Not in this case.
I played Yoshi. Reimu did too.
We have the same opinion about the character.



With my Yoshi experience, I can tell that this armor is not that useful and pretty easy to counter. A lot of characters, just by waiting a bit when they have to, can edgeguard Yoshi with no trouble.



That's true. Yoshi's combo game is great, it's like his best strength. However, I don't think it is as good at you say it is, due to some moves being actually pretty hard to use. Some characters (a lot of them) have solutions to counter these combos, just by using a quick aerial or stuff like that.



"amazing aerial mobility and speed"
Yoshi is pretty slow actually, his running speed is not fast at all, but yeah with his good aerial mobility he can do some cool stuff.
Notice that Yoshi's priority is extremely horrible though, that's the big weakness of his combo game, and I think that's why it's not as amazing as you say it is.



I agree with this.



and yeah, that's where I think the priority is a problem, it's pretty hard to edgeguard some characters because of that



Our opinions differ again about this, I personnally think that Yoshi's overall matchups are bad. To explain why with words, I would have to try to analyze matchup by matchup, which is something I don't want to do, explained below why.



My arguments are extremely weak compared to yours, and some of them are opinion-based, my argumentation isn't solid at all, yours is way better on this point.

I don't really like writing arguments like this, because to me it just doesn't prove anything, it is just theory. Everything, even if it's dumb, if it's well written, can look good and be convincing to people, unless we prove by actually playing the game, that all of this was just false.

If at the beginning of the SSBM meta, someone came and wrote 50 lines arguing on the fact that Pichu is pretty good, if he wrote well, he could convince people, because nobody had enough game knowledge to say the opposite anyway.
I'm not saying at all that it applies to your text, some arguments you wrote feel legit to me. I'm just saying that it can happen, and that's why I don't trust this. It's all theory, and theory does not prove anything.

I personnally just tried to play the character, to find solutions to some problems in order to get better with Yoshi, and the results I got were not satisfying enough to me.
These solutions probably exist, but I just didn't find them, that's why it's a possibility that in another meta in the future, Yoshi will be top tier, we don't know that anyway. But yeah, my opinion is, with the knowledge of the game we have right now, there's no way that Yoshi could be at this position.

Some people may be able to use theory to argue about Yoshi's placement, feel free to do it, these debates aren't stupid at all, and are actually pretty interesting.

The only thing I never understood is when Yoshi's "full-potential" comes into discussion, everyone describes "full-potential," like all his weaknesses will disappears. People don't compare enough of how Yoshi at his full-potential will compare to other characters at their full-potential. His full-potential may advance him above other characters at their mid-level within the meta, or put him on a equal plain to other characters in their high-level meta. But his full-potential wouldn't be even to other characters at their full-potential for his strengths and tools don't measure up. Nor does it keep his weaknesses from being exploited. That doesn't makes a character Top-3. But regardless of that, this seems like a list based off current meta, and Yoshi's position here isn't too far from true.

My guess is that he has several even to winning match-up against A and S-tiers.

vs. Sheik, he's pretty good. He mostly out-prioritizes her moves with his own. She's easy juggle food for him and a pretty simple to deal with recovery. A Bair off stage can kill her pretty easily. And he's small and light, so he avoids a lot of her follow-up and it can be torture trying to land a Fair or Bair on Kirby as Sheik. Every Sheik player needs to good Zelda against Kirby.

vs. Donkey, this is even in my opinion, but it's a wild match-up. Kirby can juggle the hell out of DK at any percent because of the low scaling on all of his Up moves. At 0%, Usmash > Usmash > Usmash > Uair string > Hammer for KO is a very easy BnB combo. The other side is that DK can kill Kirby at 50% with most of his moves, and kill at 0% with a Charged-Punch.

vs. Fox is probably like 70 or more for Kirby. Launch moves that give a ton of time for a hammer follow-up, a bunch of low-angled moves to gimp, and a good sort of high priority moves to edge-guard with (Bair, Dash-Attack, Fsmash). Fox has to be careful because it's very easy for Kirby to remove a stock in a single sequence.

He also fairs quite well against the other B-tier on this list, so there's that. In a lot of match-ups, if you're not a swordsman or lack disjoints, you can't hit Kirby during his Dash-Attack. The moves is incredibly stupid in priority and hit-boxes.
_________

I also like this list. It's the most accurate to the currently established knowledge of the meta (online & offline).

I do think Zelda should be moved to A-tier. Everyone else in S-tier can wreck her, and a few lower characters, like Naruto, Samus and Mario, give her some trouble. But she still absolutely destroys most of mid-tiers and lower.

And Chibi should be in B-tier. He can take on everyone in that rank and Nair/Fair > Dair 0% kills are still a factor. I just think he's significantly worst in the online environment.

I'm talking about theory and potential because I don't want to spend a really long time learning Yoshi and trying to use him to near his full potential. I have a Yoshi; it's pretty meh. Even getting close to optimizing my punishes would be a ton of work and I'm not going to do that just to prove a point. Ditto as to why I'm trying to talk about theorysmash instead of proving it by winning Smash Island (although that's probably a pipe dream regardless lol): in a world where some characters have meh representation and I can't main every character I think is underrated, I have to analyze Yoshi and theorize as to how good he is. This isn't perfect, but I think it would hold up in tournament play given a chance.

1)This list is mostly based on online play, due to the fact the SSF2 competitive environment is mostly online.

2)It is based off of top-high level game-play. A lot of characters would be much higher than they are currently if it is based on average play. For example, Megaman would be MUCH MUCH higher if it were based on average skill level because most people wouldn't know how to deal with projectile spam.

3)Mostly based off inherent potential; tournament results and representation didn't play too much of a factor. Lets take a character like Sonic. He has some good players that main him and do well in tourneys, but the character itself has very little potential compared to the rest of the cast and lots of bad MUs. If this were a tier list mostly based off tourney results and representation, ZSS would be #1 because Kyoz wins pretty much every tournament with her. But because we think that Lloyd and MK have more potential than her and are better characters, she is still only #3.

4)We feel that Kirby actually has tools that can be used to make him SOMEWHAT viable (not very much though, he still is in bottom B). Kirby has some damn awful mobility and pretty much no way to approach, which hinders quite a bit. But Kirby still has one of the best recoveries in the game, very solid kill options that aren't hard to combo into, and he can juggle quite easily which makes not entirely useless. Kirby also has some pretty good/even MUs against some of the higher tiers. We think his spot in B is pretty spot-on, though feel free to disagree. Sonic on the other hand... well in the eyes of most of us, is just a bad character. There are 3 Sonic mains in tW that have been using him and analyzing him for the longest time, and they all agree that he is just bad. Kirby has tools that force people to do things, while Sonic can't. All Sonic can force you to do is bring up your shield and give you trouble if you have crap OoS. Still, you don't even have to shield against Sonic since its better just to throw out moves since Sonic's priority is super poor.

Hope that helped; if I worded anything poorly or you just still have questions, feel free to ask.

Two things:

1) Finally, someone put Sora in the right place. how many Sora mains are in tW?

2) What made you put Ichigo so high up?

1) A good amount. About 3 people main him, but a bunch of us use him/play against him a lot so we know our stuff.

2)Ichigo is a great character, a bit underrated (at least imo). He has STUPID range with his disjointed hitboxes, and that is a crucial factor in the current metagame. He also has good combo game (utilts kek), and a huge increase in his mobility due to his pseudo-wavedash. His biggest problem is his startup and ending lag on some moves, and he can have a bit of a problem when going against a character with a rushdown playstyle. Overall though, we think that Ichigo deserves that spot.

I agree. But yeah, imagine if suddently we found a new epic tool for Yoshi, like it has been done with Fox in melee, with the shine options. Yoshi would be placed way higher than now. Because we don't know if this tool exists or not, if it is good or not, we cannot really predict the future meta and be sure of our predictions.

A metagame without wavedash in Melee would be way different. We don't know if a tool comparable to this exists in SSF2. It could change everything.
But yeah, with the current meta, Yoshi can clearly not be high tier in my opinion.



I see what you mean.
But yeah as I said, with the current meta, even with all the theory which has been made on Yoshi, some solutions to some problems has not been found for this character, high tiers are able to do a lot of stuff better than him right now, and that's why I think Yoshi can't be top tier on a August 2015 tier list. As I said too, we can't predict the future metagame.



Nah, MK would still be #1, because Lunary :')

I'd like to add that Kirby is not 70 or more versus Fox. Yes, Kirby has amazing punishes on Fox, but Fox has a huge advantage in neutral. It's hard to really speak from experience because most of the Kirbys I play aren't very good (randoms and such) but I think that's a one-dimensional way of looking at the MU. Fox gets crushed by a ton of characters in punishes, but he still wins a lot of those MU's because of his amazing neutral and pressure. Does Kirby have any viable way of landing hits? Crouching doesn't really help in the MU, you aren't going to get free shieldgrabs unless they screw up badly, Fox has a ton of priority on his moves, and he has the speed to punish a lot of Kirby's kit. And with usmash and uair being such threats, Fox only needs a couple openings in neutral to take stocks. I think it's roughly even, but you can't just act like Kirby will get free hits all the time because the neutral is overwhelmingly in Fox's favor. Think like Puff in Melee or this game: just because uthrow -> rest is so amazing doesn't mean that Fox doesn't win the MU.

Ichigo so high cuz yaboi Spidr reppin wuz gud

You played it.
I don't know anyone who really went full aMSa and has only played it.



Well- Wait what
First of all , I doubt that Lloyd and MK have more potential than ZSS. Au contraire , I think they both have low skill ceillings. I'm more considering playing Fox/Falcon in beta , if I don't quit the game after Smash Island XV.
But no one cares about my opinions anyway. Just inserting that here anyway.

I do think it's a tier list is primarly based on how tW merely feels about the characters right now.

I play Lloyd and MK, therefore they are 1# and 2#.
Kyoz plays ZSS , she's 3#.
Even lower skill floor , tons of people play Zelda , and she gets good representation in/out of tourneys (SilverEvil , FrenchKissHey , Zalozis, ...). She hits like a truck and kills early if you don't pay attention. 4#
SS , DS , Kylos although we don't see them much in tournaments (also Niayre). They play Marth. Tipper is OP. Marth is #5
Sheik has an even lower skill floor , people still have trouble knowing when to go in, when to be careful and Sheik doesn't help. + even better representation (Zero_OR , somewhat DS/Kyoz/Sekanor , Miracle--7 , dopeness , Arsenec, ...). omg Sheik so little endlag and too much priority. #6
Nintendo95 , Pikachu. #7
Narutards , #8
Dong (Infamous) , #9
...

Which is not a bad thing , to be honest. That's how you describe a metagame at one specific time.

THIS , is the main difference between the BR tier list and this one. The BR believes in a possible hidden potential.

I don't really agree with this tier list but you won't care so I'm not going to explain myself any further.
However, no tier list will be correct if we don't have a deeply analyzed matchup chart for all characters.

Nobody. Yoshi is one of these characters who hasn't been fully exploited, in fact, no characters are. There are some characters like Chibi Robo who need to be played more in my opinion. The metagame is still at its beginning right now.



I wouldn't say that they have low skill ceilings, but if I had to make a tier list myself, ZSS would be above MK, and I'm not sure I would place Lloyd top 3. But that's my opinion.



Yeah, of course. I think it would have another name if it wasn't that.



Yep, I agree.



Well, a thing which makes making really good tier lists being really hard, is that everyone doesn't even have the same definition of the words "tier list".
While this tier list tries to represent the metagame how it is right now, the back room tier list is more trying to see in the long term. I agree with this tier list because its goal has been reached in the most part (in my opinion). The BR tier list doesn't really fit with that (still my opinion), but I don't think it was its goal.



Hey, every opinion is interesting, I would like to know why you don't like this tier list. If you don't want to explain, feel free to not do it though.
But yeah, having a perfect tier list would require at first to analyze every matchup, which wastes a lot of time, I guess that's why it has never been done.

Edit: I just readed your post again and thought about it, your opinions seem very interesting, I would like to hear more about them, if that doesn't disturb you.

Ah, OK. That makes sense with the rankings lol


Anyways, since so many people are talking about -
I do think he has lots of discovered - albeit unrealized - potential. We know it's there; it's just not fully utilized, especially online. Like Captain Falcon, Yoshi is extremely demanding in terms of input timing and is therefore hard to play online and perhaps not an easy character to win with. But that being said, a high learning curve does not make a weak character. I do think that once someone manages to get the technical skills and other intricacies about Yoshi figured out, he can be quite devastating. Double-Jump Cancel is amazing but it doesn't really get pushed to its limit the way Fox's Down-B does. Here's what I'm talking about:

I agree that Fox has better neutral when he capitalizes on the openings. He can keep the pressure on Kirby once it's started. Fox can go wild on a lot of characters with offense against a lot of characters, but there's a substantial risk with approaching Kirby. This isn't Melee-Fox; Flash-Fox is much more vulnerable and susceptible to hard punishes here compared to Melee-Fox. And run&gun lasers won't get Fox anywhere as effective for how hard it is to hit Kirby from a far. And Kirby can run under Fox's 2nd lowest Laser-Cancel, meaning you have to get the frame-perfect laser-cancel to hit him. And while puffballs jumps are their main movement tool, they have a effectively safe air-dodge to fall safely to avoid them. Patient is key in Kirby's playstyle. He has poor approaching, yes, but has the ability to wait out his opponents. It's not easy, but it is the factor that allows him to perform viably against many powerful character. This can leave Fox at gamble; to face a character up-close that has awkward, incoherent tools that somehow messes with primary game-plan. This is just like the Kirby vs. DK match-up, but Fox's tools aren't as good to deal with Kirby. Maybe not 70 or more, but I do think Fox is another high-tier Kirby beats overall.

It's hard for me because my Fox personally really struggles with puffballs: I can dismantle Kirby spammers but I don't have the patience that's needed to laser half the game, run in, dtilt, usmash, run back, and do that again. Maybe my struggles with Kirby players (shoutout to Chaunch today) are indicative of a really poor matchup, but I think it's really more half the theoretical MU and half me: Kirby beats Fox 60-40 or 55-45 and not 70-30.


I'd like to add that we can estimate the untapped potential a character has. For example, I know that someone who could master reacting to DI on Falcon's combos would really make waves and push the character higher up, and in a perfect 20XX meta Falcon gets better than Sheik, who is really well-explored already. Sure, sometimes things come out of nowhere (Charge Shot glitch, aMSa in Melee, someone figures out how to do Smash 64 first-hit uair infinites with Fox, Jigglypuff and Wario in Melee and Brawl respectively), but for the most part we can make predictions about the potential characters have.

If you're trying to make a tier list that approximates the meta right now, then I agree with Yoshi's placement. But if your goal is to represent competitive viability (which I feel tier lists should measure), then that's independent of who plays which character how well. Tournament results are merely a window in my book into the true viability of certain characters. Certainly viability depends on your opponents: in a meta where no one can deal with clones properly and no one plays Fox Naruto does really well, and if no one can deal with Tiger Blade spam properly then Lloyd does really well. Yoshi IMO has a lot of untapped potential, and insofar as I can predict viability without high-level matches to look at I can conjecture based on some evidence that Yoshi is a really good character.

I think, however, that saying that this tier list is trying to show the meta right now seems incongruous to me: you have placements that do not reflect the current meta at all (Ichigo and Kirby, for example), because the people who made this believe that those characters can do well. Kirby has next to no representation, even worse than Yoshi, and so much of his game remains completely unexplored (crouching for example), so saying that Kirby should be higher than most people think right now seems contradictory to the treatment of Yoshi.

I play Yoshi..