With so many tournaments, sometimes even as recent a ranking system as SSBMRank seems obsolete. Events such as Genesis 3, BEAST 6, and Battle of the Five Gods paint a different picture of how players are performing. Some players struggled, while others thrived. And it’s time to assess where everyone stands relative to one another.

This time around I decided to write about a topic that will bring the ire of discussion and disagreements: Power Rankings! Instead of arranging players into numerical rankings, I decided to arrange players into tiers. For most players, you can reasonably argue a player up or down a tier because of how close the skill level is beyond the Top 4.

As a point of emphasis, these quarterly power rankings will focus on recent events and reward activity. Also, performances at larger tournaments and majors are more emphasized than locals where players tend to sandbag or play against other players that they are familiar with (ex. Plup vs. Colbol, Shroomed vs. SFAT, etc..). Within a tier, the players are arranged roughly in order, but can easily be rearranged, especially for the later ones.

Here’s the first edition.

Tier 1: By far the favorites to win an event

1. Adam “Armada” Lindgren

With the win at Battle of the Five Gods, it’s safe to bump Hungrybox into the same discussions with Armada. Aside from a loss to Professor Pro, he has won every set against players outside of the big 6 for quite a while. It’s understated how consistent Hungrybox has been and his dominance has shown with clean wins against everyone outside of Mango and Armada.

Of course, nothing can really be said about Armada’s dominance, dating back to Evo 2015. He’s still a consistency monster, but the losses to Mango and Hungrybox at Battle of the Five Gods do tarnish his otherwise perfect resume.

Mango and Leffen are right behind Tier One © Robert Paul/@tempusrob/rmpaul.com

Tier 2: Not quite as consistent, but a step above the rest

After a very questionable 2015, Mango seems much more comfortable with how he wants to play his Fox. His set wins over Armada give some hope to his 2016 campaign, but he still needs to figure out his stamina issues in Top 8 situations. Still, he’s developed all of the necessary tech skill with shield drops and ledge-dashes becoming stables in his gameplay.

Leffen is still a mystery, largely due to his ongoing visa issues. He split sets with both Westballz and Armada at BEAST 6, but also lost a set to Professor Pro at a UK local. With a strong 2015, he still belongs in the 3-4 range as a player capable of winning a large tournament.

PPMD still dominates, but Plup is overtaking him © Robert Paul/@tempusrob/rmpaul.com

Tier 3: The Old Guard + Some Rising Stars

5. Justin “Plup” McGrath

6. Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman

The quick double-take is placing Plup over Mew2King and PPMD. In ideal conditions, Mew2King and PPMD are both incredibly talented players, but we haven’t seen that in 2016. They both struggled at Battle of the Five Gods and haven’t had any strong wins in over 4 months. Perhaps this may be an overreaction, but it’s time to reward Plup’s solid play rather than hold onto legacy.

Westballz and Axe round out this tier with impressive 2016 wins. In the past month, Westballz defeated Leffen, Mango, and PPMD in tournament. He still has issues of consistency and an issue with floaties, but his all-around game has improved remarkably. In the case of Axe, he’s improved substantially in his neutral game, which has paid off dividends with wins over Mango and Mew2King in 2016. Unfortunately, Axe wasn’t able to prove himself at Battle of the Five Gods with an early exit in pools, but he’s had an all-around great 2016.

SFAT is a challenger, but still a ways off the top © Robert Paul/@tempusrob/rmpaul.com

Tier 4: On the Cusp of Brilliance

Mustafa “Ice” Akcakaya

At this point, ranking players by number becomes extraordinarily difficult. Consistency separates tier 3 and tier 4 players.SFAT could see a jump into the next tier with solid 2016 performances and finally some consistent play. Ice was a tad underrated in 2015 and should have been in this tier much earlier. After a very questionable Genesis performance, Wobbles went on an amazing Battle of the Five Gods run, defeating Shroomed, Lucky, PPMD, Plup, Silent Wolf, Mew2King and Westballz. Historically, he’s performed incredibly in Texas, but can he play well in other regions? That’s a question, we’ll hopefully find out soon.

The rest of the list (Silent Wolf, Shroomed, PewPewU, Lucky) are veterans that have been placing in the Top 16 of majors for years with the occasional Top 8.

Druggedfox is inconsistent, but very dangerous © Jonathan Tayag/@itsjustatank

Tier 5: Where things get confusing

James “Duck” Ma

In some aspects, this tier is defined by players who have the skillsets to make the correct jump in 2016, but haven’t for one reason or another. DruggedFox didn’t make it out of pools at Battle of the Five Gods, but had a close set against Axe and looked alright against Mango despite the 0-3 outcome. Druggedfox has recently switched back to Fox and it’ll take some time for him to get the placements he wants. Historically, he’s brought several of his other characters to high levels and it’ll be scary to see what he can do with Fox in the next few months.

After a Top 8 finish at Genesis, Nintendude failed to take a set at Battle of the Five Gods in an understandably difficult pool. Largely due to the negativity with wobbling, Nintendude has gone under the radar for quite some time, but his results have been relatively firm.

It’s been a long journey for MacD, who has been largely seen as a down-smash spammer for the vast majority of his career. To give credit to him, Macd has improved by leaps and bounds within the past year, cleaning up his mechanics, optimizing punishes, and improving his matchup knowledge.

Lastly, Duck deserves a nod here for his performances dating back to Dreamhack. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the opportunity to compete at Battle of the Five Gods, but has been a consistent player with some solid wins and no outrageous losses at majors.

Honorable Mentions

Conclusions

The level of competition continues to improve rapidly. Undoubtedly, the skill gap between players shrinks every month. Who knows what the next 3 months will bring with Pound 2016 and Smash Summit 2 just around the corner. Who’s going to rise up? Who’s going to fall? Check in this summer, when I'll be updating these power rankings again!

Check in every other Monday for Tafokints Talks, where Tafokints covers Smash Bros. competition, culture, and more.