Meta Knight (SSBU): Difference between revisions

Meta Knight is ranked 50th out of 82 on the current [[tier list]], placing him at the bottom of the B- tier. This is a significant drop from his 16th out of 54 placement in ''SSB4'' and is his worst placement in the series. Meta Knight's strength centers around his amazing ground and air mobility, granting him a strong neutral game, advantage and disadvantage state. He retains excellent frame data, which combined with his mobility grants him an amazing combo game and edgeguarding ability, including his signature up aerial [[ladder combo]]s which, while nerfed, still has effective setups. Said combos have also been retooled to give him options for combos that KO vertically ([[Shuttle Loop]]) or horizontally ([[Mach Tornado]]) depending on the opponent's reaction. He also boasts a long, safe recovery which makes it very unlikely for him to be KO'd while recovering, as he has multiple double jumps and all of his special moves function as [[recovery]] moves with large or lingering hitboxes, making Meta Knight one of the hardest characters to [[edgeguard]].

However, Meta Knight's main weakness is his poor endurance. He is a lightweight character, and combined with his fast falling speed makes him susceptible to combos and early KOs. He also possesses a relatively small shield, which leaves him vulnerable to shield stabbing. While he can work his way through projectiles and zoners with his relatively small size, quick ground speed and Mach Tornado, his approach options are fairly predictable, so they often carry the risk of losing neutral. He also has lackluster range and below average damage output for a swordfighter which makes it difficult for him to space his attacks, and requires him more effort to rack up damage. His grab game, while better than most other swordfighters, is still mediocre: his standing grab range is one of the worst in the game, and his up throw is his only consistent KO throw that KOs at reasonable percents without [[rage]], while his other throws do not have consistent combo ability beyond mid percents. He also struggles in KOing opponents due to having finishers that are difficult to land, and most of his attacks have very few active frames (with his most useful attacks having only 1-3 frame hitboxes). This forces Meta Knight to rely on precision to hit opponents and especially to finish them off. Finally, his combos are very susceptible to SDI, forcing him to mix up his combos and kill confirms and keep track of the opponent's reaction, and his best combo tools are very prone to [[staling]] due to their low base damage (with some such as up aerial able to drop to as low as 2% per hit even with the [[1v1 multiplier]]).

Overall, Meta Knight's success revolves around his deadly ladder combos that can lead to early KOs; however, finding and performing these combos may be difficult due to his predictable approach and underwhelming range. Though Meta Knight's playerbase has been below average for most of competitive ''Ultimate'', he has nevertheless retained a fairly noticeable playerbase, with players such as {{Sm|Abadango}}, {{Sm|Metara}}, and {{Sm|Yei}} achieving commendable results.