific match-ups due to his lack of solid, safe Arrow pressure. As a result, his usage is low. Even more so, he’s a clone of a character with low usage to begin with. Earth garnered over 70% of Pit’s results in 2016 and nearly 70% in 2017, with the rest largely being support by Earth’s #1 fan, Kuro – the second best Pit.

Dr. Mario is unarguably in the worst position of any direct clone character, often agreed to be low tier at best and a far inferior version of his high-top tier original form.

3C: LUCINA

Lucina was perceived as a particularly bad character for a long time prior to the Marth/Lucina buffs. Lucina would often be placed in the lower echelon of characters – as low as bottom 5/3 – with nobody having a definitive clue as to who her best user was due to how rare she was. For an extended period of time, she existed in the same realm Dr. Mario and Dark Pit exist in now.

However, this changed when she and Marth were buffed, and the obvious question of “Well, how bad could she be?” started to pop up when MKLeo, Mr. E, and Pugwest started to make Marth look like a solid high – or even top – tiered character.

Public opinion finally began to shift when Nairo began to use her as a viable secondary in tournament, and the saga of PersistentBlade – a brief secret identity of ZeRo – finally tipped opinion in favor of her being at or around Marth’s level, making her long history the only real success story among the clones. She now sees regular secondary usage, with many Marth mains opting to co-main Marth and Lucina.

3D: MIIS AS A UNIT

The life of a Mii is that of suffering, I suppose. The three characters collectively garner virtually nothing under their 1111 movesets, with Swordfighter in particular being a 100% irrelevant character.

Mii Brawler sees rare but sometimes noteworthy usage, and while Leaf FC isn’t documented much in the Character-by-player data, he likely maintains the best consistent results for the character, located in the Southeastern United States.

Mii Gunner arguably has the most potential of the three, seeing online usage, with a definitive “best” player (Flama, a Mexican Mii Gunner main) and online results in PG Key tournies. This is the best the character has to offer.

Is there a reason for this? With clones, the lack of results was obviously because their original counterparts were simply superior – but with Miis, they are unique fighters. Where are the lack of results? Why is there literally nothing?

This is just theorycrafting, but a few ideas:

No For Glory play reduces the incentive for many. As a result of little incentive, the characters get no real exposure. Without exposure, resources and interest for the characters wane heavily. Because they lack real “identity”, they are less likely to have a dedicated fanbase that simply wants to see their character succeed. Shulk is a meme for this, and it did eventually get him somewhere. This isn’t to say Mii fans don’t exist, but their numbers are small. Without customs, one solid incentive for a unique experience flies out the window.

It’s likely a number of factors. This isn’t a pro or anti Mii Fighter Customs thing, it’s just an observation, as the characters are anomalies in the realm of results. Are their kits truly that bad? It’s hard to know due to their obscurity and lack of usage. Trela impressed many at the Civil War Round Robin, for example, with polished Swordfighter play.

4A: CONCLUSION

This was a long and exhaustive project. The bulk of important information exists in “The Data” section, and the rest is mostly my interpretations or inputs on the existing data. I hope people enjoy what’s been compiled and take it as useful information.

If you want to contribute, message me on Smashboards (Das Koopa) or reddit (/u/barnardsloop). I’m also on GameFAQs’s Melee board as Zero_Destroyer, but that’s a pretty insular community by comparison.

Pointing out mistakes and criticisms are well appreciated. Criticisms of previous projects has led to future improvement. I attempt to be strictly professional when posting about data, so there won’t be any hostility for pointed out errors/mistakes. I will fix them as soon as possible or seek to improve larger issues in the future!

4B: CREDITS

-/u/freeziebeatz for assistance with OrionRank, reducing my workload and overall being a huge help with the player ranking projects. His character ranking project was largely what I took from to improve my 2016 model, meaning I owe many of the improvements my system has underdone to him.

-TDK of Smashboards for being a reliable data collector. He has consistently posted a lot of results in the last few months, and it’s reduced the time it takes to commit to the projects I do. He’s a great help to the community and a solid number of tourney results I get the data from were compiled by him.

– Juddy & Tetra are always a huge help when it comes to Japan and Europe, and both have provided me with useful information and resources. Juddy running translated challonges & Smash.ggs has been critical in the documentation of Japanese tournies.

-The 4BR team in general. Illusion, Yikarur, and Luco in particular have been very helpful in providing information for Texan, Germany, and Australian tournaments, respectively, so a lot of Texas/Germany/Australia results being documented is part of their effort to spread awareness.

-Various Smashboards users, including Jaguar360 and Rizen, among many others who help reliably compile tournament data that was used in this project.

-Reddit, for helping giving my projects attention.

My project is the community’s project, and without a lot of help, I wouldn’t have nearly as much to display or show. Thanks to all those that helped, including any I may have missed for whatever reason – my brain is pretty fried from the last week, so I hope people enjoyed this piece of work.