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ELEAGUE Street Fighter V Invitational hosted by TBS

D

Dahbomb

Member
Ninjimbo said:
So I'm new to SFV and I don't believe in tiers, but let's just say I did, who are the top tier characters in this game?

I guess I have Ibuki, Balrog, and Guile as top characters. Anyone else? I'm just asking because characters like Akuma aren't considered competitively viable, yet his combos and damage output are extremely high. Someone help me understand how these tiers are determined and why all fighting games discussions devolve into tier debates.
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Season 2 patch is still new so the tiers are still in flux. Information right now is imperfect and exact tiers vary from player to player.

I don't think I have heard most people say that Akuma is not competitively viable, he seems viable though does not seem to be top tier.

Most top players seem to consider Urien, Balrog, Ibuki, Laura, Guile, Cammy at the top. And then FANG and Alex at the bottom but the middle range generally gets debated over.


Ideally that's how it would be. But mostly people just say "character won x tournament" and "character has y and z" so character is top tier.


The classic "this character is not top tier. How many majors has he/she won?"

Also a character is instantly top tier if there's more than one person who mains the character in a top 8.
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This is more like the age old "tier list on paper" versus "tier list in results" debate. The tier list on paper tends to vary as information becomes more available so people generally tend to prefer tier list in results.

I do have to say the more recent tier lists by people like Ultrachen/Sajam have been most disappointing for the reasons you have mentioned. Like their tier lists change every weekend based on some tournament results. "Cammy is definitely #1 guys, just look at how well Kbrad is doing!" to "Man I am starting to think Cammy isn't that good, look at how Cammy performed at ESL!" You really have to have more fundamental and theoretical knowledge on the game and characters to make a tier list and not just pull Eventhubs recent tournament results and formulate a tier list off of that.

If results were the sole indicator of tier lists then there would be no debate discussions of tier lists... people would/should just look up results, average out character performance/popularity and then formulate tier list from that. Then anyone making up their own tier list would be crapped on for making their own non results oriented tier list if it differs from what the results are showing.


Also pure match up chart tier lists aren't completely accurate either. Match up charts put characters versus character at peak player performance assuming limited error by both players (with error involved a low tier character can easily beat a higher tier character so that has to be averaged out). So let's say based on pure match up analysis... Cammy beats Balrog 6-4. This match up number means that if these two characters play each other 10 times with limited errors by both players than Cammy would win more than Balrog. However.... Balrog is a high damage, beefy character which means that he can not only afford to make more mistake due to larger HP/stun pool but he dishes out more damage meaning he can punish mistakes harder. Cammy has decent damage but low HP/stun so she has to make far less mistakes. And tournament matches are NOT play out of 10, they are played out of 5 matches at best. This means that in a tournament setting, with nerves, pressures, limited matches and other extraneous circumstances.... that 6-4 match up is very evenish especially a high damage, high HP character versus low HP character. And remember, even at his best Balrog can still win 4 games off of Cammy and it's very likely that in a tournament, that's those 3 crucial matches that he ends up winning in the end.

This is the same thinking as to what allowed KBR to win all the way to EVO in Marvel 3. If you asked any Marvel head then they would tell you that KBR's team is in fact not top tier, some would say it's just mid tier. But the team can make more mistakes but severely capitalizes off of the mistakes of others making it a very good tournament teams but lousy team for long set matches (KBR's record in long sets is actually pretty bad compared to most top players because of this).


That's why we can't exactly rely on pure match up chart either and why tournament results are a factor too. I think the most accurate tier list comes from a combination of both... results oriented and theoretical knowledge. And an accurate tier list cannot really be made without full theoretical knowledge and a high enough result sample size.



Edit: I made a long post and didn't realize the matches have started... this post is definitely going to get super ignored now!
 
T

TheSpoiler

Member
Holy shit that was crazy.

And nah, Dahbomb, that was a really good post. Which is why all this BIRDIE IS TOP TIER talk is killing me. Though tiers being what they are in SFV - and for that matter, other modern fighting games - shit is really condense compared to the yesteryears of absolute bullshit.

Not that Rog ain't bullshit sometimes though.
 
H

HardRojo

Member
How is it looking on TBS? Wish I could watch but I'm not from the land of the free
at pretty much every FG that isn't Mahvel.
 
N

Nemesis121

Member
Never knew this game was so vibrant, colors look really nice on my TV watching on TBS, playing on a monitor my color settings are different...
 
J

jman2050

Member
So question, does Punk have to lose twice in the Group Finals to get taken out or is it straight single elim from there?

EDIT - Never mind, saw how the brackets work.
 
T

TheSpoiler

Member
I think Momo could take this tbh.

But Momo needs to get just a little more Eita in him.

jett said:
Well if as a non-murican all I'm gonna get is scraps then it will surely be dead to me.
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lol it's one tournament. And at least you get to see the actual matches on Twitch.
 
H

HardRojo

Member
If this is to become a yearly thing, I can see myself shelling out up to $30 to be able to watch the whole thing, including on demand, as long as they don't totally screw over free viewers.
Edit: Maybe $20, $30 seems to be a bit too much.
 
J

JHoNNy1OoO

Member
JayEH said:
what's so bad about this. it's by far the best matches and production so far in SFV.
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Seriously. Everything about this is top notch. 3 minute commercials in between setups is not much longer than what we normally get. At least the matches are completely uninterrupted. Format is perfect for TV.
 
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