Yeah, that makes no sense.
Also Tier List Mk 3!
[ Image ]

This can only be questioned with one word: W H A T ?

But what does that have to do with communism?

I'm gonna need a long as f*** post to tell you exactly why that tier list is garbage.

Let's start with S Tier. I now pose the question of What the actual f*** is Pichu doing up there? Pichu is light, has next to no range, dies relatively early to everything, and has a mechanic that cripples his disadvantage state as soon as he hits 50%. Sure, he's got a good punish game, but Pichu loses hard to a LOT of characters and I stand by the opinion that he's one of the only truly bad characters in the game. Aside from Fox being too high, and Chibi being a tad high, it's generally okay.

Next tier - A+. Bandana Dee and Bomberman do not belong up there. Bomberman is an overall decent character but Bandana Dee doesn't belong anywhere near the top 10. It's especially silly when you're leaving Sheik and Peach outside of the top 10 and putting Bandana Dee of all characters in top 10. Dee got hit extremely hard by the gravity changes and now suffers from being a character who dies early to everything and still doesn't kill very well. His new dash attack is not as much of a hefty improvement on his old one and his new Dair is decent but still not great, as whilst he's a much better designed character overall, he's fallen victim to power creep and he's still a bit of a gimmicky post turtle. Everything else bar Yoshi who I'd move much lower is not too bad imo.

A Tier is solid aside from Wario and Goku. Goku's a bad character carried by a pretty good Kaioken, making him more of a worse 9b Goku and Wario just isn't as good as that honestly. Probably the best tier you've come up with.

A- Tier...well, Naruto and Ness are a little high and Falco's way too low especially with the gravity changes being as good to him as they are, Mega Man being here is bad. Mega Man isn't good anymore. His recovery is relatively easy to edgeguard and other zoners just do his job at zoning at mid range just a little better.

B Tier only has one accurate placing and that's Pit. Sora's a bit worse than you'd think, Black Mage is garbage and Peach is hella good even with losing reverse turnip. Sora's reliant pretty heavily on gimmicks especially with his overall toolkit being nerfed as much as it was, Black Mage is functional, but functional doesn't really cut it with the cast being as good as they are, and he really only is better than Pichu and Sandbag IMHO, and Peach is just 1.0.3.2 Peach without horrendous swordie MUs and reverse turnip.

I'll cover the whole of C Tier cause it's tiny. Bowser and Pikachu belong much higher. Pikachu just does everything better than Pichu and his only real issue is having serious Marthritis, and Bowser now has an actual neutral and the meta now allows for more aggressive play which helps Bowser as a defensive powerhouse. (Also gonna drop it here that Bowser has the ability to 0-death almost every character off a grab/aerial). Jiggs belongs higher because actual rest setups and trades, and there are a lot of characters who are just worse than everyone in that tier bar Sonic who should really be where Bowser is.

And now Luffy. Luffy probably belongs around A- tier purely because his main problems have been fixed. Port and Kill Power. The loss of port still gives Luffy a better neutral, albeit still not great, but having actual kill setups to play around with off his aerials and command grabs makes Luffy a seriously powerful force, especially given how much he can capitalise off a neutral win with his excellent combo game and pretty good kill setups.

I will post a tier list here in a bit once I make one up, so call this a <RESERVED> section.

Pichu has an amazing combo and kills, can zone with neutral b, and can kill with most anything.
A good combo game doesn't really mean much when he can't really get the hit in. Look at Sandbag. As good of a punish game that Pichu has, he can't really play anything other than hit and run because of his range issues and he's got the flaw of pretty much always having to approach as well because he really can't zone with Electro Ball. Most projectiles stuff Electro Ball and it really travels far too slowly to zone until you have Discharge. Not to mention that a lot of characters that do well in the metagame have disjoints and/or projectiles so neutral becomes hell for him. As far as killpower goes, Discharge turns his recovery from Pikachu tier (aka really good) to being one of the worst recoveries in the game because it's very predictable as you rely on Skull Bash for horizontal distance and Agility becomes really linear, and using Thunder to gain height leaves you a bit of a sitting duck. Sure, he has incredible kill power when in Discharge, but when his neutral is still bad, kill power doesn't necessarily mean much.

Bandana can kill heavyweights extremely early and has nice kill confirms with up-b, uair, and dair, as well as having an amazing defensive game.
The changes to gravity actually made his kill power on Waddle Copter, Parasol Drill and Up Air a fair bit worse. You aren't really gonna be confirming off too much into it as there's a fairly large margin for DI on all his combos. [Also (I'll use Bowser as an example because I know this) Bowser's Uthrow -> Uair kills Bandana Dee at like ~50% whereas the closest I've seen of a BDee confirm doesn't really work around 90% outside of edgeguarding.] His defensive game isn't too bad sure, with his OoS now being nerfed because Nair OoS last patch was actually mad good and Fair got a bit worse, but yeah, Bandana Dee still suffers from really just being too similar to Kirby, except trading range for a punish game and sheer versatility because his neutral really isn't that good. Punish game doesn't really mean much if you can't really land a hit.

Bomberman was already amazing and his grab game has only gotten better, making him a huge threat in neutral and he can making amazing ledge traps.
Gravity changes killed his recovery and overall worsened his disadvantage. He's still very solid but I wouldn't consider him to be amazing.

Wario has an amazing punish game and is faster and has better kill confirms, I will probably move down goku tho. Same with Naruto and Ness
Again, main kill confirm was worsened by gravity, but Wario's placing just comes more down to his neutral not being as good as it once was and other characters just being better. Not really a placing I had a serious issue with, I just think that it's less Wario being good and more most of the cast just being amazing.

But Falco didn't get ANY buffs AND got nerfed on recovery making him even easier to edgeguard then before, making him pretty screwed if he is off stage.
Falco's neutral game is still incredible, and the increase to gravity buffed his disadvantage somewhat as he can now get out of some s*** more easily at low percents cause fastfaller. Also the gravity changes actually buffed Falco a fair bit because his vertical combo game now works a lot better on a lot of the cast because of that gravity, especially shine combos where the scaling is a bit less prominent and dair is now a bit better because of the buff to spikes. Additionally, his new up air is now a really good juggling tool with a bit more range and did the character a lot of favours.

I don't know much about Mega Man, I will probably bump him down tho.
I'll maybe do a write up on Mega Man. If you want to talk to me on Discord, we can maybe discuss this a bit more cause I used to main Mega Man a fair bit. My ID is @WolfIsBackBois | Tenebrae#9988.

Black Mage is pretty underrated and he still has an amazing edgeguarding game, and has better kill confirms.
Not really, he's a better edgeguarder sure, but a lot of the time during Empire 7's run, I noticed Drarky not only relying pretty heavily on Stop -> Up Smash which can be SDI'd very easily, but he actually opted to go more for other characters than to go Black Mage in that tournament. Black Mage does have a better neutral and edgeguarding game, but he's got a really weak recovery and his punish game is inconsistent. The kill confirms are better, but not by much. Same with Black Mage, he's better, but not by much and everyone else has just overtaken him at this point as sad as that is to say.

Pika lost grounded up-b, making his rushdown game far worse, which hurts him a lot.
Are you on about QAC? Because he can still do grounded up-b twice into the ground. And he's still got amazing mobility and a good combo game and an actually good projectile even without QAC. Still a solid character.

IDK about bowser and jigglypuff.
Fair enough. Again, see my point on Mega Man.

Luffy still has slow as heck command grabs which make him easy to dodge. I admit he should be in B.
I've begun playing around with Luffy a lot and something that becomes very apparent is that you don't command grab in neutral ever. They're punish tools and combo extenders. This doesn't really apply.

I'm going to refrain from commenting on the tier list for now, but I figured I'd just address your points.

Also with Pichu Strife, he is hard to kill because he is as fast as Falcon AND is tiny, AND because of that he can easily approach.

Being fast =/= good approach. Being tiny is also =/= being able to approach well. He may be able to get close, but most characters can very easily use their normals to keep away Pichu because, as I mentioned before (which you once again, failed to mention). You often have to get dangerously close to the opponent to approach and it means that most characters can just outrange Pichu if he tries to go for a move. Pichu's hitboxes are garbage, and whilst he may be fast and small, he's also not going to get a hit on anyone because you can just bat him out of the way.

Yes, he's fast and small, but he's not gonna get a hit in because any time he gets close he's going to be:
1. In the opponent's grab range (grabs beat attacks, even if he lands a grab, he's probably gonna get throw teched and the neutral win isn't relevant anymore - he's f***)
2. Dangerously close to the opponent (again, he's f*** as his opponent can easily punish OoS or just grab if he tries to go for a tomohawk and he still gets combo'd if he loses this outcome, he's still f***.)

Being small and fast does not mean you can easily approach, and it certainly doesn't make you good. Let's talk about some characters who are small and fast in Smash history:
- Pichu in Melee, ended up being really s*** because he had no range and (surprise) couldn't approach against other characters.
- Jigglypuff in general, has more range sure, but dies early to everything, but she's also hard to hit so surely this means she's S tier right???? Wrong, she's good in Melee, and that's about it.
- Young Link in Melee, okay, he could approach, but this is entirely the wrong archetype and he had a good wavedash, disjoints and projectiles to boot. Still not viable.

There are barely any characters that fall into the "small and fast" archetype, and usually the ones that end up good usually have something that gives them a good approach. Pikachu has QAC in Brawl. Jiggs had an uber-disjointed back air in Melee. Young Link and Toon Link had disjoints and about three different projectiles to play keepaway/cover their approach with.

Pichu has none of this.

He has absolutely no range, his projectile doesn't have any real advantageous angle in any range except close. He only really has his ground speed which I will admit is very good, and some decent aerial mobility, it still doesn't change the fact that he literally has to play hit and run in every situation and that he really isn't very good at it when so many of the characters below him have a very easy time outranging and out neutralling Pichu.

And Pichu's disadvantage state is abysmal. Discharge ups his punish game, but he loses all mixup potential on his recovery. He cannot land because all his landing options are super risky or they make his disadvantage even worse, and he will be eating so much percent from a juggle situation because he cannot land. Not to mention that he dies EXTREMELY early to everything because he's incredibly light.

Pichu has a below-average at best neutral because he only has tools to play with that the entire cast possesses plus more. Offset by one of the worst disadvantage states in the game and an okay advantage state.

This is why Pichu sucks.

Um, you can just use Up-B to approach below 50%, and use Skull Bash above 50% for your approach. And if he gets an up-throw he can kill confirm with Up-B. And you can use neutral-B for edgeguarding above 50% and you can use Thunder for kill confirms above 50%. Point is, Pichu does have approach options. And Psycho, Kirby is DESTROYED by Pichu. Pichu has better grabs and his neutral b is ONLY useful for edgeguarding/zoning, making it not very useful for kirby. Pichu also has Nair strings like in Melee which are pretty good. So Pichu IS amazing.

And Psycho, Kirby is DESTROYED by Pichu. Pichu has better grabs and his neutral b is ONLY useful for edgeguarding/zoning, making it not very useful for kirby. Pichu also has Nair strings like in Melee which are pretty good.

I don't think Pichu is amazing, but he's scary. He's so small and fast that it can be intimidating when he plays very rushdown like. I've been hit by many run-up-shorthop-nairs, it doesn't lead into much (i think), but it's difficult to work around. And because he dies so early and becomes so crazy after 50%, it can be scary to be in a lot of places with Pichu, but Pichu is just as scared. He's just the most extreme glass cannon character I can think of.

Right, time to get the old Backroom Character Analyst circuits going again.

1. No you really can't. Up-B has landing lag, and it's really not advisable due to how telegraphed it is compared to Pikachu. Also, it's hella unsafe on shield until you hit Discharge but you're never going to approach with it unless your opponent is at the ledge. Most of the time, you're gonna be using Up-B to bait opponents into your shield.
2. Skull Bash is a terrible approach, it's hella unsafe on shield and his speed is better. I've just spent the last few hours fighting TheFancySlasher's Pichu and his main method of approach was to dash dance in and actually use his run speed. It wasn't good, but it was a damn sight better than Skull Bash because I literally just threw out my dash attack and put him in a recovery situation whenever he tried to use it.
3. Electro Ball isn't that good for edgeguarding, it's for baiting opponents into shield so you can get a grab. It's really not that good at it either. The best you can do with Electro Ball is take somebody's jump, and Nair's just better at that even with it's s*** range. Furthermore, Electro Ball only ever goes at two angles and they're pretty easy to avoid for certain characters.
4. Thunder's kill confirm potential is awful. I didn't even DI and Thunder didn't even kill me at 90%. If you get hit with the bolt, it's s***, and if you get hit with the shockwave, then it's still not great. Literally, you wanna use it for edgeguarding.

5. Kirby is absolutely not destroyed by Pichu in the slightest.


Pichu does not have better grabs. Kirby has two extremely solid combo throws including one that gives him a kill confirm into Hammer and another that sets up for Kirby's incredible regrab combos, and he has another decent low% combo throw and on top of that has two kamikaze throws which makes his edgeguarding a nightmare. Pichu's neutral-b works amazingly on Kirby because it allows him a bit of cover fire which Kirby can lay across the stage and abuse better because he gets so much off a grab. It's very useful for Kirby. And whilst Pichu may have Nair strings, Kirby has Dthrow -> Hammer which kills Pichu at 55%. Kirby has a better neutral because Inhale allows him to benefit from the grab changes in a way that Pichu just can't because Pichu's grab range is s***, and he has better range, meaning RAR Bair as an approach or walling too shuts down Pichu.

Kirby actually beats/does well vs disjoint characters like Lloyd and has manageable matchups vs characters like Chibi-Robo. Pichu gets destroyed by many of them, and Lloyd s*** on Pichu so hard that it's not even funny. Pretty much any character with a disjoint s*** on Pichu because he has the worst range in the game. Pretty much any zoner s*** on Pichu because they can easily wall him out. Pretty much any character s*** on Pichu because they're fighting against a character with non-existent range in a game and meta where range is a pretty key trait to being good and where grabs literally beat attacks for free because someone thought that was a good idea.

It's pretty telling when the #1 player in this patch so far is a Kirby main and there are barely any notable Pichu mains to speak of. It's also really telling how you're literally the only person at this point who still thinks Pichu is amazing.

Pichu sucks. I've spent ages trying to explain it to you, but evidently you're still incredibly in denial.
Rushdown Pichu really isn't the optimal way to play Pichu. He's literally better as a hit-and-run or a speedy grappler type character.