Robin is one of those characters. Falling into the same vein as Rosalina & Luma and Wii Fit Trainer, the renowned tactician has suffered from an incredible lack of tournament representation over the years. This is the case across both Super Smash Bros. 4 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and if you’d like to help give the character a bigger competitive presence you can check out our corresponding training guides.
Super Smash Bros. 4
True to their home series, Robin is a fighter whose moveset must be used carefully for maximum efficiency. Their most defining traits are their magic tomes and spells; Thunder can be charged up to into different versions, Arcfire can be used to keep opponents at bay, and then Elwind and Nosferatu are more for niche utility than anything else. With the Levin Sword active, Robin’s smash attacks become incredibly strong, with their down smash in particular serving as a strong get-off-me move that hits on both sides.
Unfortunately, Robin does have some flaws that put a damper on their potential success. If the FP uses its smash attacks too often, its Levin Sword will wear out and temporarily disappear. This causes its attacks to become weakened, and it doesn’t help that the AI will often waste its Levin Sword usage on random aerials that don’t connect. Robin is also somewhat lacking in melee range, particularly on their tilts and Bronze Sword smash attacks; furthermore, their general movement speed and attack speed is low and easily overwhelmed.
Perhaps due to the rarity of Robin’s amiibo figure, the character only received average tournament results and representation. Fortunately, they did have one or two dedicated trainers, so their representation wasn’t as poor as fighters like Bowser Jr. or Villager. At the same time, Robin was seen as difficult to raise, so they never had a huge impact on the competitive scene.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Robin’s metagame position in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is overall quite similar to what it was in the previous title. To this very day, they don’t see much representation, but it is a bit higher than it used to be thanks to the community growth that Ultimate’s release spurred on. In this game, optimized Robin FPs have a higher emphasis placed on their projectiles, and these help them rack up large amounts of damage in just a short span of time. Robin also benefits from the introduction of off-stage play, and is often trained to use their forward and back airs to edgeguard opponents who are trying to recover. They also benefit from a decent matchup spread, including positive matchups against most mid-tier fighters. This makes sense, then, as Robin is currently considered mid-tier themselves.
In terms of weaknesses, Robin’s are mostly the same as they were in Super Smash Bros. 4. Their moveset is generally quite powerful, but almost everything Robin has essentially runs on a timer. Worse yet is that when Robin drops a tome or the Levin Sword, the AI often makes no attempt to grab the item to use as a projectile. As mentioned earlier, Robin can now afford to edgeguard off-stage, but there is one potential problem. The AI won’t go off-stage if Elwind has run out of charges, but it will go off-stage if Elwind only has one charge left. In extremely rare situations, this can lead to a self-destruct as Robin won’t have enough magic left to successfully recover back.
Regardless of their flaws (and their amiibo figure’s continued rarity), Robin has seen decent tournament results and representation this time around. They’ve only got a few dedicated trainers, but said trainers have accrued respectable results with the character and consider them to be anywhere between mid-tier and high-tier. Here is a complete list of our resources regarding Robin; make sure to join our Discord community if you haven’t done so already!
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