Depending on tournament rules/stage list, that's not always possible. And you may not necessarily be playing a character that would benefit from such a flat stage, too.

Point being, DK isn't as easy to invalidate as some would suggest, though he's lacking just a few tools that Bowser has to overcome these MUs. But rather than propel him to C or lower, it lands him towards the bottom of B-tier while Bowser can hold A-tier. DK's ease of use and intuitive combos will continue to keep him there (in addition to completely obliterating combo weights and characters with short reach/few disjoints).

But most tournaments have the striking format and also 90% of DK's Bad Matchups either benefit or do okay-ish on stages as flat as Lucina's chest. And I find DK to not only have issues in neutral but also the fact that DK honestly will be either taking a lot of percents or will easily get killed by a lot of characters within one or a few wins in neutral which is also even worse by his flawed recovery which is prone to meteors and doesn't have a hitbox on top. And while his mobility is decent, heavies don't really have anything to utilize it since DK is supposed to use his arms to cover up stage making his mobility not as useful as it should be. It is just that he has a ton of matchups issues and he relies on certain stages while getting bodied on others which is really a big problem in a tournament setting and his poor recovery makes him even more inconsistent. Like a reason why jigglypuff is above him is because AT LEAST jigglypuff has more options in neutral, can at least pressure her opponents, and only really needs 1 hit in neutral to kill you honestly, and her matchups tend to be more do-able (except for Marth and Mega Man lol). There are also only a few characters with short reach and few disjoints that aren't mid/low tier. And characters with low range like the spacies can still rush DK down due to them having better frame data and being able to punish and bait DK and such.

Don't think DK is that terrible as this list shows. That being said he is VERY stage dependent in most of his matches, like 50:50/45:55 matchups can heavily either drop to 30:70's or 60:40's depending on character and stage. That being said he's def not terrible, Bowser does outclass him though imo.

Only thing that really sucks for DK in matchups is if the character's disjoint is somehow longer than his or he gets his recovery exploited easily, just the thing is his punish game is strong enough that it doesn't matter sometimes.

However most of the cast basically DOES have a good enough disjoint to outprioritize his moves and are fast enough to cut right through him. And again, opponents can strike his best stages giving DK a disadvantage whether he wins or loses the first match in a tournament. And I would say given his matchup spread, he seems to do not very good against most of the cast in general which is why I placed him in mid-low tier. He isn't awful and he has his perks, but he just isn't as good as most of the other cast.

I don't think Ness is that low, I think he's actually really good. Also how come DK is that much lower than Bowser?

Ness seems to have rather linear range especially when putting up with most swordfighters along with having a very gimpable and abusable recovery when not using down-b. His approach options are also rather limited along with him having pretty below average mobility in general which simply will eventually be exploited in top level play when more people adapt to ness. But I may look into Ness more, since he still actually has been doing well in certain tournaments but it may change once people start learning how to fight Ness more. But DK does significantly worse against disjoints and projectile users compared to Bowser due to his lack of superarmor and lack of a projectile. And it doesn't help that he has a much worse neutral and is heavily dependent on stages which would hurt his tournament results since it would make him inconsistent.

ok time to revisit my old tier list: https://forums.mcleodgaming.com/viewtop ... 5#p1479922

• Fox +7 - Fox becomes a lot more of a threat with MK being so challenged. He's basically a Falco that caps out better but is harder to play at the low end. Gax is running rounds w/ his Fox too. Though he's nerfed from 9b I think with the energy level of everyone else he's still got a bit of an edge.
• Isaac +19 - Ok so, due to the way Growth affects knockback and some of his attacks are really difficult to challenge and the way RiVer is just running rounds... yeah. Super slept on him.
• Zelda +6 - Thought she was slept on before, now with her fair/bair range back she's got even better MUs. Hopefully people actually notice now.
• Sandbag 0 - I continue to scream-laugh any time you guys put him in F, D, etc. tiers. He's ridiculously good. We need more tournaments to start happening so you can see, lmao.
• Pac Man +6 - With the misc. zdrop bugs and his other assorted ATs we gotta give him credit where credit is due. He's really weird and unconventional but that makes him all the more difficult to deal with.
• Meta Knight -11 - So I gotta say I really overestimated this guy. With the current state of affairs, there's a lot of specialty-characters that rely on projectiles or disjoints or just other weirdities that MK can't keep up with. He has a lot more not-so-great MUs vs what I originally thought. Also no one uses him lol.
• Samus +18 - Scary with the projectiles that you can't destroy bc trades don't work. Yikes. Also, her new hitboxes are really hot, she has some fun combos and dair is incredible.
• Sonic +4 - Excited to see what the mains do with him. I was impressed to see that homing attack to fair isn't just a combo on CPUs, and people are really doing some interesting stuff with him overall. He's becoming increasingly hard to deal with.
• Ichigo +14 - Actually, his balance of power and speed is causing quite a stir with some of the top tiers (Luffy, Sandbag, Zelda, Bowser, to name a few). He's notable enough to not chill in low tiers and I think we should keep an eye on it.
• Peach +11 - Turnips aren't as useful as we'd like but honestly dsmash really fricks up spacies at the ledge and her combos are really scary to literally all non-floaty characters. Gotta keep an eye out.
• Pit +7 - He'd be perfect if his aerial sideB didn't bug out if you try to combo into it. He's fast, racks up damage well, has a really potent projectile, and a HUGE recovery. Plus, uair is scary if you aren't a spacie, man.
• ZSS -20 - Man, jump changes really fricked her up. Rip. With how cut-throat the top tiers are and how you don't really end up trying to recover above the stage in the Beta meta she's really not in a good spot.
• Sora +5 - His buffs helped him a ton but he's still not very good LOL

Megaman should be a little lower I messed up lol

Just gonna randomly comment on some characters
Fox: I don't trust anyone who doesn't have fox as #1
Tails: lowkey insane af, ridiculous combos, strong neutral edgeguarding tools, and recovery (even sweetspot up b is ridic hard to edgeguard). He has loads of potential in neutral (even if it'd be really hard to play at that potential) is my main reason I'm putting him so high. Tails has so many underutilized tools/combos, along with a strong projectile that often comes in handy.
Goku: He has no endlag, is extremely mobile and has the ability to open up combos quickly and carry them far. He's not as easy to play as some may think, but he has ridiculous potential. Goku does have a weakness above (specifically diagonally above) though. KK is also practically useless now.
Falco: imo the most overrated top tier. While it is true his combo game isn't fully developed, I think counterplay (DI/SDI, and teching) have more room for growth. His neutral is not nearly as oppressive as it is in melee, and he dies so easily if you play a clean edgeguard/combo game. (he should be between isaac and marth)
Ichigo: He's fast, he's got a fatass sword, and he swings it fast
Wario: Air drift, combo game, and fart makes him actually decent imo
Donkey Kong: Might end up better than Bowser later on. ATM bowser's punish game, massive disjoints, and panic up b OOS are hard to ignore though.

I never understood why people keep putting Sandy into low tier, especially into E, same tier as fking Yoshi.
Recovery is predictable, sure, so is Luigi's, yet he's at B-A tier.
His combo game and killing at early percents are really good, not only that he has alot of finishers.
Can't grab ledges? Doesn't matter because his recovery is godlike anyway.
Don't get me started with capsule.

I scream in the inside when I see everyone place Kirby so low because it makes me sad that my main is so bad and how I can't disagree with it (not that I'm forced to disagree, I just simply accept it).

Also I here's my new tier list:

S tier


A tier


B tier


C tier


D tier


E tier


I still don't know much about half of the cast so there may be a bunch of whack placements.

has a bunch tools. His Side B stops approaches, his Nair has freakishly low end lag, Neutral Special is good for setting up kills, and F-tilt has good range. While he does has an exploitable recovery and high startup on his moves, I still think his strengths easily outshine his weaknesses.

is overrated by some people imo. yes, his range is pretty good and he does have some good combos, but all of his moves extend his hurtbox which gives him a hard time against disjoints and projectiles. He also struggles at killing as many of his Smash Attacks are pretty weak. His Fair is pretty slow too. He does however have a few winning MUs which.

is another character some people seem to overrate. His recovery is mediocre and is easily gimpabe, his hurtbox is huge, and he gets comboed hard. Bowser's only strengths imo are good kill power and high damage output.

I 'm probably biased on this one as I REALLY hate playing against him. All I can say about him is that his fireballs are pretty annoying compared to other smash games and they are good for stage control.

could be higher, but I lack Wario experience and don't really know where he should be placed.

some people place her much higher than I do and I can see why, but personally I think she's bottom 3. She is the lightest in the game and struggles against disjointed moves or any moves with good range and projectiles. The only MU I can see her winning is against

Here's my tier list from what I've compiled in beta so far.

Yeah.. Because there's so many people saying "no one plays ", I guess I need to start entering more tourneys soon.
He's actually really good, maybe people just haven't figured out how to use him right in certain MUs against projectile characters (imo).

I think as the meta continues to develop, Sandbag's inability to grab ledge will continue to hinder him from being top-dog. That's zero invincibility frames and a big aspect of edge guarding that he literally cannot do. He MUST recover high/horizontal and UpB puts him in hitstun so if you catch the trajectory, there's nothing that Sandbag can do.

He's a glass cannon, which works great when you're up, but he doesn't have much in the way of comeback tools when he's down.

Why is so low? He has great range on his attacks and he has pretty good kill moves. His recovery is also pretty good.

should be above imo as has better range, more reliable kill moves, and more tools than

shouldn't be A tier. At best she's C tier. Her Neutral game isnt amazing and she dies VERY early. She also struggles against moves with good range and projectiles.

is definantly not even close to bottom 3. Sure, he doesn't have an actual run, can't grab ledges, and Up B can kill him, but he has the strongest F-throw in the game and he has VERY early kill confirms.