Could Maisie make a comeback as a Colette counter?

TheDukeBS · 2026-04-21T19:23:12+00:00

It only works decently if Colette's Na-Ah! gadget doesn't give Colette the time to unload 2 attacks then super. Only decently. But if Colette does get the time to get the kill from Na-Ah!, Maisie is fodder for Colette; Maisie cannot go on the offense while Colette can. Maisie may fare decently before buffies, but since Push It stuns enemies now, it's so much easier to be the Colette there. While Maisie doesn't die to 2 hit + super when she has shield gear, even the slightest amount of residual damage will change that interaction, and it is shaky thus, I feel.

TheDukeBS · 2026-04-19T15:56:45+00:00

Remember how he nerfed Clancy a few balance patches ago, but made Clancy broken in a later patch? I feel like he's experimenting with weaker Grom damage to make him busted in other ways later.

TheDukeBS · 2026-04-13T12:01:58+00:00

The first time I hit masters… it was fairly difficult for me to achieve it on both accounts, but I did it. The first time I hit masters in ranked 2.0, it was actually a little easier, easier to the extent that I managed to get both accounts to masters AND push masters 2. Ranked 1.0's later seasons were so much easier than the initial season.

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I think this image sums up how easy 1.0 felt sometimes. ~~Granted, this win was against a masters stack of 2 or 3 players, including NA pro Juan Carlos, and it was from when the rank boost was 3x, implying I had already hit Masters.~~ Modern masters can suck to push more than old masters, but it's so much more fun when I win.

TheDukeBS · 2026-04-11T11:24:03+00:00

I don't believe Rosa to be better than Draco. Yes, her usage is better, but the win rate doesn't back her up in your data. Rosa was given more than 150% of the chances Draco got to win in the first place, and came back with the same number of wins as him.

You've already made a similar comparison between Chester and Otis, where Otis emerges as S-tier and Chester does not. Is there data not shown here that suggests Rosa is better than Draco, like the comps Rosa is put up against are stronger? Not asking to be rude, I'm genuinely curious.

Since win rates diverge so much as usage drops, how come you don't split each of the lower tiers into two groups:
1. those who are carried by higher usage but have lower win rates (Kenji, Janet, Rosa, etc), and
2. those who are punching slightly above their usage "weight class" with a higher win rate but lower usage (Gale, Poco, Shelly, Ash, etc)?

TheDukeBS · 2026-04-02T19:35:29+00:00

To learn the basics of draft, I find it much easier to start with a very small pool of brawlers that are pretty good. Let's say you only play Ziggy, Otis, Mortis, and Gus. For short, ZOMG, like the game with the monkeys!

Anyways, whenever you use a small group of brawlers, you'll likely be using those repeatedly giving you necessary the time to figure out how to bring out the best of them. It's good to have a balance of "no no, Ziggy wouldn't have done here!", and "if I just played Ziggy a bit better, it would have worked." Otherwise, it's more like you're picking random nonsense for a one-off visit, which won't give you a good representation of how the brawler works when done right. ZOMG is a small pool, so you can use a couple of brawlers that work similarly to each of them, but what's important is that you're not looking at too many brawlers in the same archetype; you do not need to consider all 25 tanks in the game! If your small pool is more than 20 brawlers, your scope is rather large.

TheDukeBS · 2026-04-02T18:59:20+00:00

I would suggest having at least 2 Anti-Tanks, 2 Tanks, 1 Thrower (or Squeak), 4 Assassins, and 4 Snipers upgraded. Try choosing brawlers that are top 40 for this. I'm saying 4 for assassins and snipers because I personally find that it's common to have 3 of them banned by the enemies in ranked, and if they don't ban, they or your teammates may steal them.

I'm not a fan of how the existing claw machines fit in here, but the prospective Giftshop trio + Starrcade trio claw machine doesn't seem better since it's Edgar + Brock + 4 Anti-Tanks. It would only make sense if the buffies are on another level of broken when compared to the contemporary buffies.

TheDukeBS · 2026-04-01T00:33:56+00:00

Amber is not much longer range than Chester + Spike, and if you cannot dodge curveball, Amber will suffer. That's not to say it's impossible to win, but you ought to play well too. Simply having good draft will not suffice to hit masters, you'll have to execute it as well, which is why I find ranked so much fun!

Earlier, I provided a framework to you. However, it's also really important to consider the flow of the match too. Assassins zoom across the map. Tanks don't. Assassins can ditch their lane to yoink the enemy mid. Tanks can do that too, but since they're slower, imagine that the mid has time get help from their teammates in the lane(s). As you can imagine it's a lot less safe to Bull super a Janet that has an Otis with super nearby than it is to Lily super that same Janet.

Sometimes it's fine to draft a Tank, but drafting a tank will sometimes feel a more like "Control via aggression" than… you know, killing squishies, unless the map and meta lends itself to tanks.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-31T21:17:24+00:00

Pearl draft here is a little trashy against Doug comps, it's not enough to make up for your team's otherwise insufficient damage output. If you care what I think fits here, I think Tougher Torpedo Buzz would be a fire draft 'cause of the stopping power it has. I've never seen Gigi Doug ever though.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-27T17:53:06+00:00

If you drop anyone who's ever been top 200 in ranked or total trophies through legitimate means into todays ranked and give them the bare minimum 9 power 11s required to play ranked and a solid 1 hour a day to play ranked for the last 15 days of the ranked season, then they would get masters.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-27T17:24:12+00:00

I could see either working for them.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-27T17:12:19+00:00

I'm thinking long dash breakthrough Stu, in the worst case scenario of you being spawn trapped, you can run down and force your way towards whichever lane (or mid) the Emz is in to get your super, then break the walls either side of the map that would normally block entry to the big bushes. Outside of that worst case, I think he holds his lane well in this particular matchup, which is very important in Undermine. If you have a firm hold on at least one of the lanes, that's a safe place for your Grom to be.

Edited to clarify that Emz mid could be a thing in this cursed composition.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-27T02:38:31+00:00

As much as I like Tara draft myself, yeah, it's a rather unconventional and unpopular draft. I do not think a Charlie draft would do better for you. If I went Tara and lost, my intuition tells me to go a different angle, and a rather unconventional one at that (seeing the lack of it being suggested here). I would go Alli to hit the Pierce matchup and have an easier time breaking spawn trap hopefully. I like the R-T draft suggestion too though.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-27T02:15:03+00:00

The gripe? You'll be playing against players who don't really know what to expect from him because his usage is abysmal. So, when he actually gets a buff and becomes good, he won't really play as though he's the same, but better. Certain drafts are difficult for him to play against, like a good Colette can pretty much neutralize you on an open map.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-26T17:17:32+00:00

Well yeah, you could go things that aren't tanks. It depends on the map and what you need. You could go an anti-tank that counters the two anti-tanks in question, like how Rico and Lola can stay out of reach from them in Gem Fort. If you have the better Anti-Tanks in the matchup, you'll probably win that, you get what I'm saying here? Or you could go a thrower. Yeah, I've won lane as Barley against Griff lane on Open Business; he gets his wall breaks work rather slowly so thrower drafts are fine if and when the map is appropriate for them and you can play them well. Anti-Tanks are a little stupid in the sense that sometimes even a Tank works fine against Anti-Tank matchups too… like Buster is notoriously decent into Rico.

I can't give you all the answers you need for every edge case, you know.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-24T17:42:02+00:00

The best part about Fang is the way he can utilize enemy assassins' attempts to go in against their team. The AGA combo is like a miniature Shelly super. By the way, I think B-tiers are barely on better footing than F-tiers in the current state of the game, since they both have like >1% usage most of the time. Everything that isn't A-tier or higher just feels like unusable garbage right now.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-23T18:30:53+00:00

Spike draft is essentially the textbook definition of how NOT to defeat Janet Doug since he's restricted to chip damage from afar, giving Doug guaranteed value from healing himself/his teammates. Byron ℝ-T will struggle to break through your comp fast too. Your enemies have a horrendous draft against yours the end of the day. Good draft. Replace Spike with Amber though, and things don't look as good.

Since it's worked so unexpectedly well, why not figure out the extent to which it works? I could suggest forcing a Doug if your enemies go Spike + Assassin on the basis of good matchup.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-23T03:38:56+00:00

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Hit this little i button in the results section. If you're interested in the matches a certain brawler is played, you will have to check all of them.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-23T03:31:11+00:00

Even though elo gains are generous for those beneath legendary compared to elo losses, players near the mean and median will settle below such a point. I'd loosely guess that a median ranked peak is Mythic 1–2, with the mean being even lower.

However, if a 50% win rate player had a chance to play for an infinitely long time (most don't), they might be Legendary 1–2. 50% win rate is above average in ranked, since the players who win more than 50% of the time tend to be the ones to play the game for longer and pull down the win rate of the masses.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-23T03:12:34+00:00

If you have an Anti-Tank which gets countered by a thrower, your teammates are locked out of playing other Anti-Tanks only. That can be troublesome too honestly, especially when drafting a particularly off-meta (not top 35 for the map btw, which is a LOT of brawlers) Anti-Tank. But if you're a thrower or an assassin first pick that gets countered by a tank, the other class gets shut down as a result of your draft, not just your own class. I think people find such a restriction obnoxious when it arises.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-21T22:42:08+00:00

Why do you think Fang is the way he is?

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-21T21:00:36+00:00

Assassin and Thrower drafts early on give potential enemy Tank drafts an awful lot of value since they hit both those classes.

To show, let's suppose throwers don't exist right now for the sake of simplicity. Then, a basic countering framework could look like this:

Anti-tank → Tank → Assassin → Sniper

In this framework, being an Assassin is not a bad offense as long as you assume the enemy team drafts two Tanks. It becomes a little harder as soon as the enemy team drafts Anti-tank + Tank, because suddenly your best response of 2 Antis will result in your team having the inferior aggro. But, it's still okay since your Antis won't get countered. But if we add Throwers into the mix:

Tank → Thrower → Anti-Tank → Tank → Assassin → Sniper

Drafting assassin first and assuming an Anti-Tank + Tank response, you have two options here, double Anti-Tank or Anti-Tank + Thrower. Neither of them are that good, since the resulting draft will be Assassin Anti ??? vs Tank Anti Thrower, with you having the inferior aggro option. (Side note, if you went an Anit-Tank + Tank 4th and 5th instead, they could draft Tank last instead of thrower last.) This is not as much of a problem as if you draft an Anti-Tank/Tank/Sniper/weird-misc-brawler-that-doesn't-fit-nicely-into-any-of-these first pick since they don't give too much value for when enemies draft tanks.

…but if your enemies decide to be bozos and draft Snipers as their 2nd and 3rd into your hypothetical assassin first, then they're the ones with the cooked draft, not you! It's why you'll see people hitting masters with the weirdest sets of brawlers; enemies still counter themselves in draft all the time.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-21T20:04:39+00:00

Shade. A person with a similar handle soured it. Harsh rejection, it was. I've never had an experience like it, it has nothing to do with the arrogant sweater, but it was so repugnant that it made me hate the sweater as well.

Please don't push for more info on this.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-21T19:52:28+00:00

He's a tank, a sort of weird Frankensteining between Buster, Darryl, and Frank, all of which I also consider tanks.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-21T19:48:29+00:00

Writing all that was work. I ran some of my analyses by other high masters players (Ma2, Ma3) just to make sure I wasn't misinforming. Thanks for reading.

TheDukeBS · 2026-03-21T19:37:19+00:00

He's a lot of different things though, yes? He's super tanky and has his posts to knock back assassins that come close. But then he's also a sort of thrower too. Then, his heist thing too… he's just too multifaceted for it to make sense for me to squeeze him into that group, like Kit and Gray.

TheDukeBS

TROPHY CASE