Yesterday was Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s second anniversary. And what better way to celebrate than with a slightly-belated tier list update post? There hasn’t been an update in about two months, and since then, the 9.0.0 patch dropped and changed a whole bunch of fighters’ AI. There are quite a few tier shifts to discuss here, so let’s get started!

I could just force viewers to look at the tier list page to double the view count, but we’re not about that here. Above is a copy-paste of the updated tier list! In our previous tier list update, King K. Rool was moved up to S tier. The idea here is that K. Rool is a small step above Ness, Mii Gunner, and Ridley. However, he is not quite on par with Incineroar or Bowser, so we’ve moved him back to the top of A+ tier. That being said, King K. Rool didn’t get any worse — we just updated his position relative to the rest of the cast.

The big winner here is the Ice Climbers. They were significantly buffed by 9.0.0’s AI changes; most notably is that they don’t self-destruct anywhere near as often. This bumped them up two whole tiers, and now they’re mid-tier! We’ve updated the Ice Climbers wiki page and training guide to reflect this. If you’d like to read more about how bad the Ice Climbers used to be, check out our really long essay! Now then, let’s get into more individual changes.

Rises

• Captain Falcon raised from B to B+. Most of the rises here boil down to increased tournament representation, and Captain Falcon is no exception! Trainers have been finding a good amount of success teaching their Captain Falcon FPs to forward smash and Falcon Kick. And that’s about all it takes to train a good Falcon!
• Hero raised from B to B+. Hero’s been doing pretty good in tournaments lately! There seems to be a variety of ways to train a good one, too. You can try it without spells, with a lot of spells, or even with heavy usage of Command Selection. Critical hits are a huge help to this character and occasionally let him brute force his way through tough matchups. It’s very possible that Hero moves even higher in the future.
• Pokémon Trainer raised from C+ to B. Pokémon Trainer is absolutely ridiculous lately. Charizard may just be one of the strongest characters in the format. Its side special Flare Blitz combines super armor and extreme power, which makes it very effective against AI opponents. Unfortunately, the AI is hard-coded to switch Pokémon, so Pokémon Trainer is only top tier a third of the time. It’s a shame, but probably for the best.
• Isabelle raised from C to C+. It’s becoming more and more clear over time that Isabelle is a better Figure Player than Villager. This is because her side special, Fishing Rod, messes with AI opponents and allows her to rack up a ton of damage. She’s been doing much better in tournaments lately, too!
• Pac-Man raised from C to C+. Pac-Man is rising solely because of his forward smash. It’s disjointed, kind of fast, and kind of strong, and that’s good enough to make it a reliable finisher. Opposing FPs have trouble reacting to it in time!
• Diddy Kong raised from D+ to C. Trainers used to steer clear of Diddy Kong, but he’s actually got a few dedicated ones now! As a result, his tournament representation has increased by a noticeable amount, so he’s rising on the tier list today.
• Ice Climbers raised from D+ to C+. As mentioned before, the Ice Climbers have been buffed and are now much better. Now’s as good a time as ever to train one! Interesting to note is that almost all of the AI problems we discussed in our essay were fixed. Nintendo, if you’re listening, please remove the personality label so people stop asking how to get certain ones!

Drops

• Palutena dropped from B to C+. Palutena’s tournament representation has dropped off lately. Not many trainers are working with the character, so she’s dropping a tier in this update.
• Wii Fit Trainer dropped from C+ to C. Similar situation as Palutena. This character isn’t getting much in the way of results lately, and her problems with range and recovery definitely aren’t helping.
• R.O.B. dropped from D+ to D. This character just can’t do anything right, it seems. Can’t angle the laser, can’t mash Arm Rotor, can’t consistently charge and use Gyro. It’s like Super Smash Bros. 4 all over again.

Not too many drops this time around, which is a good thing! New tournament reps and the 9.0.0 patch changed things up by quite a bit. Here’s to hoping that our next tier list update – which, at this rate, might occur sometime in February – has a bunch of rises, too! In the meantime, we’ve got plenty of resources for you to check out. Our general amiibo training guide is a great place to start, and when you’re done reading that, you can pick your favorite character and read up on all of their best training strategies. And perhaps most importantly, remember to join our Discord server if you have any questions. Thanks so much for reading — until next time!

If you would like to read more informational posts, please follow this link.