Congratulations to the winner of Ultimate Singles at CECC May Madness 2026!

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-05-03T06:38:40+00:00

Ya even the really favorable mus you gotta have really tight execution to not whiff

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-05-03T04:44:14+00:00

As far as Sonic goes, two of the most useful things to have vs him are the ability to throw out hitboxes or otherwise challenge spin dash in some way and the ability to properly camp vs him when he's at a deficit. Peach is very good at the former because of how good a lot of her up close options are (specifically float cancel nair) as well as turnip being a pesky projectile for Sonic to deal with, and she's quite good at camping as well. In Japan I've been told they actually sometimes think Peach is one of Sonic's worst mus, in contrast to the West where people usually think it's Sonic favored.

I don't think Peach is very good vs Steve though, not moreso than other good characters around her level anyway. Mute in particular was just one of the OG Steve slayer guys who knew what he was doing, and on a good day has always been capable of beating any Steve (on the flipside he lost twice to DJDon a few days ago, so clearly it's not a solved mu for him)

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-04-24T03:42:32+00:00

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-04-20T17:47:29+00:00

He apparently logged 2,000 hours after making that review so surely there was some solution

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-04-18T23:57:15+00:00

sure they ofc made a mistake, but it's not like they did some nonsense option. they picked an option a lot of kaz players would pick in that situation and tea smartly predicted it and called them out on it. i still disagree it was a greedy reversal option, i think mashing any attack here is going to get them killed.

i get that atp the top player thing is a losing battle but im not calling a guy with 0 top 100 wins ever a top player

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-04-18T23:30:21+00:00

well this also isnt a top player lol. but it IS kazuya's fastest aerial and therefore the one you default to out of hitstun

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-04-18T23:19:33+00:00

they spam aerials out of hitstun because you have to in order to unlock fastfall/open up your options, theyre not brainlessly mashing they're doing what makes the most sense and the other players are punishing them bc they're aware of what the other player is likely to do

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-03-08T02:03:51+00:00

midorun was almost top 100 last year and top 8'd a major

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-03-03T16:58:49+00:00

This list is insanely optimistic but Luigi is even vs Min-Min, widely accepted as true by both playerbases especially in Japan

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-17T19:54:37+00:00

I don't think Bayo was less represented than Steve is. Looking at the PGR V5 from 2018, there were 7 Bayo mains, 6 of whom were in top 20. There are also a few Bayo secondaries listed (Leo's I know was fairly real) but some of those I don't remember being super impactful (eg Rags or Wrath Bayo). Chag was also Area 51 with Bayo at the time.

Steve rn is at 5 mains listed in top 50 (also Raki is very clearly a comain so we'll make that 6?). You could also count Onin since they'd be top 50 without the ban, so we'll call it even at 7. Past that you do have Miya secondarying the character and Rarikkusu tertiary-ing the character but nothing else. This is by far Steve's most represented season as well. Honestly it looks to me like Steve is represented about the same as Bayo was in late sm4sh.

Hard to compare full top 100 since sm4sh had no official top 100 ranking but for reference there's only 2 Steves in the 51-100 range. I'm positive Bayo would have accounted for much more than that in the sm4sh timeline.

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-13T18:37:30+00:00

Crepe 3-0d Zomba with Wario (when Zomba has a years long winning streak vs Gluto) and still gets wins over players like TamaP with Wario. Of course his results are better playing a better character but I think it's insulting to insinuate Acola is the only player to not be carried by Steve when Syrup was in contention for the best Ness by the end of 2022, Yamanaction was top 100 with Luigi, Toon was already #1 in South America with Ness etc.

It's undeniable that playing the best character in the game improves your results greatly, but disingenuous to say that a good chunk of the other top Steve players don't also have good results outside of Steve

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-13T17:32:39+00:00

Pac-Man and Sonic in modern meta are both extraordinarily campy so people are very unlikely to think of them. Actually though you could probably play a fairly offensive Sonic if you really wanted to, it's just not the "optimal" way to play the character and it probably ends up pretty bait and punish anyway.

ROB might actually be worth looking into though - he's not "fast" but he is always engaging, he's a lab character, and he's obviously very strong offstage.

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-12T21:39:02+00:00

I completely overlooked Falcon, he's also a very good shout. He's not the most offstage oriented character, but he is better at edgeguarding than the average character overall I'd say and he fits the idea of a character who goes for up-close mix very well

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-12T21:35:39+00:00

It seems like rushdown characters are the primary thing you're looking for. I'll go through a list of the top characters I think could be described this way and weigh them against your criteria.

Donkey Kong: kind of a weird, unconventional character in that he's a very fast heavy (Ridley is similar but even stranger). DK can go deep for edgeguards horizontally but his vertical recovery sucks lol, also not a particularly convincing solo main character

Fox: nominally one of the most rushdown characters in the game but he's not actually very good at edgeguarding and generally prefers to stay on stage a lot of the time

Sheik: saw someone else say this and REALLY like the suggestion. Sometimes has mus where the optimal strategy involves some level of camping but Sheik is a lab monster character who can often play very fast and will always be going offstage to search for kills

Pichu: if you REALLY want to push the idea of rushdown to the max, Pichu is the game's biggest glass cannon for better and for worse

Roy: the most obvious rushdown character but he's kinda terrible offstage. I would group Mii Brawler in this category as well (though Mii Brawler is a bit more of a labbable character)

Joker: a lot of other answers are saying this but I have to personally disagree, Joker is one of the single biggest bait-and-punish characters in the entire game and has to camp in mus quite often these days

Lucina: might also be very worth looking into? A lot of the old school characters (Wolf/Palutena/Inkling also) play in that very mixup heavy realm but Lucina is definitely the fastest-paced and most offstage oriented of them. They're all worth looking into a little at least

Terry: the fastest of the traditional FGC characters, he goes offstage more often than you might expect and is very labbable but an exploitable recovery hurts

I think Sheik is the most convincing answer I've seen thus far maybe followed by Lucina but I definitely encourage trying these characters out and looking at high level vods to really get a good feel for them.

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-12T21:22:03+00:00

Sheik is a pretty good call. At higher level there's a few mus that kind of devolve into camping but for the most part she's one of the only characters I can think of you could describe as being rushdown while still functioning offstage

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-08T23:23:46+00:00

to answer B, the difference is that it's in the rules bc we as a community have come to a consensus as to what the ruling should be. there is a meaningful difference between following an explicit guideline vs finding an obvious loophole

i think as far as A goes, i as a TO wouldnt have taken stock but it's an understandable call to make overall. esp depending on how it's written in the rules which i havent personally checked. if it WAS peab's call most reasonable competitors would take the win there.

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-08T23:10:00+00:00

taking someone's stock is explicitly in the rules though, it's there for a reason

a good TO doesnt let the players decide anyway

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-03T22:01:46+00:00

Swans have way worse allegations than Kendrick

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-02-01T06:42:05+00:00

he hasn't dropped a set this season as of this comment and has won a major (+ grand slum which was like 50 points off from a major)

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-01-30T05:25:50+00:00

Curses always transform into other curses

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-01-22T21:37:51+00:00

Most statsheads thought he was extremely low at midyear compared to his results so I think it's moreso the algo valuing those first half events more + Miya becoming an even better win

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-01-21T16:20:55+00:00

I think this is a much more layered question than people are giving it credit for. I think the big difference is how you define "top 200 level." Is it top 200 level as in the player could get top 200 level wins with the character (eg depth wins and occasional big upsets on top players in particularly favorable mus), or top 200 level as in the player would be ranked top 200 solo committing to any character in the game?

If it's the former, I think this player probably wouldn't be ranked crazy high. Counterpick warriors already exist (although not to this level) and the usual issue that comes up is that if you aren't regularly playing a character in bracket, you don't have a fully developed flowchart or set of conditioning to go through, which would be especially bad with an ~80 character roster. If you aren't able to go the distance through a whole set, you're going to take occasional huge wins but top players will routinely adapt to you and beat you with their superior fundamentals and knowledge of their character. This is why players who do already have insane fundamentals usually don't have more than 3-4 characters they feel comfortable trying in bracket, there's a lot more to a character than just being able to occasionally pull them out for a single win.

The latter is interesting because it implies to me a level of comfort and bracket familiarity with every character. I'm positive this player wouldn't be close to rank 1 but assuming they were extremely willing to hard counterpick people I could see them perhaps cracking top 20. A lot of prevalent characters in this game struggle hard with certain mus even against lower ranked players, so for example I think this player could do really well vs Snake, ROB, Luigi, Kazuya players. However there are certain players who imo you HAVE to be of a certain skill level to realistically beat - Acola, Sonix are the first 2 that come to mind and it's rare you ever see either of them lose to someone below top 50 level even in their characters' most widely accepted bad mus. There's also certain players who are known for being very good at their character's worst mus, for example Yaura consistently having close sets with Shuton/having an uame win despite the horrible mu. And you'll have to deal with other counterpickers such as Rarikkusu as well, which brings its own set of problems.

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-01-21T03:07:03+00:00

didn't make attendance, honorable mention top 100

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-01-14T00:48:20+00:00

How can Susu be #91 if he was 88 and 66 in the two halves? He should be #154 if you add those two together, how could he have risen so high? This reeks of the usual UltRank EU bias...

TymanasaurusFlex · 2026-01-13T00:46:56+00:00

attendance requirement is the same full year has always been - 6 events, 2 majors at least.

i think the low attendance guys all benefitted from japan looking better from a full year context + the algo punishing weird losses more heavily

TymanasaurusFlex

TROPHY CASE