5. Marth

Despite the fact that Armada has won more Peach tournaments than me or any other Marth have won, I still think Marth is better than Peach (except Peach is better vs Falco). Marth is just extremely good overall, but he has problems KOing at high %s and also has no good out of shield options. He loses to the 4 characters above him except on Final Destination.



His recovery is pretty bad and easy to cover all of his options in many situations, and he gets 0-deathed pretty hard. However, he can also 0-death you very quickly. He is the worst of the top tiers, but better than any high tiers. If Final Destination was the only stage in Melee, then Marth would be hands down the best character overall, no contest. He does become much worse on other stages however.





4. Sheik

Despite the fact that Sheik loses to Fox/Falco/Puff/Ice Climbers, she is SO good vs. all of the other characters that I believe she deserves the number 4 spot. There was one point in time that I thought she was the best character in the game, but I found out that she had many limitations (such as recovery or lack of good approach) that the above characters do not have.



In teams, Sheik is by far one of the best characters, has the best edge game tied with Jigglypuff, and the best edge guarding period. Sheik is an extremely good character, I just do not currently think that she is better than any of the top 3 characters. I could see her being better than Jigglypuff possibly, but currently I do not hold that opinion, but I could see it being true.





3. Jigglypuff

I believe Jigglypuff is better than everyone except Fox/Falco for several reasons. One of these reasons is because she can constantly take a minor risk or 50/50 scenario to try to kill you, and if she succeeds, your stock is over. If you get the stock lead as Jigglypuff, you can just camp until you get a chance to rest the opponent (which will usually happen at some point).



One thing most Jigglypuffs do not do as good as me is planking. Ledge hop Fairs (and sometimes Dair if you believe they will block) can be used at many various timings to have a huge advantage once you get a stock lead. I have used this strategy in tournament vs. Hax to 4 stock him on two different occasions last year. It is at the point that I almost feel Jigglypuff should have a ledge grab limit because of how good this tactic is against some characters. However, because Hungrybox does not use this tactic (I think he is not good at it), and because most Jigglypuffs are not great players, this will not be common enough to ever matter so no rule will ever be placed.



Jigglypuff's style screams out "consistency" more than any other character. You can use a very bad controller and still play her extremely well. The idea of camping until you can get a good guess, read, or 50/50, is very powerful and easy to do consistently.



Up throw rest kills Fox at 11% on Final Destination, and one Jigglypuff strong aerial does 12%. This means Jigglypuff can just hit you a single time and then go for rests (land next to you with no aerial then grab or up tilt which you cannot react to easily at all, Pound you to trick your dash dance game while you wait for a Bair but she does Pound instead, or just wavedash back and up throw you).



Dreamland 64 is also EXTREMELY good for Jigglypuff, making her have basically an auto-win stage vs. almost anybody. Players that get frustrated easily or impatient are especially easy to deal with as Jigglypuff. In many years from now, when all of the Gamecube controllers are no longer good, Jigglypuff will become even better than she is right now.



Teams is a completely different story however. She is probably the best character in teams (unless Fox is better which is very debatable and I still think Puff is better honestly). I needed to use Jigglypuff in order to win RoM6 and RoM7 teams (Revival of Melee tournament series). Had I not had a good Jigglypuff, I may have very well lost both of those tournaments. Fox was not cutting it.



In teams, Jigglypuff can constantly take risks for a rest, and if she succeeds it is an instant kill. If she misses, there is a high chance she will either not be punished (her teammate can jab her) or her punishment will be very minor, because of all the other chaos and distractions in teams. Rest is far easier to hit in teams as well. Besides just Rest however, you do not need to save Jigglypuff in teams because her recovery is so good. However, by using Jigglypuff's aerials or pound, she can still save you in teams quite easily. She can also jump off the stage to do edge guard "risks", and if she ends up missing, it does not matter because she still has 4 more jumps and an air dodge to get back on stage with.



Should you try to edge guard Jigglypuff and miss (she can trick you and move backwards at the last second and then Pound you for example), she can reverse-edge-guard-you very quickly and easily.



Overall Jigglypuff can go for low risk, high-reward all the time, which makes her very powerful. Her weight allows her to escape combos very easily and DI off stage whenever needed and still be okay. She is a very underrated character; and I am not just talking here, I actually use Jigglypuff quite a bit in tournament recently (despite my total play time with her DRASTICALLY lower than most of my other top tier characters), but mostly for teams because she excels here.





2. Fox

Pretty self-explanatory, Fox is very similar to Falco and his tools make him some of the best of the best. Not much to say here that is not already obvious. Fox is also better in teams than Falco and if you average teams with singles, then Fox is the best character.



I believe Falco is the overall best in singles, despite the fact that Fox has a better matchup vs Peach due to easier kills and a more convenient full jump for that matchup, and kills Puff in the sky easier too (but Falco locks down Puff easier). I strongly believe Falco is better in singles overall, despite popular opinion. I have thought about this my entire Melee career.



