Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in competitive play: Difference between revisions

2019 started off with a bang, with over 2,000 Smashers participating in {{Trn|GENESIS 6}}. This tournament saw the first international appearance of {{Sm|Zackray}}, a 15-year old from Japan who was a top player in ''Smash 4''. Despite being his first time in a tournament outside of Japan, Zackray made an impressive run by placing 5th and defeating top players such as {{Sm|K9sbruce}} and {{Sm|Light|p=Connecticut}}. {{Sm|MkLeo}}, a young ''Smash 4'' prodigy, was also able to prove that he was still a top player by winning the whole tournament and double eliminating {{Sm|VoiD}}.

The [[Panda Global Rankings Ultimate|Panda Global Rankings]] return for ''Ultimate'', having almost the same mechanics as the previous season with some minor changes. The biggest change was the international multiplier, which counts entrants from tournaments outside of the continental US as 1.25 entrants, allowing more tournaments to have representation on the PGR. The season officially started with {{Trn|GENESIS 6}} and and ended with {{Trn|Albion 4}}.

Despite the term “[[Echo Fighter]]” being heavily marketed as a new method of branding [[clone]] characters, players quickly noticed that the term was loosely inconsistent. While the term was used on all clones with little to no differences, a few other Echo Fighters had noticeable differences. {{SSBU|Ken}}, {{SSBU|Chrom}}, and {{SSBU|Lucina}} have all been seen as different enough from {{SSBU|Ryu}}, {{SSBU|Roy}}, and {{SSBU|Marth}} to warrant being ranked separately from each other. Conversely, {{SSBU|Daisy}}, {{SSBU|Richter}}, and {{SSBU|Dark Samus}} are commonly merged with their base fighters when ranking them, as they have minimal differences from their parent characters. {{SSBU|Dark Pit}} has been argued to fit in both categories, since while his only differences lie in his side special, neutral special, and Final Smash (the latter of which is not used in competitive play), his differences in those moves are fairly notable.  

[[Final Smash Meter]]s also became a topic of discussion, as despite having toned-down versions of Final Smashes, they were deemed too powerful and unbalanced to be accepted in competitive play early on, even with the randomness out of the picture. For example, {{SSBU|Zelda}}’s Final Smash, the [[Triforce of Wisdom]], has been deemed extremely [[broken]], while {{SSBU|Jigglypuff}}’s Final Smash, [[Puff Up]], has been deemed as useless.  

During this period of time, many characters deemed unviable or barely viable in past iterations rose in popularity, including {{SSBU|Palutena}}, {{SSBU|Pichu}}, {{SSBU|Wario}}, {{SSBU|Roy}}, and most infamously {{SSBU|Wolf}}, whose strong KO options and combo game allowed him to have a huge playerbase that included players such as Zackray and MkLeo. Some characters, while being less viable than the aforementioned, have been noted as significant improvements over past iterations, such as {{SSBU|Ganondorf}}, {{SSBU|Jigglypuff}}, {{SSBU|King Dedede}}, {{SSBU|Zelda}}, and {{SSBU|Mii Swordfighter}}. {{SSBU|Olimar}} became a controversial character because of the perceived brokenness of his [[Pikmin]] moves; this is most evident with players such as {{Sm|Shuton}}, {{Sm|Myran}}, and {{Sm|Dabuz}} gathering great results with said character; this in turn has caused many players to call out Olimar players for being campy. {{SSBU|Lucina}}, who was considered a downgrade from {{SSB4|Marth}} in ''[[SSB4]]'', is now considered much better than her counterpart due to the change in physics for Ultimate. {{SSBU|Ivysaur}}, once considered the worst of {{SSBU|Pokémon Trainer}}’s party, has been significantly buffed to widely being considered the best. Other perceived top tier characters included {{SSBU|Peach}} and her echo {{SSBU|Daisy}}, {{SSBU|Pikachu}}, {{SSBU|Inkling}}, {{SSBU|Greninja}}, and {{SSBU|Snake}}.  

Conversely, many characters who were top-tier in their previous iteration have been heavily nerfed to the point where they have barely any notable results in the early meta game. This includes {{SSBU|Diddy Kong}}, {{SSBU|Sheik}}, {{SSBU|Cloud}}, and most notably {{SSBU|Bayonetta}}, who had been drastically nerfed as a result of her controversial dominance in ''Smash 4''. Other perceived low-tier characters included {{SSBU|Kirby}}, {{SSBU|King K. Rool}}, {{SSBU|Piranha Plant}}, {{SSBU|Isabelle}}, {{SSBU|Bowser Jr.}}, and {{SSBU|Little Mac}}; Little Mac especially has been considered by many as the worst character in the game, as the game's engine severely harmed his ''Smash 4'' advantages.

Updates have changed certain characters for better or worse. Notably, {{SSBU|Mii Brawler}}, {{SSBU|Captain Falcon}}, {{SSBU|Mewtwo}}, {{SSBU|Lucario}}, {{SSBU|Corrin}}, {{SSBU|Ryu}}, and {{SSBU|Ken}} were considered mediocre to terrible at launch, but were given significant buffs in updates that allowed them to become more viable in the eyes of many people.