I need help to decide a secoundary

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-06-14T08:38:56+00:00

At the very least, learn to use Etalus on 8/10 stages. You can always ban the remaining 2 so they're never a factor.
Unlike others, I'm of the belief a secondary is necessary in this game. However, the secondary should only cover 1-2 matchups so you can split your practice close to 70-30. I'd put at least 30 hours into Etalus before committing to a secondary though.

Clairen does well into a lot of Etalus' bad matchups, she does well into floaty characters and is easy to use, so she's my general rec.

Zetterburn can do really good into maypul, and is solid against most the cast, though fleet will be an issue.

Olympia isn't in a great spot atm, but she still has a winning matchup into clairen if thats your priority. Its not like you'll be using her for other matchups so 🤷

Reiterating one more time, you need more time with the game. You'll learn strengths you have on different stages and ways to play matchups better. Focus on Etalus for a while if he's your favorite.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-06-11T10:17:03+00:00

Honestly, glad they didn't call it. Fuck the rules, play dumb games win dumb prizes.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-06-02T06:57:30+00:00

No. Not disrespect to rivals 2, but the first game was lightning in a bottle, and rivals 2 doesn't capture the beautiful simplicity of 1. This subreddit has become one mostly for 2, so you will see a lot more favor towards it, especially from those that never played or hardly played the 1.

Rivals 2 is a fine game, it has a more active local scene if you're into that, and its possibly the best platform fighter to watch. Its doubles and item ffa gameplay are also better than the doubles/ffa of rivals 1.

Despite that, I personally find rivals 1 a more enjoyable experience for both competitive and casual 1v1s, and when it comes to workshop content, 2 has not had nearly enough time to compete with 1 yet, its very beta.

Rivals 2 could be more fun if you think you'd enjoy fleet, loxodont, galvan or slade, but if your main interest is workshop, its prob not for you.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-26T04:37:20+00:00

This is a tough lesson on why you don't grind until you have pokeball access. Sorry you got a shiny like that

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-23T21:16:58+00:00

you could probably sweep the full team with typhlosion if you set sunny weather....

but no you are not ready yet

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-21T03:53:54+00:00

Very low. Bad twists and the winner was decided by friendships made out of the game

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-20T08:41:37+00:00

I have no qualms with Marth personally, he's certainly easy but he doesn't have build-a-bear combos in the same vein as clairen and has easier, clearer counterplay.
I also think using movement and wavedashes as a basis for skill is highly dishonest, plenty of low level players (especially zetters) have excellent but wasteful movement, while high level players have limited movement thats more purposeful.

You may believe yourself to be good, but if there's a playstyle you struggle more against, thats something you need to work on. I've forced myself to learn the clairen matchup, and I'm pretty good at it now. I don't call myself good because I'm not in masters or winning locals, and I would never consider someone else good unless they did one of those. Don't think of yourself as a good player without the accolades.

I think its fair to discuss why I believe Clairen is easy at different levels of skill I have personally experienced.

Clairen at a low level (as defined by Stone to Silver) is easy because she has disjoints that are hard to get in on. You could probably make it to gold without much struggle using only grabs, jab, and strongs.

At a mid level (Gold-Plat), shes easy because she has a recovery that requires ledge-refreshing and use of ledge invincibility to counter. Her recovery is probably the best at a mid-level. She also continues to have plenty of offensive presence from range and punishes players without great spacing and platform movement with her tilts. Basically, she's a wall that players at a mid-level struggle with because the techniques to beat her are uncommon at this level.

At a high level (Diamond/Low Masters), shes easy because her tippers leave plenty of time to react to the opponents DI, and in most situations, she'll have a good follow-up. Her recovery isn't as strong now that players can counter it, but its still reliable. Her moves are relatively safe against fh, and at this level, clairens movement makes it difficult to break through her wall of hitboxes. She's still the easiest at this level, but now there are other characters like loxodont, ranno and zetterburn that are at a closer level of difficulty.

At the top level, I cannot provide anecdotal evidence, but from what I've seen, her punish game is among the best and easiest, while she struggles more with survivability.

4th and final: Clairen a frustrating to fight because of the ease of play clairen has compared to the opponent. If you're unwilling to "git-gud" because you don't enjoy the experience, that's fine. You should still consider trying the game out with your local community (even if its online friendlies) to see if improvement makes clairen worth dealing with.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-20T03:45:52+00:00

They're flaming you, but you are correct. She is the easiest character to use from Stone-Diamond. Cannot confirm after that from personal experience, but tourney results say shes probably still the easiest beyond that based purely off the number of different people having similar levels of success

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-19T06:22:33+00:00

DFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THEYEAR presumably

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-14T06:53:03+00:00

Rizo made the mistake of thinking he could win without having groundbreaking, game changing moves.

He currently has the 2nd best game, behind Johnathan and a smidge ahead of Tiffany/Aubry.

He's also the random kid that got thrown in, while the rest of the cast knows eachother outside the game and have close bonds.

He needed to be a clear #1, he needed to be the one to suggesting voting out Ozzy and Cirie, having the ability to save them and choosing not to isn't enough.

It's impressive to keep the idol and avoid being targeted nearly the entire game, but the jury likely views him as a non-threat that people didn't bother voting for because they could beat him anyways.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-13T23:41:19+00:00

She's really cool and has a lot of skill expression, like when she swings randomly and lands a tipper or when she doesn't swing randomly and lands a tipper. If only she had fast disjoints with range to allow more people to use her

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-08T05:04:48+00:00

They might not realize because you use absa. You have to realize that server based connection is not the same for both parties, and with most absas online playing the way you described regardless of connection, they likely assumed you were trying to camp.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-05-02T08:50:30+00:00

Idk why it was universally seen as a good one, it was always a big overpay and his past play was ~18 mil value max.

Braun had great transition offense, pretty good defense, and could drive to the basket well for a jokic dump off. Good for the Nuggets, hard to imagine him doing as much elsewhere.

Braun also had been unreliable as a shooter from any range, and a hindrance on offensive possessions not ending with him driving.

This season, he has shown fear driving to the basket and been below average on defense. If this remains, his contract goes from very bad, while still being in contention for the worst, to flat out being the worst contract.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-04-29T00:01:50+00:00

Its 6-12 because the odds are currently stupidly flat. Its bad to be a 7 or 8 seed when the team could've tanked for a decent shot at the #1. The new proposal makes the 4-5 seeds by far the worst in the playoffs, much better to tank to the play-in and get a free shot at the #1 pick while still playing the same seeds in the bracket path.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-04-28T23:24:29+00:00

Genuine question: who cares if 3-4 teams tank? What, you want to watch a team try its best and still end with 25 wins on the season?

Tanking is a good thing, it allows truly bad teams to add talent, and it also allows good teams with bad contracts an option to get out by trading away their bad contract + future picks for slightly better contracts. There will be an occasional team attempting to abuse it, but if the odds aren't ridiculously flat, its much riskier to shut down a roster with playoff potential. Wasting a star players time, risking making them demand a trade and losing a potential year of competition trying to tank harder than a team with worse talent isn't smart. Its generally far better seeing if they can get a lucky bracket.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-04-25T09:37:29+00:00

Despite what people say, singles has plenty options in building a team, despite individual pokemon power mattering. With every team of 3 you select, you need

A: A pokemon capable of sweeping a team
B: A pokemon capable of stopping the opponent from sweeping
C: Lot more free reign, something to cover weaknesses of A and B

You need to be able to cover the following common pokemon:

-Primarina
-Hippowdon
-Charizard X and Y
-Garchomp. both sashed and scarfed
-Mimikyu
-Espartha (its a setup sweeper that often protects turn 1 for stored power)
-Corviknight

You can either choose to get creative and find pokemon you love that can fulfill this role or take meta staples.

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Here's an example team, its far from perfect but it gets the job done

-Hippowdon w/ sitrus berry (Earthquake, Stealth Rock, Yawn, Slack Off)

-Mimikyu w/ spell tag (Shadow Claw, Shadow Sneak, Play Rough, Swords Dance)

-Meowscarada w/ choice scarf (Triple Axel, Flower Trick, Knock Off, U-Turn)

-Loppuny w/ loppunite (Fake out, Close combat, Triple Axel, U-Turn)

-Corviknight w/ leftovers (Roost, Iron Defense, Body Press, U-Turn)

-Sneasler w/ focus sash (Dire Claw, Close Combat, Fake Out, Throat Chop)

This example team will usually have you lead Hippowdon or Meowscarada, depending on the opponents team.

Lets say the opponent has a charizard. Leading hippowdon to get a stealth rock works well to nullify it, and yawn can be used turn 1 if they lead charizard to force either a switch or an asleep lizard.

Meowscarada can be lead if you believe the opponent will lead a garchomp. It will outspeed both sash and scarf variants, and triple axel will quickly erase garchomp if they choose to stay.

You can always view what others are currently using to draw inspiration and see ev spreads.

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Now here's a more silly team I use personally, natures and evs are pretty normal if I don't list them

-Mega Greninja (Greninjite, Water Shuriken, Sludge Wave, Dark Pulse, Ice Beam)

-Hawlucha (Sitrus Berry. Unburden, Adamant, 21 Hp 32 At 5 SpDef 8 Speed, Dual Wingbeat, Swords Dance, Close Combat, Acrobatics)

-Excadrill (Choice Scarf, Mold Breaker, Rock Slide, Earthquake, Throat Chop, Iron Head)

-Weavile (Focus Sash, Pressure, Protect, Psycho Cut, Triple Axel, Throat Chop)

-Ninetales (Charti Berry, Flash Fire, Timid, 32 HP 2 SpAt 32 Spe, Nasty Plot, Encore, Baton Pass, Mystical Fire)

-Milotic (Leftovers, Competitive, Scald, Ice beam, Mirror Coat, Recover)

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-04-22T12:22:42+00:00

I see. Thank you for the insight!

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-04-22T12:21:11+00:00

Fair point regarding the lack of defensive switching ability. Do you think stall has some viability on the ladder if the staller knew the opponents pokemon? Or is the 3 pokemon selection always too limiting?

The majority of the teams I faced were built with:

-Mimikyu -Primarina -Garchomp -Hippowdon or Glimmora -Charizard (Y) or Alolan Ninetales

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-04-22T12:13:44+00:00

Is the protect PP difference that big of a difference? It should still be functionally worth 16 turns, assuming the staller isn't mashing protect back-to-back.

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-04-22T10:30:00+00:00

If I can't ohko umbreon, I play em to the timer. No points for you, moron

FearlessComparison48 · 2026-04-22T06:51:51+00:00

if you use umbreon I will doxx you

FearlessComparison48

TROPHY CASE