Fox (SSBM)

Line 410:

==In [[competitive play]]==

===Tier placement and history===

Fox has been a top-tiered character, along with {{SSBM|Falco}} and {{SSBM|Sheik}}, since the very first ''Melee'' tier list, and has never fallen below third place. However, he was not at the top of the list for the first seven revisions, as Sheik was then considered to be the best character in the game. Many of the top players in the early metagame, including {{Sm|Ken}} and {{Sm|Azen}}, used Fox only as a secondary for specific matchups; solo Fox mains such as {{Sm|Chillin}}, on the other hand, were not as successful nationally. Eventually, more dedicated Fox mains, such as {{Sm|PC Chris}}, {{Sm|FASTLIKETREE}}, {{Sm|KoreanDJ}}, and {{Sm|Mew2King}}, began to revitalize his metagame by pushing Fox's technical ceiling. They began placing within the top 8 of [[Major League Gaming|MLG]]-sponsored tournaments, and their consistency and dominance in the scene resulted in Sheik's dethroning from first to third place on the eighth revision of the tier list in July of 2006, with Fox taking the top spot. Later that year, PC Chris and KoreanDJ placed 1st and 2nd, respectively, at the [[MLG Las Vegas 2006|MLG Las Vegas]] national championships, using Fox primarily in Grand Finals, which cemented his position on the list.

During the ''Brawl'' era, however, some smashers began to dispute Fox's standing on the tier list. They argued that Fox was only the best character theoretically, and that other characters had become much more consistent than him over these years of play. Many of Fox's best players had retired, with the exception of Mew2King, who began using other characters more often. There were certainly still many solo Fox mains in the top cut of ''Melee'' players, but without the strongest players of the MLG era spearheading further Fox development, few of them could actually win supermajor-level events. Players began developing rigorous counterplay to Fox, such as [[SDI]]-ing out of his up throw to up aerial combo, making it extremely difficult for newer players to find tournament success with him. Of the "[[The Five Gods|Five Gods]]" who rose to prominence in the era, only the aforementioned Mew2King and {{Sm|Mango}} used Fox during this time; the latter did not even start as a Fox main, making his name with {{SSBM|Jigglypuff}} and Falco.

Without updates to the tier list for years after 2010, Fox seemingly remained at the top; however, Mango's dominance with Falco, as well as many top 10-level Falco mains emerging such as {{Sm|Zhu}} and fellow "God" {{Sm|PPMD}}, made many believe that Falco would become the superior character. Although solo Fox mains showed glimpses of brilliance, such as {{Sm|Jman}}'s top 3 finish at [[Apex 2009]], none of them could match the overall consistency of the Five Gods until Mango himself picked Fox up in 2011. Once Mango began succeeding with solo Fox in 2013, however, opinions on Fox began to change once again; after Mango's victories at [[Kings of Cali 2]], [[Zenith 2013]], [[IMPULSE 2013]], and [[EVO 2013]] with nearly only Fox, the [[Smash Back Room]] panelists voted Fox as 1st on the eleventh tier list, albeit by a small margin (an average rank of 1.39 to Falco's 1.68) due to lingering opinions about Falco from years past. These notions would soon completely fade as metagame trends resulted in more Fox usage at the top level than had ever been seen before. He became the most common character in doubles matches by far, and the most common character in singles matches as well.

The meteoric rise of {{Sm|Leffen}} in 2014 and 2015 as a solo Fox main, along with Mango's continued dominance, solidified many players' opinions about Fox's place at the top of the metagame. Many players who mained a lower-ranked character, most notably {{Sm|Hax}}, even abandoned their former character in favor of using only Fox, and other players, such as {{Sm|Armada}}, picked up Fox as a co-main to alleviate trouble against certain opponents. This heavily increased presence led panelists to rank Fox as decisively 1st on the tier list, which caused him to be placed in his own tier at the top of the most recent tier list (much akin to {{SSB|Pikachu}} in the previous iterations of the ''64'' tier list or {{SSBB|Meta Knight}} in ''Brawl''). However, his tier placement was met with some backlash; community members argued that designating Fox as "SS-tier" implied that he was overwhelmingly superior to the rest of the cast, when the true power gap between the top 3 characters was not actually that large, and that Fox was merely the most common and clear #1 out of them.

In the modern metagame, the rise of {{Sm|Hungrybox}} and {{Sm|Zain}} as contenders for #1 in the world have made the ''Melee'' community re-evaluate Fox's status as the undisputed best in the game. Zain's dominance over Fox professionals with his Marth, in particular, has called into serious question the pre-existing notion that Fox had no losing matchups. As the technical requirement of the game at a competitive level grows, many players view the stamina aspect of playing over a long tournament as growing in importance, citing that Fox players tend to burn out in later stages due to having to play a technically demanding character across many sets, and that such external factors should be taken into consideration on a tier list. Regardless of this discussion, most of the community still places Fox in the highest tier, still citing his great potential and the ever-growing volume of top Fox players. However, many of them now believe that he shares this tier with Jigglypuff and Marth, and should no longer stand alone at the top.

====PAL viability====

Fox was nerfed in the PAL version of ''Melee''. While his nerfs seem insignificant, they actually affect his matchups more than most other nerfed characters. The nerf to his up smash allows several characters to barely survive in that version where they would not have been able to in NTSC, forcing Fox mains to learn later KO percentages for it; at those percentages, however, some up smash setups are no longer guaranteed. Fox's nerfed recovery also weakens his off-stage game, as he can no longer travel as far off-stage to intercept enemies, and hinders his survivability, especially against characters who retain their edgeguarding ability, such as Sheik and Marth. The nerf to his weight exacerbates his decreased survivability, but as a positive note, allows him to escape combos more easily.

Fox's matchups against other top-tiered characters become slightly less advantageous in PAL. For example, many professionals believe that Falco wins against Fox overall, as Fox's nerfs allow Falco to survive much longer and KO Fox earlier, while Falco himself is not significantly hindered by his own PAL nerfs. Fox's matchup against Marth, in particular, is much harder, as he is no longer guaranteed a grab out of a [[waveshine]] due to Marth's weight changes. Thus, Fox needs to work much harder for a grab setup, hindering his damage racking ability against equally skilled players. However, Marth retains his fantastic punish game against fastfallers and has a much easier time edgeguarding Fox due to his aforementioned recovery nerfs. Along with harder matchups against Peach and even Captain Falcon, some PAL professionals have vouched that Falco or Marth is the best in that particular version of ''Melee'' instead. Regardless, Fox still performs very well in PAL regions of ''Melee'', and maintains first place in his own tier on the most recent PAL tier list.

Fox players who travel to attend large tournaments, such as {{Sm|Leffen}}, are forced to adjust to these changes in gameplay, which can be an obstacle when fighting in a foreign country or continent. A handful of these players own copies of both the PAL and NTSC versions of the game to allow practice before international tournaments, mainly to practice executing certain Fox-specific setups that are impossible in the PAL version but present in the NTSC version, or to practice accommodating for the lack of these setups with backup strategies.

===Notable players===

{{cleanup|[[SmashWiki:Cleanup of the Notable Players sections|To fit these guidelines]]}}

Line 443:

Line 459:

*{{Sm|PC Chris|USA}} - One of the best ''Melee'' players in the pre-''Brawl'' era. Dual mained {{SSBM|Falco}} and Fox.

*{{Sm|Silent Wolf|USA}} - Formerly the Northwest's best player before retiring. Ranked 20th on the [[2016 SSBMRank]].

~~===Tier placement and history===~~

Fox has been a top-tiered character, along with {{SSBM|Falco}} and {{SSBM|Sheik}}, since the very first ''Melee'' tier list, and has never fallen below third place. However, he was not at the top of the list for the first seven revisions, as Sheik was then considered to be the best character in the game. Many of the top players in the early metagame, including {{Sm|Ken}} and {{Sm|Azen}}, used Fox only as a secondary for specific matchups; solo Fox mains such as {{Sm|Chillin}}, on the other hand, were not as successful nationally. Eventually, more dedicated Fox mains, such as {{Sm|PC Chris}}, {{Sm|FASTLIKETREE}}, {{Sm|KoreanDJ}}, and {{Sm|Mew2King}}, began to revitalize his metagame by pushing Fox's technical ceiling. They began placing within the top 8 of [[Major League Gaming|MLG]]-sponsored tournaments, and their consistency and dominance in the scene resulted in Sheik's dethroning from first to third place on the eighth revision of the tier list in July of 2006, with Fox taking the top spot. Later that year, PC Chris and KoreanDJ placed 1st and 2nd, respectively, at the [[MLG Las Vegas 2006|MLG Las Vegas]] national championships, using Fox primarily in Grand Finals, which cemented his position on the list.

During the ''Brawl'' era, however, some smashers began to dispute Fox's standing on the tier list. They argued that Fox was only the best character theoretically, and that other characters had become much more consistent than him over these years of play. Many of Fox's best players had retired, with the exception of Mew2King, who began using other characters more often. There were certainly still many solo Fox mains in the top cut of ''Melee'' players, but without the strongest players of the MLG era spearheading further Fox development, few of them could actually win supermajor-level events. Players began developing rigorous counterplay to Fox, such as [[SDI]]-ing out of his up throw to up aerial combo, making it extremely difficult for newer players to find tournament success with him. Of the "[[The Five Gods|Five Gods]]" who rose to prominence in the era, only the aforementioned Mew2King and {{Sm|Mango}} used Fox during this time; the latter did not even start as a Fox main, making his name with {{SSBM|Jigglypuff}} and Falco.

Without updates to the tier list for years after 2010, Fox seemingly remained at the top; however, Mango's dominance with Falco, as well as many top 10-level Falco mains emerging such as {{Sm|Zhu}} and fellow "God" {{Sm|PPMD}}, made many believe that Falco would become the superior character. Although solo Fox mains showed glimpses of brilliance, such as {{Sm|Jman}}'s top 3 finish at [[Apex 2009]], none of them could match the overall consistency of the Five Gods until Mango himself picked Fox up in 2011. Once Mango began succeeding with solo Fox in 2013, however, opinions on Fox began to change once again; after Mango's victories at [[Kings of Cali 2]], [[Zenith 2013]], [[IMPULSE 2013]], and [[EVO 2013]] with nearly only Fox, the [[Smash Back Room]] panelists voted Fox as 1st on the eleventh tier list, albeit by a small margin (an average rank of 1.39 to Falco's 1.68) due to lingering opinions about Falco from years past. These notions would soon completely fade as metagame trends resulted in more Fox usage at the top level than had ever been seen before. He became the most common character in doubles matches by far, and the most common character in singles matches as well.

The meteoric rise of {{Sm|Leffen}} in 2014 and 2015 as a solo Fox main, along with Mango's continued dominance, solidified many players' opinions about Fox's place at the top of the metagame. Many players who mained a lower-ranked character, most notably {{Sm|Hax}}, even abandoned their former character in favor of using only Fox, and other players, such as {{Sm|Armada}}, picked up Fox as a co-main to alleviate trouble against certain opponents. This heavily increased presence led panelists to rank Fox as decisively 1st on the tier list, which caused him to be placed in his own tier at the top of the most recent tier list (much akin to {{SSB|Pikachu}} in the previous iterations of the ''64'' tier list or {{SSBB|Meta Knight}} in ''Brawl''). However, his tier placement was met with some backlash; community members argued that designating Fox as "SS-tier" implied that he was overwhelmingly superior to the rest of the cast, when the true power gap between the top 3 characters was not actually that large, and that Fox was merely the most common and clear #1 out of them.

In the modern metagame, the rise of {{Sm|Hungrybox}} and {{Sm|Zain}} as contenders for #1 in the world have made the ''Melee'' community re-evaluate Fox's status as the undisputed best in the game. Zain's dominance over Fox professionals with his Marth, in particular, has called into serious question the pre-existing notion that Fox had no losing matchups. As the technical requirement of the game at a competitive level grows, many players view the stamina aspect of playing over a long tournament as growing in importance, citing that Fox players tend to burn out in later stages due to having to play a technically demanding character across many sets, and that such external factors should be taken into consideration on a tier list. Regardless of this discussion, most of the community still places Fox in the highest tier, still citing his great potential and the ever-growing volume of top Fox players. However, many of them now believe that he shares this tier with Jigglypuff and Marth, and should no longer stand alone at the top.

~~====PAL viability====~~

Fox was nerfed in the PAL version of ''Melee''. While his nerfs seem insignificant, they actually affect his matchups more than most other nerfed characters. The nerf to his up smash allows several characters to barely survive in that version where they would not have been able to in NTSC, forcing Fox mains to learn later KO percentages for it; at those percentages, however, some up smash setups are no longer guaranteed. Fox's nerfed recovery also weakens his off-stage game, as he can no longer travel as far off-stage to intercept enemies, and hinders his survivability, especially against characters who retain their edgeguarding ability, such as Sheik and Marth. The nerf to his weight exacerbates his decreased survivability, but as a positive note, allows him to escape combos more easily.

Fox's matchups against other top-tiered characters become slightly less advantageous in PAL. For example, many professionals believe that Falco wins against Fox overall, as Fox's nerfs allow Falco to survive much longer and KO Fox earlier, while Falco himself is not significantly hindered by his own PAL nerfs. Fox's matchup against Marth, in particular, is much harder, as he is no longer guaranteed a grab out of a [[waveshine]] due to Marth's weight changes. Thus, Fox needs to work much harder for a grab setup, hindering his damage racking ability against equally skilled players. However, Marth retains his fantastic punish game against fastfallers and has a much easier time edgeguarding Fox due to his aforementioned recovery nerfs. Along with harder matchups against Peach and even Captain Falcon, some PAL professionals have vouched that Falco or Marth is the best in that particular version of ''Melee'' instead. Regardless, Fox still performs very well in PAL regions of ''Melee'', and maintains first place in his own tier on the most recent PAL tier list.

Fox players who travel to attend large tournaments, such as {{Sm|Leffen}}, are forced to adjust to these changes in gameplay, which can be an obstacle when fighting in a foreign country or continent. A handful of these players own copies of both the PAL and NTSC versions of the game to allow practice before international tournaments, mainly to practice executing certain Fox-specific setups that are impossible in the PAL version but present in the NTSC version, or to practice accommodating for the lack of these setups with backup strategies.

==In 1-P Mode==

Fox (SSBM): Difference between revisions

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@@ Line 410: / Line 410: @@
 ==In [[competitive play]]==
+===Tier placement and history===
+Fox has been a top-tiered character, along with {{SSBM|Falco}} and {{SSBM|Sheik}}, since the very first ''Melee'' tier list, and has never fallen below third place. However, he was not at the top of the list for the first seven revisions, as Sheik was then considered to be the best character in the game. Many of the top players in the early metagame, including {{Sm|Ken}} and {{Sm|Azen}}, used Fox only as a secondary for specific matchups; solo Fox mains such as {{Sm|Chillin}}, on the other hand, were not as successful nationally. Eventually, more dedicated Fox mains, such as {{Sm|PC Chris}}, {{Sm|FASTLIKETREE}}, {{Sm|KoreanDJ}}, and {{Sm|Mew2King}}, began to revitalize his metagame by pushing Fox's technical ceiling. They began placing within the top 8 of [[Major League Gaming|MLG]]-sponsored tournaments, and their consistency and dominance in the scene resulted in Sheik's dethroning from first to third place on the eighth revision of the tier list in July of 2006, with Fox taking the top spot. Later that year, PC Chris and KoreanDJ placed 1st and 2nd, respectively, at the [[MLG Las Vegas 2006|MLG Las Vegas]] national championships, using Fox primarily in Grand Finals, which cemented his position on the list.
+During the ''Brawl'' era, however, some smashers began to dispute Fox's standing on the tier list. They argued that Fox was only the best character theoretically, and that other characters had become much more consistent than him over these years of play. Many of Fox's best players had retired, with the exception of Mew2King, who began using other characters more often. There were certainly still many solo Fox mains in the top cut of ''Melee'' players, but without the strongest players of the MLG era spearheading further Fox development, few of them could actually win supermajor-level events. Players began developing rigorous counterplay to Fox, such as [[SDI]]-ing out of his up throw to up aerial combo, making it extremely difficult for newer players to find tournament success with him. Of the "[[The Five Gods|Five Gods]]" who rose to prominence in the era, only the aforementioned Mew2King and {{Sm|Mango}} used Fox during this time; the latter did not even start as a Fox main, making his name with {{SSBM|Jigglypuff}} and Falco.
+Without updates to the tier list for years after 2010, Fox seemingly remained at the top; however, Mango's dominance with Falco, as well as many top 10-level Falco mains emerging such as {{Sm|Zhu}} and fellow "God" {{Sm|PPMD}}, made many believe that Falco would become the superior character. Although solo Fox mains showed glimpses of brilliance, such as {{Sm|Jman}}'s top 3 finish at [[Apex 2009]], none of them could match the overall consistency of the Five Gods until Mango himself picked Fox up in 2011. Once Mango began succeeding with solo Fox in 2013, however, opinions on Fox began to change once again; after Mango's victories at [[Kings of Cali 2]], [[Zenith 2013]], [[IMPULSE 2013]], and [[EVO 2013]] with nearly only Fox, the [[Smash Back Room]] panelists voted Fox as 1st on the eleventh tier list, albeit by a small margin (an average rank of 1.39 to Falco's 1.68) due to lingering opinions about Falco from years past. These notions would soon completely fade as metagame trends resulted in more Fox usage at the top level than had ever been seen before. He became the most common character in doubles matches by far, and the most common character in singles matches as well.
+The meteoric rise of {{Sm|Leffen}} in 2014 and 2015 as a solo Fox main, along with Mango's continued dominance, solidified many players' opinions about Fox's place at the top of the metagame. Many players who mained a lower-ranked character, most notably {{Sm|Hax}}, even abandoned their former character in favor of using only Fox, and other players, such as {{Sm|Armada}}, picked up Fox as a co-main to alleviate trouble against certain opponents. This heavily increased presence led panelists to rank Fox as decisively 1st on the tier list, which caused him to be placed in his own tier at the top of the most recent tier list (much akin to {{SSB|Pikachu}} in the previous iterations of the ''64'' tier list or {{SSBB|Meta Knight}} in ''Brawl''). However, his tier placement was met with some backlash; community members argued that designating Fox as "SS-tier" implied that he was overwhelmingly superior to the rest of the cast, when the true power gap between the top 3 characters was not actually that large, and that Fox was merely the most common and clear #1 out of them.
+In the modern metagame, the rise of {{Sm|Hungrybox}} and {{Sm|Zain}} as contenders for #1 in the world have made the ''Melee'' community re-evaluate Fox's status as the undisputed best in the game. Zain's dominance over Fox professionals with his Marth, in particular, has called into serious question the pre-existing notion that Fox had no losing matchups. As the technical requirement of the game at a competitive level grows, many players view the stamina aspect of playing over a long tournament as growing in importance, citing that Fox players tend to burn out in later stages due to having to play a technically demanding character across many sets, and that such external factors should be taken into consideration on a tier list. Regardless of this discussion, most of the community still places Fox in the highest tier, still citing his great potential and the ever-growing volume of top Fox players. However, many of them now believe that he shares this tier with Jigglypuff and Marth, and should no longer stand alone at the top.
+====PAL viability====
+Fox was nerfed in the PAL version of ''Melee''. While his nerfs seem insignificant, they actually affect his matchups more than most other nerfed characters. The nerf to his up smash allows several characters to barely survive in that version where they would not have been able to in NTSC, forcing Fox mains to learn later KO percentages for it; at those percentages, however, some up smash setups are no longer guaranteed. Fox's nerfed recovery also weakens his off-stage game, as he can no longer travel as far off-stage to intercept enemies, and hinders his survivability, especially against characters who retain their edgeguarding ability, such as Sheik and Marth. The nerf to his weight exacerbates his decreased survivability, but as a positive note, allows him to escape combos more easily.
+Fox's matchups against other top-tiered characters become slightly less advantageous in PAL. For example, many professionals believe that Falco wins against Fox overall, as Fox's nerfs allow Falco to survive much longer and KO Fox earlier, while Falco himself is not significantly hindered by his own PAL nerfs. Fox's matchup against Marth, in particular, is much harder, as he is no longer guaranteed a grab out of a [[waveshine]] due to Marth's weight changes. Thus, Fox needs to work much harder for a grab setup, hindering his damage racking ability against equally skilled players. However, Marth retains his fantastic punish game against fastfallers and has a much easier time edgeguarding Fox due to his aforementioned recovery nerfs. Along with harder matchups against Peach and even Captain Falcon, some PAL professionals have vouched that Falco or Marth is the best in that particular version of ''Melee'' instead. Regardless, Fox still performs very well in PAL regions of ''Melee'', and maintains first place in his own tier on the most recent PAL tier list.
+Fox players who travel to attend large tournaments, such as {{Sm|Leffen}}, are forced to adjust to these changes in gameplay, which can be an obstacle when fighting in a foreign country or continent. A handful of these players own copies of both the PAL and NTSC versions of the game to allow practice before international tournaments, mainly to practice executing certain Fox-specific setups that are impossible in the PAL version but present in the NTSC version, or to practice accommodating for the lack of these setups with backup strategies.
 ===Notable players===
 {{cleanup|[[SmashWiki:Cleanup of the Notable Players sections|To fit these guidelines]]}}
@@ Line 443: / Line 459: @@
 *{{Sm|PC Chris|USA}} - One of the best ''Melee'' players in the pre-''Brawl'' era. Dual mained {{SSBM|Falco}} and Fox.
 *{{Sm|Silent Wolf|USA}} - Formerly the Northwest's best player before retiring. Ranked 20th on the [[2016 SSBMRank]].
-===Tier placement and history===
-Fox has been a top-tiered character, along with {{SSBM|Falco}} and {{SSBM|Sheik}}, since the very first ''Melee'' tier list, and has never fallen below third place. However, he was not at the top of the list for the first seven revisions, as Sheik was then considered to be the best character in the game. Many of the top players in the early metagame, including {{Sm|Ken}} and {{Sm|Azen}}, used Fox only as a secondary for specific matchups; solo Fox mains such as {{Sm|Chillin}}, on the other hand, were not as successful nationally. Eventually, more dedicated Fox mains, such as {{Sm|PC Chris}}, {{Sm|FASTLIKETREE}}, {{Sm|KoreanDJ}}, and {{Sm|Mew2King}}, began to revitalize his metagame by pushing Fox's technical ceiling. They began placing within the top 8 of [[Major League Gaming|MLG]]-sponsored tournaments, and their consistency and dominance in the scene resulted in Sheik's dethroning from first to third place on the eighth revision of the tier list in July of 2006, with Fox taking the top spot. Later that year, PC Chris and KoreanDJ placed 1st and 2nd, respectively, at the [[MLG Las Vegas 2006|MLG Las Vegas]] national championships, using Fox primarily in Grand Finals, which cemented his position on the list.
-During the ''Brawl'' era, however, some smashers began to dispute Fox's standing on the tier list. They argued that Fox was only the best character theoretically, and that other characters had become much more consistent than him over these years of play. Many of Fox's best players had retired, with the exception of Mew2King, who began using other characters more often. There were certainly still many solo Fox mains in the top cut of ''Melee'' players, but without the strongest players of the MLG era spearheading further Fox development, few of them could actually win supermajor-level events. Players began developing rigorous counterplay to Fox, such as [[SDI]]-ing out of his up throw to up aerial combo, making it extremely difficult for newer players to find tournament success with him. Of the "[[The Five Gods|Five Gods]]" who rose to prominence in the era, only the aforementioned Mew2King and {{Sm|Mango}} used Fox during this time; the latter did not even start as a Fox main, making his name with {{SSBM|Jigglypuff}} and Falco.
-Without updates to the tier list for years after 2010, Fox seemingly remained at the top; however, Mango's dominance with Falco, as well as many top 10-level Falco mains emerging such as {{Sm|Zhu}} and fellow "God" {{Sm|PPMD}}, made many believe that Falco would become the superior character. Although solo Fox mains showed glimpses of brilliance, such as {{Sm|Jman}}'s top 3 finish at [[Apex 2009]], none of them could match the overall consistency of the Five Gods until Mango himself picked Fox up in 2011. Once Mango began succeeding with solo Fox in 2013, however, opinions on Fox began to change once again; after Mango's victories at [[Kings of Cali 2]], [[Zenith 2013]], [[IMPULSE 2013]], and [[EVO 2013]] with nearly only Fox, the [[Smash Back Room]] panelists voted Fox as 1st on the eleventh tier list, albeit by a small margin (an average rank of 1.39 to Falco's 1.68) due to lingering opinions about Falco from years past. These notions would soon completely fade as metagame trends resulted in more Fox usage at the top level than had ever been seen before. He became the most common character in doubles matches by far, and the most common character in singles matches as well.
-The meteoric rise of {{Sm|Leffen}} in 2014 and 2015 as a solo Fox main, along with Mango's continued dominance, solidified many players' opinions about Fox's place at the top of the metagame. Many players who mained a lower-ranked character, most notably {{Sm|Hax}}, even abandoned their former character in favor of using only Fox, and other players, such as {{Sm|Armada}}, picked up Fox as a co-main to alleviate trouble against certain opponents. This heavily increased presence led panelists to rank Fox as decisively 1st on the tier list, which caused him to be placed in his own tier at the top of the most recent tier list (much akin to {{SSB|Pikachu}} in the previous iterations of the ''64'' tier list or {{SSBB|Meta Knight}} in ''Brawl''). However, his tier placement was met with some backlash; community members argued that designating Fox as "SS-tier" implied that he was overwhelmingly superior to the rest of the cast, when the true power gap between the top 3 characters was not actually that large, and that Fox was merely the most common and clear #1 out of them.
-In the modern metagame, the rise of {{Sm|Hungrybox}} and {{Sm|Zain}} as contenders for #1 in the world have made the ''Melee'' community re-evaluate Fox's status as the undisputed best in the game. Zain's dominance over Fox professionals with his Marth, in particular, has called into serious question the pre-existing notion that Fox had no losing matchups. As the technical requirement of the game at a competitive level grows, many players view the stamina aspect of playing over a long tournament as growing in importance, citing that Fox players tend to burn out in later stages due to having to play a technically demanding character across many sets, and that such external factors should be taken into consideration on a tier list. Regardless of this discussion, most of the community still places Fox in the highest tier, still citing his great potential and the ever-growing volume of top Fox players. However, many of them now believe that he shares this tier with Jigglypuff and Marth, and should no longer stand alone at the top.
-====PAL viability====
-Fox was nerfed in the PAL version of ''Melee''. While his nerfs seem insignificant, they actually affect his matchups more than most other nerfed characters. The nerf to his up smash allows several characters to barely survive in that version where they would not have been able to in NTSC, forcing Fox mains to learn later KO percentages for it; at those percentages, however, some up smash setups are no longer guaranteed. Fox's nerfed recovery also weakens his off-stage game, as he can no longer travel as far off-stage to intercept enemies, and hinders his survivability, especially against characters who retain their edgeguarding ability, such as Sheik and Marth. The nerf to his weight exacerbates his decreased survivability, but as a positive note, allows him to escape combos more easily.
-Fox's matchups against other top-tiered characters become slightly less advantageous in PAL. For example, many professionals believe that Falco wins against Fox overall, as Fox's nerfs allow Falco to survive much longer and KO Fox earlier, while Falco himself is not significantly hindered by his own PAL nerfs. Fox's matchup against Marth, in particular, is much harder, as he is no longer guaranteed a grab out of a [[waveshine]] due to Marth's weight changes. Thus, Fox needs to work much harder for a grab setup, hindering his damage racking ability against equally skilled players. However, Marth retains his fantastic punish game against fastfallers and has a much easier time edgeguarding Fox due to his aforementioned recovery nerfs. Along with harder matchups against Peach and even Captain Falcon, some PAL professionals have vouched that Falco or Marth is the best in that particular version of ''Melee'' instead. Regardless, Fox still performs very well in PAL regions of ''Melee'', and maintains first place in his own tier on the most recent PAL tier list.
-Fox players who travel to attend large tournaments, such as {{Sm|Leffen}}, are forced to adjust to these changes in gameplay, which can be an obstacle when fighting in a foreign country or continent. A handful of these players own copies of both the PAL and NTSC versions of the game to allow practice before international tournaments, mainly to practice executing certain Fox-specific setups that are impossible in the PAL version but present in the NTSC version, or to practice accommodating for the lack of these setups with backup strategies.
 ==In 1-P Mode==