View source for Template:Simon and Richter in competitive play (SSBU)

===Tier placement and history===
When the game was released in December 2018, Simon and Richter attracted interest due to their unique attributes, including extremely long reach, an array of powerful projectiles, and ledge trapping potential; many players initially viewed the Belmonts as a high tier, or potentially a top tier character because of their spacing and zoning ability allowing them to play an effective defensive game. Simon and Richter were also notable counterpicks against certain characters, such as {{SSBU|Olimar}}, that struggled with their range and keep away game. During the early stages of the metagame, the Belmonts were relatively popular characters, with {{Sm|Riddles}} being their highest level representative. However, their weaknesses were soon discovered to be perhaps too significant to overcome, most notably a notoriously poor recovery due to short-distance recovery moves with mediocre protection that left them severely vulnerable to [[gimp]]ing, but they also suffered from significant KOing inconsistency, mediocre frame data, vast difficulty in hitting agile small characters with their attacks predominantly having thin hitboxes, and very poor all-around mobility. Thus, most of their playerbase, including Riddles, eventually dropped them for other characters and their results fell off as a result. Because of this, the consensus about the Belmonts shifted, with most players viewing them as mid tier or low tier characters.

During and after the [[COVID-19]] pandemic, the Belmont playerbase experienced a small resurgence, with players such as {{Sm|T3 DOM}}, {{Sm|Noxumbra}} and {{Sm|TRIGGER}} rising to prominence with decent results both online and offline. The Belmonts have also received buffs in [[List of updates (SSBU)/9.0.0 changelog#Simon|update 9.0.0]]. However, these buffs made little to no impact in fixing the main weaknesses of the characters, ultimately leaving them placing 68th on the first tier list and falling to 74th on the second and current tier list. <noinclude>[[Category:Templates]]</noinclude>