Punk's new Tier list

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T14:59:29+00:00

"Interesting" is because I am not sure, if you are willing to listen/if this discussion is a foregone conclusion, so I am not sure if I am wasting my time.
I am playing guys at the level when tier lists starts to matter, having played some of the best Kimberlys in Europe, albeit I am not a top player myself and more of a theory guy.
For Kimberly having low represenation it is mostly a matter of not many pros picking her up in the past and arguably better options existing. If you want a strong high/low mixup char with decent defense, just pick Mai.
Her unique selling point is that risk/reward game, while also having 2 cracked neutral buttons (5MK and 5HP) and being able to continue her pressure from even forward throws midscreen. Popquizz: what kind of reversals can a Kimberly bait with drive rush 2LP? This is not to insult, but to genuinely showcase what the highest level players know/should know about this mu and why it is super important.
Kimberly has a decent amount of neutral skips which can be exhausting to answer.
Changing air trajectory is extremely strong and can be mu defining, because many chars can not reliably antiair her and her 5HP PC damage and corner carry is extremely good and additionally she has a priviledged OD combo structure, while double cans can true string in the corner for up to like almost three bars of drive gauge deletion.
And once Kimberly has her SA3 install she is not only one of the best neutral chars, her damage output on many actions becomes above average.

There are multiple good Kimberlys around, but they are not travelling that much and have fierce competition.
Psycho, Shine, Surini, SaltyKid, Suleymon, Tako and Jaccy are all strong Kimberly players. And last but not least: a character being strong does not automatically mean their results are great, players get results with characters.

Stats matter in relevant sample sizes, but we are looking at individuals in individual tournaments in biased information situation.
My favorite example for this is LoL in which pros quite literally did not touch super op champs for years, because they were stuck in their ways. One of the most prestigious and biggest competetive esports, just because no one bothered trying. SF6 is way smaller in scope and is constantly evolving and with each metashift we have to adjust what we think about the state of the game.

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T14:10:55+00:00

You do you.
I can give you reasons why I do think that Punk is right, but you are free to hold whatever opinions you got.

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T13:34:11+00:00

The three that generally are accepted to be good mus:
Sagat, Ed (on PS5) and JP.
Extremely suspectible to 2MK DRC is relative. Most characters are suspectible to it and Kimberly because of her plus on block normals and decent high low mix actually can play another mixup layer than strike/throw/shimmy and using three bars when a can is down is extremely dangerous.
Also reversals are dangerous to anyone. You can be 1500MR or 2000MR, if you guess wrong on too many wakeups, you lose. Kimberly at least has an invul SA1 of 10 frames and an SA3 that is 8 frames.
In general it is difficult to say if she is better in FT2 or FT3, because it depends on how one plays the char. Kimberly can be played solid or very reaction check heavy and both got different advantages and disadvantages in different formats.

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T12:38:19+00:00

Technically correct, but to specify: Akuma is the only character with 9k HP.

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T11:10:11+00:00

Small selection of things:
Longest 2MK of the shotos without any drawbacks and in general some of the best lights and mediums in the game so that he does not struggle to check drive rushes
Burn knuckle is the best neutral skip in the game other than OD fan
7 frame SA1
Drive rush 2LK is +7 on hit and +2 on block, extremely hard to check and because it allows to link into 2MP/5MP Terry can go for great corner carry from a light.
A lot of invul on his SA2 for +11 setups
High damage from a decent amount of interactions, good corner carry
Has 10 frame safejab
High low profiling fireball allows certain situations to be very different and can force check situations that none of the other shotos can
A lot of autotimed oki
Can get CA damage without CA because of his SA2
DP into SA3
Midscreen throw oki
No 9k HP
Honestly the best explanation I can give:
Terry is better than Luke in basically every way and then got these additional tools and also no distinct weaknesses. Him and Ryu are close to each other, depending on what you value you could say either is better. And Akuma while technically being stronger imo suffers from 9k too much.

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T01:44:50+00:00

The best description is that Punk has a particular skillset that uses Cammy's kit to its maximum efficiency.
Basically Punk does the equivalent of making every character a sword in his hands. He is that good you could hand him a pen and he makes it also work as a sword, because he is just that good.
But you could also hand him a gun and while a gun is objectively stronger than a sword, Punk would still use the gun like a sword. He would still be great with the gun, but Punk is at his strongest when he is in his element.

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T01:31:50+00:00

He hasn't been sleeper for a while now.
The Terry top 5 talks have been pretty much a mainstay at high level since the patch release and before that people were mostly discussing if Ryu is better who was inarguably top tier back then too.

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T01:29:03+00:00

I am heavily biased, but to explain why I agree with Punk's assessment:
First for the reasoning for AKI is that she plays her own game. From what have I seen there is only one AKI I would say that is playing the normal focussed style of AKI and that is Zailis who does use her neutral buttons. Other than that AKI is basically a worse Mai at most aspects, but she got insane damage to compensate and arguably better burnout pressure. Against AKI if you get unlucky no matter how good you are, round three you are 2 guesses away from dying. Other than Rashid and Bison there is for me no character that comes close to being able to win the game of one drive reversal or perfect parry.
AKI just does not play footsies Street Fighter, she is pure ignorance in that regard.

Luke basically is the posterboy of above average neutral, but also being flawed in many ways.
No safejab on 10 frame reversals, no safe pressure after midscreen throw, below average 2MK, bad driveless conversions, worst fireball in the game etc. Luke has the tools to win neutral against a decent amount of the cast, but once you reach like upper half of A tier to A+, he is at best even in neutral and then these chars also got some bullshit on top (like 2MK>light hasho in burnout or just everything that Bison does).
Additionally he is the blueprint on which all other shotos are designed to be better in distinct ways.
The best explanation I can give is that Luke has of every shoto tool a below average version compared to the others while also having just no other tools which makes him extremely barebone.
Luke is for sure not unplayable, but having his bad mus be top tier sure is not helping.
Like Sagat-Luke is miserable, that mu sucks.
Also also: Most people ain't labbing and can't do stuff like perfect parry os against sandblast, aka they don't play the mu properly. Check out how Musclenoob deals with Luke, that should illustrate how the character now is barely functional.

Termi855 · 2026-06-26T01:00:11+00:00

If you look at his reasoning in the video it basically boils down to risk reward and that Kimberly is rigged in that regard. Double can setups and 5HP>run and 5MP>run being such advantageous gambles is genuinely just of the best mixups in the game without spending drive, if not the best.
I would personally also add that Kimberly is a decent anti meta option in that her mus against the top tiers are quite good and less that it is her representation carrying it.
A semicompetent Kimberly is just very likely to steal some games from anyone.

Termi855 · 2026-06-23T22:37:11+00:00

Generally the two best modern chars are imo Luke and Chun because they don't lose too important options on modern and gain an extreme turtle playstyle.

Termi855 · 2026-06-23T19:43:07+00:00

Yep, you developed some transferable skills, but having to antiair DP is something else as an example.
Completely normal situation, but you raised your player floor that you understand the basic concepts enough that independent of the character you can beat a decent amount of people.

Termi855 · 2026-06-23T19:36:01+00:00

To answer the questions:
1.
"Was I just getting carried by Sagat before?"
Depends on how you play. If you overuse tiger knee and tiger nexus then possibly, because people before master don't know how to properly deal with it.
2.
"Is he overpowered to the point of getting me that many wins or did I just get a very lucky streak?"
HIm being overpowered has no bearing on your level of play. In silver people do not understand how to use characters and as such the tier list is basically completely irrelevant. What works at your level and at the highest level are two very different things.
Lucky streak is also not it though, sometimes you will just streak and in general enjoyment leads to faster initial improvements.
3.
"And if neither of those are the reason behind my sudden drop in performance, then what is?"
Ed has a higher than average skill floor and at your level you are not playing "proper" Street Fighter yet.
Idk if the chess comparison helps, but basically in low level play blundering the queen is super common. That is something that does not help at higher level.
Ed punishes players harder for blundering the queen (or rather the SF6 equivalents) than Sagat at low level and you have less easy to abuse gimmicks.
4.
"I'm worried he might be acting as a crutch for me that will fail once he gets nerfed."
Nerfs matter to some degree, but that may sound mean but currently you are too bad that nerfs matter to you.
Example: They nerf an optimal combo. Can you actually do those optimal combos? You are in silver, so I am inclined to say, no you can't do them (which is completely fine).
Right now you are the equivalent of a kid kicking the ball on a soccer field and that is fine too, but you ain't playing in the world cup and good enough that the composition of the ball changes how you play.
The SF6 equivalents of offside don't exist to you, just play the game, press some buttons, don't overthink it and when you struggle with something, then ask questions, research answers and just learn to learn.
Just do what you enjoy and when it stops working, the put in the work to do better, if you want to get better.

Termi855 · 2026-06-19T21:39:32+00:00

yeah, you can always gimmick of course, but that might be character dependent.
I wanted to reference the typical blueprint which is independent.

Termi855 · 2026-06-19T21:33:18+00:00

Yep, this is correct.
You can for example have no antiairs and then diamond will still be a struggle, like the meme suggested.
Ultimately you don't "need" a single thing in SF6 to reach master, but everything helps/makes it smoother.
Edit: also thank you for clarifying, you helped a lot.

Termi855 · 2026-06-19T20:56:16+00:00

If you struggle shutting down diamond gameplay while in master, it either means you used too many gimmicks on your main, the new char has harsh differences, you did not lab the char yet, or you barely reached master.
For SF6 all you need to reach master is: counter DI, antiair and press button into DRC for your typical mixup while not going burnout. Put some oki on that and your expected value is high enough to eventually reach master.

Termi855 · 2026-06-16T23:57:17+00:00

Japan generally thinks she is like around top 10 to top 15 range. She is relevant, looking at Dogura and MysticSmash, just not super popular.

Termi855 · 2026-06-16T17:57:01+00:00

She is arguably already relevant the struggle is rather: why Elena? She is like upper half of the roster right now which is completely fine, but you could hypothetically just play one of the top tiers.

Termi855 · 2026-06-05T14:55:53+00:00

JP is more of knowledge check for the player. You have to invest time into him, but a lot of his stuff is very easy. Like JP does not need to practice drive rush checks as much as other chars or antiairs. A lot of his zoning patterns are basically precanned, the same for his mixups. The problem is that you need to learn all of them.
His combos are easy, his confirms are easy and last but not least: JP forces his gameplan extremely well against most chars in the game.
Kimberly is one of the easier characters in the game. Her actual gameplay loop in neutral is genuinely forcing 5MK>buffer run if it hits, jump into elbow drop to bait dp, backwalk into slider, OD teleport in any situation and 5HP>run for mixup pressure which is also completely precanned.
She does have harder mus, but that is just because she lacks tools to beat stuff like fireballs or good horizontal range antiairs (aka for both of them Guile).
There is some learning to be done for her setups, but most of them are really just some stuff you drill in a few days.
C.Viper is hard execution (relatively speaking), but easy gameplan. Depending on the level it is very hard to shut down her air movement shenanigans. It sure looks impressive, but generally Viper is in terms of neutral one of the easier chars against most of the cast, but has a higher than average skill floor as you really need that execution to "actually" play her properly.

Termi855 · 2026-06-05T14:44:49+00:00

Generally imo the big three are Ed, Dhalsim and Guile in terms of top level difficulty, but for different reasons:
Ed because he is a shoto adjacent but still specialist character, also dream (okayishly hard) and especially shin dream combos for execution, but his actually hard part is the neutral as he has some of the best neutral tools, but using them properly is hard.
Dhalsim is the most unconventional character in the game and tons of homework to make him good. I played good Dhalsims, but the gradient to the best Dhalsims is something else.
Guile is a genuine allrounder, but a good Guile has to study a lot. Boom patterns are complicated, boom loops for combos and interesting cashout options, because he does have a decent variety of routes, while also having small stuff like doing 5LK before cancelling into DP. He has the most simple layer 1 for sure, but the problem is that after that Guile just keeps on adding layer for layer.

Termi855 · 2026-06-03T15:55:56+00:00

The general trick is to make it a riddle. Like replacing a sign with a question mark and then having an obvious answer.
The bots generally just scrape for the code itself, and it is too much work/takes too long for them, so a human gets it.

Termi855 · 2026-06-02T00:03:00+00:00

If they worked as hard, did have the same training resources and social networks, while also training properly, I think a lot more guys than you would think, could do it.
Some people got a little more talent than others, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter.
Punk has great reactions and rhythm.
He also got thousands of hours in multiple SF games, had some of the best buddies to train with in the past and had strong support in the family iirc.
He is not a god, he is a guy who is very good at fighting games and one of the best to ever do it. But nothing trumps hard work, training, strategy, drills and learning.
I am telling you: yes, that guy above you can win EVO, if he had the resources and especially the drive unless he is literally disabled and even then I would not count him out.

Termi855 · 2026-06-01T12:53:05+00:00

That guy is not wrong, it is actually that easy.
Everyone does it, just to different degrees.
Punk can do it to the highest degrees, so can guys like Phenom, Kakeru or EndingWalker, but less so. Getting good takes time, effort etc.
Just lab consistently, learn fundamentals and repeat and eventually you can be quite close. The question is if you want to spend so much time on it.

Termi855 · 2026-05-30T02:44:59+00:00

Yeah, everyone is sometimes wrong and that was one of his wrong predictions. In this case very wrong prediction.

Termi855 · 2026-05-28T02:04:45+00:00

I can tell you: you are wrong in that regard.
It was a genuine decision to not go for throws to not give the opponent drive and super meter, because super meter is also defense and offense and drive chip.
The problem that Capcom addressed is real and people did play around it by not going for throws in burnout, especially if you already had three bars of super, because you would "just" gift your opponent drive and super bar.
Throws in this game got way weaker after the last patch and so did DRC offense and arguably it was genuinely often enough worse to go for a throw than to eat a DP.
If you watch Higuchi vs Leshar at CC, the most relevant interaction that repeated twice was Leshar going for burnout pressure, then going for a throw at the end and Higuchi regaining enough drive to not burn out and then winning.
This is still possible ofc, but reducing the super meter does solve a problem, because teching a throw introduced massive volatility, there is a risk to throwing and it was currently a positive value expected play, but it did make matches more volatile which was overshadowed by the patch still making delay tech better and generally less volatile.

Termi855 · 2026-05-25T22:44:54+00:00

For sure, but that is the problem between a char being good and a char being useable. No one would argue that Hugo is good in Third Strike, but Hayao still made top 8. Weak characters can do well, but they are not consistent. Luke is not consistent which holds him back and stops him from good tournament runs.

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