A lot of people seem to be complaining that they can't go solo with their main and have a reasonable shot of winning a major because shiek.



First of all, guess what: zero has been winning repeatedly with solo shiek because he's simply better than everyone, not because shiek is. If the definition of viability is gonna be "able to solo majors and win consistently" then no matter who you pick your char will be unviable, unless you're Zero. There is a major skill gap between Zero and the rest and he happens to play shiek. The guy has won like 6 majors and 45 tourneys straight; this has definitely skewed many people's ideas of what is viable in theory, where all players have equal skill. The only shiek player that has been completely dominating and making the character look unstoppable is Zero. Take him out the equation for the sake of analysis and Top 8 composition at a major is very diverse and shiek definitely doesn't always win. There also wouldn't be as many players and characters not making Top 8 because they faced Zero early and lost.



Secondly, players skill aside, any solo main will be realistically incapable of winning a major consistently (except for shiek, maybe Pikachu as well IMO) when there are so many characters in the game. You are bound to run into a character that beats yours when there is so much character representation at a major.



Thirdly- Outside of theory land, in reality, there is no character whatsoever that can be solo viable when you think about the wide variety of different PLAYERS AND PLAYSTYLES present at a major. Unless, of course, you're Zero. This includes shiek. Even the other top shiek players are starting to realize this and are picking up secondaries not to cover characters that can beat shiek, but to cover PLAYERS who can beat shiek. Shiek has more even matchups than 0, and she does not completely invalidate anyone at this point in time. She is also the character that everyone practices and plays against the most. It is becoming more and more obvious that unless you're Zero top Shiek players have a much better chance of succeeding when they have a good secondary, because there is much more to success at the top level than theory fighting. This is true for any character for the same reasons. Certain players will be better at beating character X than others regardless of who they play.



Also the game is way too young to be complaining like this either way.



TLDR: Unless you're Zero you should have a secondary, even if you play Shiek. One character is risky in general because players>characters. This is how the game works. Get better or quit.