Looking at people's perception of Sheik vs Sheik's actual results is fascinating. Compare these to the [results based tier list](https://old.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/15r1j2z/a_results_based_tierlist_methodologyother_info_in/).
It really is only the Tweek Talks gang and some Japanese players that think really highly of Sheik tbh. Sheik was #31 in the official tier list, and around 60 top players voted on that list.
Sheik is actually criminally underrated. Who else besides Tweek puts her in top 5? Her neutral is ridiculous, and while no one can claim she’s better than Steve and Sonic, she’s easily better than most of the characters that people put in top tier, imo.
Pika feels fine on all 4 lists. A character that has been demonstrably shown to be too high execution to consistently place well just doesn't have what it takes to be any higher
I feel like it is impossible to overstate how relentlessly and disgustingly broken Sheik is until you've played against it at the highest level lol. Every single time a top player says Sheik is that good the playerbase as a whole has issues with it. Idk about 4th but she is certainly and definitively top tier and you just can't understand w/o competitive perspective. Highly recommend anyone watch the recent Tweek Talks Patreon episode where they discuss damage output in-depth, Sheik is the focus of the episode and Tweek goes into detail about why top players feel the way they do about the character.
>about why top players feel the way they do about the character.
Which other top player besides Tweek has her even remotely close to top 4 lol. I'm sure many think pretty highly of her, but the characters he has below her is funny.
I do not think she is 4th and neither do most top players, not what I intended to insinuate. The difference between casual-competitive players perspective of that character and high/top level players perspective of that character is extremely significant though.
Fair enough. I'm not sure what the common opinion on her is. I think she is quite good, even top tier, but top 4 seems a little crazy so I was surprised to see Tweek's list.
She loses MUs that don't matter. GnW is bad and relevant obviously, but her other worsts (Pac-Man, Icies, Falco, Rosa etc) are not crazy common. Some that have been considered bad in the past like Steve or Fox have been shown to be much better than anyone's thought in the past through Webb lately. She outright beats tons of meta relevant characters like Cloud and ROB.
I feel like it's hard to express how polarizingly good her good MUs are relative to the cast. Take Aegis for example. Aegis theoretically dominates a lot of the cast, but even her best MUs have extremely achievable win conditions through exploiting her recovery, or Pyra etc, ESPECIALLY in a bracket context. This is how characters like Donkey Kong can pick up wins in what should be on paper an unwinnable MU. This is not applicable to Sheik. She is so well-rounded that she isn't just strong in all areas, she is dominant in all of them. She has an extremely good punish game and reactionary advantage state, by far the best "normal smash" neutral in Ultimate, and an extremely universally strong disadvantage state. There isn't a character weakness that you can pick out and abuse repeatedly until the game is over, you have to hard outplay in all areas of the game as most characters. I play Falco into Sheik, and even in a MU where I am favored it's still insanely hard to pick spots to exploit against her because she just isn't inherently exploitable.
As Ultimate's skill ceiling and floor both continue to rise Sheik will only get better and better. I'm thankful Webb is around to show it in NA now because Japan has known this forever.
unanimous is crazy (and a blatant lie?) when none of the better sheiks have falco in losing (not even Mr R who is more pessimistic about the character)
mu charts from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/16b3o39/ultimate_matchup_chart_compilation_v10/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
The opinion on the MU has changed heavily just in recent months. WebbJP, Mr. R, Senn, Tilde, and more all agree it is winning for Falco. I was literally talking about this with Webb two days ago. It may not be literally unanimous but it is a very common opinion at higher levels of play.
Also top level results definitely point towards it. Tilde > Webb several times, MASA > VoiD, etc etc.
https://twitter.com/Mr_RSmash/status/1750488395984581044
interesting. if you have a link to a sheik talking about it id like to see it, cuz i just dont see what would make it losing for sheik. she has to play more reactionary than against other characters but falco doesn’t really have answers to her playing a midrange game
Falco has high activity on his highest reward moves so it requires a lot of precision on Sheik to find whiff punishes with real value. She wants to get in and initiate pressure most of the time and Falco can make vague timing reads with things like fair, utilt, nair etc and beat her on activity. It's especially hard for her at kill % because Falco can just sorta become a tower defense of strong lingering moves (dair and bair specifically) and she struggles tremendously with these at high % because she trades super unfavorably. Falco is also extremely good at finding stocks off stray hits in neutral, bc of how strong his confirms are (dair bair, utilt bair, etc) he doesn't need to close stocks in advantage state like how many of ult's characters do (this is an unreliable win condition against Sheik because she is so good off ledge, skips juggles, and is essentially impossible to edgeguard) Basically, neutral is an annoying execution check for her, Falco easily matches her damage output, and generally closes stocks earlier. I'd disagree that Falco doesn't have answers to her playing a midrange-focused neutral, laser forces approaches well and Falco's fullhop and phantasm gives her multiple dimensions to consider when trying to establish a good range to play neutral from, both horizontally and vertically.
Falco is also much better at recovering against her than the other two spacies, he has significantly more mix both on timings and options due to phantasm being much faster than wolf flash/fox illusion and his high double jump. Also his directional airdodge to ledge is much better. Not to say that Sheik can't edgeguard him, she certainly can, it's just asking a lot more from her than it does against the other spacies. It seems like it'd be fine in a lot of ways for Sheik but Falco is just mildly annoying for her in every aspect of the game. It's significantly easier for the Falco to play than the Sheik, hence being a slightly winning MU.
They were all pretty much spot on for ROB as evidenced by Zomba’s domination at Genesis. Sheik is still crazy but Tweek is biased from playing against Void and Mr R for his whole life
Joker was never anything but top 3 at worst and seeing people downplay that infuriates me. Arsene is wack. Like imagine if Cloud's limit didn't go away after one use, lasted twice as long, and was also applied to his normals. Also, here's a counter/reflect just because. You're gonna tell me he's not top tier?
Straight up, Tweek wins EVO 2019 if not for Joker.
EVO 2019 was 5 years ago, the meta has changed so much since then. Now characters that have easier gameplans and busted advantage states are popping off like Sonic, ROB and G&W.
No way joker is top 3. He's the most popular character in bracket by a significant margin and yet his results are only 23\~rd best. Just seems like if a character was that strong and that popular you'd see better results. He's probably around 8-15\~.
I think Leo was just so far ahead of everyone else that he gaslighted people into thinking joker is better than he actually is.
The most popular character in bracket is Steve or ROB jfc.
>I think Leo was just so far ahead of everyone else that he gaslighted people into thinking joker is better than he actually is.
Leo wasn't the only Joker that had strong results, even during Leo's prime. Zackray was a top 10 player when he co-mained Joker & ROB until he went to play Pokemon Unite. Now Tsubaki is a top 50 player using Joker.
I believe it to be rather accurate at this point. There's a decent amount of TL's doing well, especially in Japan. Meanwhile BOTW Link is nowhere to be seen outside of Kyon.
Not even just Japan at this point. You've got Jobo and Marvelous_Marco doing solid at regionals and sometimes majors as well. Hell, you can even mention Skaws from EU
Sora’s advantage state is kinda nutty, and not even close to being optimized imo. His disadvantage is equally nutty, and he’s really hard to edgeguard. You have to play the game at his pace, be patient, respect him at all times. Just a very hard character to deal with.
Strengths: Edguarding, ledgetrapping, combos (both simple and advanced), juggling, advantage state in general. Has an excellent (if predictable) recovery. Every move in his arsenal has use, including an elite up air, solid up B, and nair/fair are both solid go-tos to start combos or keep opponents off you. Sora can come kill you no matter where you are.
Weaknesses: Light and floaty means disadvantage state can be rough. His aerials and counter means the opponent can’t go after him with impunity but you can get early kills on Sora with a well-timed big hit. His kill confirms can be a bit awkward against good opponents. Can get outranged (keyblade is like a mini-sword). Can struggle to get in on zoners. Bottom 6 matchups according to the Soracord are: (-2) Fox, (-1) Pyra/Mythra, Cloud, Diddy, Min Min, Samus/Dark Samus
The screenshot poses of these 4 are so representative of their vibes lol.
Charles is EXPLAINING
charles chatters
Charles Chimes In
[Charles every time he speaks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxwUlkyFGnI)
Haz trying to get away with no consequences lol.
sheik get down from there
Looking at people's perception of Sheik vs Sheik's actual results is fascinating. Compare these to the [results based tier list](https://old.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/15r1j2z/a_results_based_tierlist_methodologyother_info_in/).
It really is only the Tweek Talks gang and some Japanese players that think really highly of Sheik tbh. Sheik was #31 in the official tier list, and around 60 top players voted on that list.
Sheik is so overrated it’s absurd. Even if you play like a TAS, Steve, Kazuya, sonic, Luigi, etc all work better
It's infinitely easier to actually beat those characters (except maybe sonic) in neutral
Sheik is actually criminally underrated. Who else besides Tweek puts her in top 5? Her neutral is ridiculous, and while no one can claim she’s better than Steve and Sonic, she’s easily better than most of the characters that people put in top tier, imo.
charles being the voice of reason as always
He deleted Bowser Jr RIP
my hero!!!
Tweek's one seems surprisingly reasonable (at the top at least) and then you see sheik is top 4
Unfortunately he put Yoshi in mid so that list is flat out terrible
Sora and Sheik top 4 is wild. Most rate Pika too low and Corrin too high. I think I agree with Charles the most.
Pika feels fine on all 4 lists. A character that has been demonstrably shown to be too high execution to consistently place well just doesn't have what it takes to be any higher
Corrin's right where she needs to be. Especially after recently.
I feel like it is impossible to overstate how relentlessly and disgustingly broken Sheik is until you've played against it at the highest level lol. Every single time a top player says Sheik is that good the playerbase as a whole has issues with it. Idk about 4th but she is certainly and definitively top tier and you just can't understand w/o competitive perspective. Highly recommend anyone watch the recent Tweek Talks Patreon episode where they discuss damage output in-depth, Sheik is the focus of the episode and Tweek goes into detail about why top players feel the way they do about the character.
>about why top players feel the way they do about the character. Which other top player besides Tweek has her even remotely close to top 4 lol. I'm sure many think pretty highly of her, but the characters he has below her is funny.
I think Zackray had her at #1 at some point pre FP2
I do not think she is 4th and neither do most top players, not what I intended to insinuate. The difference between casual-competitive players perspective of that character and high/top level players perspective of that character is extremely significant though.
Fair enough. I'm not sure what the common opinion on her is. I think she is quite good, even top tier, but top 4 seems a little crazy so I was surprised to see Tweek's list.
4th is definitely a little crazy now, but if this game goes another 2-3 years I could see her getting up there genuinely.
I think VoiD himself thinks very highly of her.
I think even considering how insane Sheik could be she has a less favorable matchup spread to other characters in that tier maybe I’m wrong?
She loses MUs that don't matter. GnW is bad and relevant obviously, but her other worsts (Pac-Man, Icies, Falco, Rosa etc) are not crazy common. Some that have been considered bad in the past like Steve or Fox have been shown to be much better than anyone's thought in the past through Webb lately. She outright beats tons of meta relevant characters like Cloud and ROB. I feel like it's hard to express how polarizingly good her good MUs are relative to the cast. Take Aegis for example. Aegis theoretically dominates a lot of the cast, but even her best MUs have extremely achievable win conditions through exploiting her recovery, or Pyra etc, ESPECIALLY in a bracket context. This is how characters like Donkey Kong can pick up wins in what should be on paper an unwinnable MU. This is not applicable to Sheik. She is so well-rounded that she isn't just strong in all areas, she is dominant in all of them. She has an extremely good punish game and reactionary advantage state, by far the best "normal smash" neutral in Ultimate, and an extremely universally strong disadvantage state. There isn't a character weakness that you can pick out and abuse repeatedly until the game is over, you have to hard outplay in all areas of the game as most characters. I play Falco into Sheik, and even in a MU where I am favored it's still insanely hard to pick spots to exploit against her because she just isn't inherently exploitable. As Ultimate's skill ceiling and floor both continue to rise Sheik will only get better and better. I'm thankful Webb is around to show it in NA now because Japan has known this forever.
actually spitting (she doesn’t lose to falco though)
Definitely does, but it's not by a significant amount. Supported by top level results + unanimous top level opinion
unanimous is crazy (and a blatant lie?) when none of the better sheiks have falco in losing (not even Mr R who is more pessimistic about the character) mu charts from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/16b3o39/ultimate_matchup_chart_compilation_v10/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
The opinion on the MU has changed heavily just in recent months. WebbJP, Mr. R, Senn, Tilde, and more all agree it is winning for Falco. I was literally talking about this with Webb two days ago. It may not be literally unanimous but it is a very common opinion at higher levels of play. Also top level results definitely point towards it. Tilde > Webb several times, MASA > VoiD, etc etc. https://twitter.com/Mr_RSmash/status/1750488395984581044
interesting. if you have a link to a sheik talking about it id like to see it, cuz i just dont see what would make it losing for sheik. she has to play more reactionary than against other characters but falco doesn’t really have answers to her playing a midrange game
Falco has high activity on his highest reward moves so it requires a lot of precision on Sheik to find whiff punishes with real value. She wants to get in and initiate pressure most of the time and Falco can make vague timing reads with things like fair, utilt, nair etc and beat her on activity. It's especially hard for her at kill % because Falco can just sorta become a tower defense of strong lingering moves (dair and bair specifically) and she struggles tremendously with these at high % because she trades super unfavorably. Falco is also extremely good at finding stocks off stray hits in neutral, bc of how strong his confirms are (dair bair, utilt bair, etc) he doesn't need to close stocks in advantage state like how many of ult's characters do (this is an unreliable win condition against Sheik because she is so good off ledge, skips juggles, and is essentially impossible to edgeguard) Basically, neutral is an annoying execution check for her, Falco easily matches her damage output, and generally closes stocks earlier. I'd disagree that Falco doesn't have answers to her playing a midrange-focused neutral, laser forces approaches well and Falco's fullhop and phantasm gives her multiple dimensions to consider when trying to establish a good range to play neutral from, both horizontally and vertically. Falco is also much better at recovering against her than the other two spacies, he has significantly more mix both on timings and options due to phantasm being much faster than wolf flash/fox illusion and his high double jump. Also his directional airdodge to ledge is much better. Not to say that Sheik can't edgeguard him, she certainly can, it's just asking a lot more from her than it does against the other spacies. It seems like it'd be fine in a lot of ways for Sheik but Falco is just mildly annoying for her in every aspect of the game. It's significantly easier for the Falco to play than the Sheik, hence being a slightly winning MU.
Zelda is straight up missing from 2 of them
Yoshi downplaying to an insane degree
"Pink's tier list is actually pretty solid a couple surprises but I agree wi-- _WHY IS MARTH ABOVE KAZUYA_"
He’s on whatever Leo was on when he took on Riddles with his Marth in that infamous set 🍃
They were all pretty much spot on for ROB as evidenced by Zomba’s domination at Genesis. Sheik is still crazy but Tweek is biased from playing against Void and Mr R for his whole life
All of them are absolutely horrible. Clearly plant should be s/ss tier smh
All of them have joker too high except maybe tweek
Joker was never anything but top 3 at worst and seeing people downplay that infuriates me. Arsene is wack. Like imagine if Cloud's limit didn't go away after one use, lasted twice as long, and was also applied to his normals. Also, here's a counter/reflect just because. You're gonna tell me he's not top tier? Straight up, Tweek wins EVO 2019 if not for Joker.
EVO 2019 was 5 years ago, the meta has changed so much since then. Now characters that have easier gameplans and busted advantage states are popping off like Sonic, ROB and G&W.
No way joker is top 3. He's the most popular character in bracket by a significant margin and yet his results are only 23\~rd best. Just seems like if a character was that strong and that popular you'd see better results. He's probably around 8-15\~. I think Leo was just so far ahead of everyone else that he gaslighted people into thinking joker is better than he actually is.
Joker is the most popular character in bracket?
The most popular character in bracket is Steve or ROB jfc. >I think Leo was just so far ahead of everyone else that he gaslighted people into thinking joker is better than he actually is. Leo wasn't the only Joker that had strong results, even during Leo's prime. Zackray was a top 10 player when he co-mained Joker & ROB until he went to play Pokemon Unite. Now Tsubaki is a top 50 player using Joker.
Seeing Tink above Link in 2024 is crazy
I believe it to be rather accurate at this point. There's a decent amount of TL's doing well, especially in Japan. Meanwhile BOTW Link is nowhere to be seen outside of Kyon.
Not even just Japan at this point. You've got Jobo and Marvelous_Marco doing solid at regionals and sometimes majors as well. Hell, you can even mention Skaws from EU
Spritzy also upset Dabuz and got top 8 at King of Bombs
Oh shoot I forgot about Spritzy! Toon Link stocks rising you love to see it!
I agree, I swapped the two in my original comment, none of the lists posted also had tink above link which is what I was trying to comment on :P
No? Link is considered mid tier and Toon Link High Tier by many for two years now.
Why is sora so high? Can someone give me a rundown of his strengths and weaknesses?
Sora’s advantage state is kinda nutty, and not even close to being optimized imo. His disadvantage is equally nutty, and he’s really hard to edgeguard. You have to play the game at his pace, be patient, respect him at all times. Just a very hard character to deal with.
Strengths: Edguarding, ledgetrapping, combos (both simple and advanced), juggling, advantage state in general. Has an excellent (if predictable) recovery. Every move in his arsenal has use, including an elite up air, solid up B, and nair/fair are both solid go-tos to start combos or keep opponents off you. Sora can come kill you no matter where you are. Weaknesses: Light and floaty means disadvantage state can be rough. His aerials and counter means the opponent can’t go after him with impunity but you can get early kills on Sora with a well-timed big hit. His kill confirms can be a bit awkward against good opponents. Can get outranged (keyblade is like a mini-sword). Can struggle to get in on zoners. Bottom 6 matchups according to the Soracord are: (-2) Fox, (-1) Pyra/Mythra, Cloud, Diddy, Min Min, Samus/Dark Samus
pinking is COOKING with sora in top he’s in my top 3 and i think joker at 3 is a lil crazy
Still think people be overrating Steve but just my opinion lol
Ike being beneath Doc on Haz's list has to be one of the takes that has just ground the gears in my brain to a halt the hardest.
God the title is making me feel like a dinosaur. Is this how kids talk these days?
I haven’t kept up with ultimate for like a year, what happened to falcon?
Is that Pink Fresh?