List of SSBM tier lists (NTSC)
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The Smash Back Room tier list has changed many times since its inception. Previous versions of the list are as follows. In later tier lists, characters are broadly ranked by their tier, and further ranked by the order in which characters are listed within the tier list. For instance, Falco is ranked above Samus in the fourth Melee tier list. Earlier tier lists use numerical rankings, and characters with the same numerical value are listed alphabetically.
First tier list (October 8, 2002)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #1 | |||||||||||||
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| 1 | 2-3 | 4 | 5 | 6-8 | 9 | 10 | 11-12 | ||||||
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| 4.9 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 3.9 | 3.8 | 3.5 | ||||||
| 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24-25 | 26 | |||||
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| 3.4 | 3.2 | 3.1 | 2.9 | 2.8 | 2.1 | 1.8 | 1.6 | 1.3 | |||||
Though this was the first tier list, Smash World Forums was rife with discussion about tiers long before the Melee Back Room released its "MBR Tier Averages". The term "F/F/S" (short for "Falco, Fox and Sheik") was popular as a quick reference to Melee's top tier. Members on Smashboards, perhaps in backlash against novice sentiment towards Roy and Link, generally disdained those characters, and generally favored the game's fastest characters.
Members on Smashboards largely contested this tier list's placement of Mewtwo, which they felt to be too low. Many Smashboarders considered Mewtwo a low- or even middle-tier character and were bothered that it, despite its great recovery and powerful throws, was placed at the bottom of the tier list, where most people believed Bowser belonged.
Second tier list (December 19, 2002)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #2 | ||||||||||||
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| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10-11 | 12-13 | ||
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| 2.2 | 2.3 | 3.9 | 4.4 | 4.7 | 8.5 | 8.8 | 9.6 | 10.0 | 11.0 | 13.0 | ||
| 14-16 | 17 | 18-19 | 20-21 | 22-24 | 25 | 26 | ||||||
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| 15.0 | 16.0 | 17.0 | 20.0 | 21.0 | 23.0 | 24.0 | ||||||
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #2 (Mode) | ||||||||||||
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| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5-6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10-11 | 12 | 13 | ||
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| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21-22 | 23-24 | 25 | 26 | ||
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For the second tier list, the Melee Back Room created two tier lists: one made from the average (mean) of votes, and another from the mode.
Third tier list (June 23, 2003)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #3 | |||||||||||||
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| Top | Upper | ||||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
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| Middle | Bottom | ||||||||||||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
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This tier list was released soon after Ken Hoang won Tournament Go 4. Before Ken, Marth strategy largely encompassed rolling and C-stick smashing symptomatic of low-level play today, but Ken introduced to the community the uses of dash-dancing, chain throwing and aerial attacks, all techniques that largely improved Marth's metagame and moved him to top tier for years to come. Ken's focus on aerial combat also caused significant movement for some characters; Zelda, for instance, fell from 14 from 20.
This is the first tier list that officially ranks characters into tiers.
Fourth tier list (July 1, 2003)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #4 | |||||||||||||
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| Top | Upper | ||||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
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| Middle | Low | Bottom | |||||||||||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
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This tier list has an interesting property: had the number of tiers and number of characters in each tier remained the same as the previous list, no characters would have moved from one tier to another.
Fifth tier list (September 29, 2003)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #5 | |||||||||||||
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| Top | Upper | High | |||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
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| Middle | Low | Bottom | |||||||||||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
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April Fools' Sixth tier list (March 31, 2004)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #6 (April Fools) | ||||||||||||||
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| Top | Upper | High | ||||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | ||||
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| Middle | Low | Bottom | ||||||||||||
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
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This tier list doubled as an April Fools' joke and a lesson to the community to not blindly swallow the Melee Back Room tier list as the truth. Though most people suspected this tier list was a hoax, it set a precedent to criticizing the tier list that had not existed before.
To defend this hoax during the two tumultuous days it was the official tier list, Melee Back Room members provided rebuttals to most criticisms of the list: Marth and Peach were too slow to remain in the top tiers; Link, Roy, and Luigi had untapped aerial prowess; and that Mewtwo's throwing game was too effective to keep it in the bottom tiers. Most notably, the Back Room claimed that Jigglypuff, through its aerial speed and the Wall of Pain, ruled the air to the point of domination. Years later, this then-outrageous claim would become true in the post-Brawl metagame.
The Melee Back Room forgot to include Yoshi in this tier list; once people realized he was missing (six hours after the list was posted), the MBR put him in at 16th.
Sixth tier list (April 2, 2004)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #6 | |||||||||||||
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| Top | Upper | High | |||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
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| Middle | Low | Bottom | |||||||||||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
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The real 6th tier list, released after April Fools' Day.
Seventh tier list (March 19, 2005)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #7 | |||||||||||||
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| Top | Upper | High | |||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
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| Middle | Low | Bottom | |||||||||||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
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Eighth tier list (July 8, 2006)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #8 | |||||||||||||
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| Top | High | Middle | |||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||
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| Low | Bottom | ||||||||||||
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
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The names of these tiers were originally God Tier, Top Tier, High Tier, Middle Tier, and Low Tier; these names were changed to the ones shown above on July 10, two days after the tier list was released.
This tier list marks the first time Sheik was not in the top tier, and contains the biggest bottom tier of any Melee tier list thus far. The list also marked the first time Mewtwo had fallen back to the bottom of the tier list. The balance of the tier list was a point of contention amongst many smashers, who felt that it was too bottom-heavy and that the lower tiers should themselves be split, or the high tiers merged (particularly the top two).
Ninth tier list (October 14, 2008)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #9 | |||||||||||||
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| Top | High | Middle | |||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6-7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | |
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| 9.88 | 9.85 | 9.69 | 9.15 | 8.35 | 8.00 | 7.88 | 6.77 | 6.23 | 6.04 | 5.81 | 5.38 | 5.34 | |
| Low | Bottom | ||||||||||||
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | ||
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| 4.69 | 4.31 | 4.15 | 3.60 | 3.04 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.46 | 2.17 | 1.77 | 1.50 | 1.15 | ||
For the first time since June 2003, the Smash Back Room published each character's numerical scores. This tier list was originally intended to be the final tier list for Melee, with the expectation being that players would move over to Brawl and result in the Melee metagame becoming static, similar to the tier lists for the original Super Smash Bros. Melee's tournament scene, however, remained strong even as Brawl's tournament scene grew, and Melee's metagame experienced drastic changes (such as Jigglypuff dominating as well as or more than the top-tier characters); as a result, the tier list ultimately did change two times even after this supposed "final" revision.
Original tenth tier list (September 14, 2010)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #10 (Beta) | ||||||||||||||
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| Top | High | Upper | Middle | |||||||||||
| 1-3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9-10 | 11 | |||||||
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| Low | Bottom | Negligible | ||||||||||||
| 12-13 | 14-15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19-20 | 21 | 22-26 | |||||||
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This list was originally publicized as the tenth tier list despite having qualities that made it seem incomplete or rushed in some way. It was heavily criticized for its very large number of ties - it has not only the most ties of any tier list, but the biggest tie, involving the entire Negligible tier. In addition, this list was claimed to have been mostly the work of the single user KirbyKaze, which was then slightly modified by the Back Room. Likely spurred by the topical Master Hand glitch, the Back Room also included a "Gengar" tier in the list as a joke, where "Master Hand and other glitches" are placed.
Despite this, however, Mewtwo and Jigglypuff have risen significantly from the previous tier lists, with Jigglypuff now in the top tier alongside both Star Fox characters (AKA the space animals) (marking the first appearance of a floaty character in the top tier of Melee's metagame since Peach in the fourth tier list) and Mewtwo being a whopping 5 places above its previous best. This is the only tier list to include a tier below the Bottom tier.
Tenth tier list (December 31, 2010)
| Super Smash Bros. Melee Tier List #13 | |||||||||||||
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| S | A | B+ | B- | ||||||||||
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| 1.68 | 2.36 | 3.18 | 3.56 | 4.66 | 5.82 | 6.84 | 8.74 | 9.62 | 9.69 | 10.11 | 12.23 | 12.61 | |
| C+ | C- | D | F | ||||||||||
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | |
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| 14.83 | 15.53 | 16.42 | 17.31 | 17.66 | 17.95 | 20.22 | 21.63 | 22.07 | 22.78 | 23.49 | 24.26 | 25.74 | |
This is the current SSBM tier list.
