KIRBY KIRBY KIRBY HE’S HERE TO STAY

…Or is he? We’ll be examining Kirby’s status in the metagame. This one’s a bit of a sad tale.

Hi! This is Barnard’s Loop. I made this article in response to the recent July data dump, linked here:

July 2017 Character Data

The methodology is linked in the post, but you may take notice that during Phase 5 – which started on May 1st – that Kirby has no recorded results. He joins Dr. Mario and Mii Swordfighter as one of the few characters to turn up nothing in a now three month period.

Here, I will examine two aspects – his data from my database, and his perception according to monthly reddit tier lists.

KIRBY’S PLACEMENTS ON REDDIT TIER LISTS

January 2015 – 28th

March 2015 – 37th

April 2015 – 31st

May 2015 – 36th

June 2015 – 25th

July 2015 – 32nd

August 2015 – 30th

October 2015 – 32nd

November 2015 – 32nd

January 2016 – 31st

February 2016 – 34th

March 2016 – 36th

April 2016 – 36th

May 2016 – 36th

June 2016 – 37th

July 2016 – 37th

August 2016 – 40th

September 2016 – 40th

October 2016 – 40th

December 2016 – 42nd

January 2017 – 42nd

February 2017 – 42nd

March 2017 – 44th

April 2017 – 45th

May 2017 – 46th

June 2017 – 47th

*November 2016, December 2015, September 2015, and February 2015 were all “off” months where lists weren’t posted either due to holidays or tier list management transition.

A trend line is not necessary. He has had zero placement gains in the span of 17 months, dropping 16 spots in this time period, with 2017 marking a rapid decline from 42nd to 47th. His best position here is clearly pre-2016, with sporadic placements that are to be expected from a patch-heavy, uncertain, and newborn meta. As time went on, his numbers stabilized… and they dropped.

I haven’t done this with other characters, but the trend is pretty clear. Once patches ceased, his position stabilized, and high-profile performances at Pound 2016 and Frostbite 2017 at best prevented a drop for their particular event months. He has never gained during the post-patch era.

Why is this?

Character perception will depend on circumstance. Yoshi maintained comically high tier list status comparative to his results because Yoshi was a common wifi character that players fought frequently, and Yoshi was (and still is) cited as a character that heavily benefits in an online format.

This, of course, fell out of favor for Yoshi, who has seen significant declines as people have brought his lackluster results to attention. Yet, he was high for a while because people had experience and run ins with the character.

So, Kirby? Kirby is a character that not a lot of people use. I wouldn’t call him among the rarest – he has a dedicated fanbase, but it doesn’t seem to hold the same level of fanaticism or dedication that characters like Shulk have. He’s under-the-radar, as neither a commonly seen or used character, with a light fanbase of users.

This will lead people to simply place him in the aether of lower-mid tiers. Because nobody really has the experience to say “Wow, that’s broken,” and few are vocal about bringing the character’s flaws to light in the same way they do with particularly poor characters like Ganondorf or Jigglypuff, or characters that might be better than once thought but still had a rough history with perception – like Zelda.

He’s a radio silent character, and this is reflected in his decline. People do not have confidence in his prior lower-mid tier status, and thus he has collapsed into a group of lower tiered characters, with further room for decline. Little Mac, Palutena, and Wii Fit Trainer are currently ranked below the character, but all have shown better results on a long-term basis this year in both numbers and placement. For comparison’s sake:

Little Mac – 13th at Momocon 2017 (Lazyboredom), 17th at ARMS Saga (Lazyboredom.) Overall score of 60.5 over the course of Phases 4 & 5.

Palutena – 17th at ARMS Saga (TLTC,) 33rd at EVO 2017 (TLTC.) Overall score of 32.5 over the course of Phases 4 & 5.

Wii Fit Trainer – 2nd at Combo Breaker 2017 (John Numbers), and an overall solid record from John Numbers at the regional level. Overall score of 44.5 over the course of Phases 4 & 5.

KIRBY’S STAGNANT RESULTS

What inspired me to make this? Kirby has one tournament result in all of 2017 used in my database – Legic, placing 3rd at a Norway regional I included, per my region sampling policy. I will occasionally disregard low entrant numbers in the interest of counting a tournament in a lesser-known region. DrommeLAN 6, a Norway regional of 26 entrants – this is the only Kirby result used in 7 months.

Frostbite wasn’t used simply on the basis that Komota placed 33rd. He may have beaten Ally, but he went 0-2 after this, losing to Seagull Joe & Smasher1001. Frostbite 2017 was considered my equivalent of an A-Tier (4th Category) where I use the characters results of the Top 32, meaning Komota missed out.

…This would’ve added 3 points to the character if had broken into top 32, for what it’s worth, so Kirby is still getting worse results than Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Zelda, King Dedede, etc even if we considered this. He and Bowser Jr. (another character I’m likely to examine soon) maintain some of the absolute worst results in the game, even after I’ve expanded the number of tournaments & regions used and lowered the entrant cap on my database.

Even in Phase 3 – September-December 2016 – the character’s 16 point score placed him 9th to last, and was largely built upon 9ths and 13ths at regionals, or secondary score support through SuperGirlKels and K.I.D. Goggles.

Kirby has the makings of a bottom 10 – and possibly worse – position on the tier list as time continues to go on, with inevitable debates about the character’s viability.

Smashboards user Myollnir had some choice words about the character’s viability, examining the pros and cons of the character:

Myollnir’s Kirby Analysis

The conclusion being that Kirby has niches as a secondary due to potential match-ups vs. specific higher tiered characters, but he’s otherwise unviable and will remain irrelevant. With Komota failing to replicate his success vs. Ally in the many months since Frostbite, the brief potential infusion Kirby received may not have any effect in preventing his continued stagnation.

Despite garnering the character’s best win since Smash 4’s release, Kirby’s overall track record has declined so thoroughly that he sits at 56th – the worst non-Mii fighter result of any character in the game during 2017.

If we look at the total combined character results, we might have a good idea of Kirby’s ultimate fate in terms of meta placement:

Phase 1 – 5 (Partial) Character Results:

Diddy Kong – 2250 Cloud – 2135 Bayonetta – 1973 Sheik – 1888 Fox – 1515 Sonic – 1439 Mario – 1342 Zero Suit Samus – 1079 Rosalina & Luma – 1052.5 Mewtwo – 844.5 Ryu – 733.5 Meta Knight – 656.5 Marth – 655 Captain Falcon – 610 Ness – 565 Mega Man – 549.5 Corrin – 544.5 Peach – 498 R.O.B. – 487.5 Donkey Kong – 479.5 Greninja – 465 Toon Link – 452.5 Pikachu – 447 Luigi – 445.5 Villager – 432 Olimar – 372.5 Bowser – 372 Lucario – 340.5 Yoshi – 308 Lucas – 253.5 Robin – 245.5 Pit – 207.5 Ike – 207.5 Wario – 206.5 Lucina – 198 Little Mac – 193 Mr. Game & Watch – 191.5 Duck Hunt – 190.5 Samus – 173 Link – 153 Shulk – 139.5 Palutena – 137.5 Roy – 121 Wii Fit Trainer – 119 Pac-Man 118.5 Charizard – 116.5 King Dedede – 68 Falco – 57 Kirby – 47.5 Bowser Jr. 45.5 Mii Brawler – 30.5 Jigglypuff – 28.5 Zelda – 25 Ganondorf – 22.5 Dark Pit – 22 Dr. Mario – 19 Mii Gunner – 8 Mii Swordfighter – 0

Certain characters here have a foundation built largely on their 2016 results. Yoshi, Ness, and R.O.B. carried strong regional results that ultimately declined – so some of these are anomalies. Updated results, such as my July data post, resolve such anomalies. I just want to use this to make a point about how low Kirby is even when using data over the span of 16 and a half months.

With this, Kirby ranks 49th out of 58th, or in the bottom 10, with the vast majority of his results coming from over seven months ago. Depending on how you treat clones & Miis, Kirby could also be 8th or 5th to last on this.

CONCLUSION

There are virtually no positive things to say about Kirby’s future beyond a potential pickup as a secondary in certain match-ups. Even then, the effort required compared to other pockets may not be seen as worth it in the long term, since Kirby could ultimately be “figured out” even as a secondary pick as time goes on.

This would mean the time sunk into the character may feel wasted or unnecessary compared to more versatile picks, such as Fox, Lucina, Cloud, Bayonetta, Diddy Kong – any number of common secondary picks.

This is the best case scenario for the character, with his solo results ultimately being among the most lacking of any character in the game and perceptions of the character confirming a long-term, steady decline.