Ginger's Tier List Blew My MIND

[@johnmietus4801]

"ganons wincon is actually just to hit the opponent" facts

[@jaysean9589]

True. One or two of those and that's that.

[@Thrallking]

Still it's somehow hard to do against a fox that has even one brain cell left.

[@valen9850]

The comment about fox being good at essence vs puff being the reason he's good in the matchup shattered my mind and sent me to an alternate dimension

[@Easy801]

I think this kind of concept would work extremely well on a scatter plot, because then you could look at a character’s essence and fill score separately and then analyze any trends that you can see

[@_Majunior]

i agree

[@myboy_]

SOMEbody didn't watch the whole video

[@Easy801]

@@myboy_ I did though? Where did they mention scatter plots? They mentioned measuring individual values but they didn’t talk about graphing data

[@Pslamist]

"At the end of the day, you know what Roy's gonna hit you with." - Ginger, who never thought Roy would get him off stage and hit him with side b + side b + rising dair

[@Rael0505]

:poggerga:

[@Pslamist]

@@Rael0505 - WE MEET AGAIN.

[@deep_cuts2019]

n0ne is the most fill player and he plays (according to this list) the most essence character. His tag is literally his denial of Falcon’s essence. And yet he is among the best players (and falcons) in the world. What does that tell us?

[@vaffanculoutube]

that n0ne is sick

[@leeleeisgay]

falcon dialectics

[@devilmaycrysarockingdontcome]

That melee is fucking cool

[@Skapes11238]

That ginger can't beat falcon so he's salty

[@deep_cuts2019]

@@Skapes11238 I dunno, I've heard him say that he loses to the big three falcons because they are better players than he is, not due to characters. That didn't sound too salty to me

[@Rael0505]

I have no clue what fill and essence are lmao

[@SheeshFr]

Me either. I read what the mean here in the comments and I still think they're oversimplifications.

[@micahheneveld5739]

Characters that rely on essential moves or combos, fill is the opposite. It's much easier to read the playstyle of pure essence than it is to read all fill.

[@ubberJakerz]

It's like how much a character relies on their respective bread and butter

[@ubberJakerz]

@@Rael0505 Honestly I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about, but it seems to me that the more a character relies on a small (essential) set of moves, the more "essence" they are. Like falcon is stomp or knee for the most part. Puff is Bair rest I guess. But falco has so many kill options

[@eu4um]

I was confused too at first but I THINK I got it. Essence is based on how one note the character is, or how much they're looking for that one ESSENtial option. Falcons looking for stomp/grab>knee, puff for uthrow>rest, IC's and DK looking for grab. Fill is just the opposite (filled out or well rounded i presume) Fill is the karate master who has spent 20 years practicing 4 styles. 5 years per style. Essence is the master who has spent 20 years practicing 1 style. Or to use an ATLA analogy: Aang is Pure Fill, Zuko is Mostly Fill, Katara is Mostly Essence, Azula is Pure Essence.

[@youtubecensorsspeech6672]

ginger is so far up his own sauce

[@buuuuuuuuuugg_____g]

best comment

[@deep_cuts2019]

Don’t you mean, lost in his own ass?

[@lambchu6459]

@@deep_cuts2019 Just because you dont understand it, doesnt mean its not of substance

[@gallowpole9455]

@@lambchu6459 And you know what has substance? That's right, sauce.

[@deep_cuts2019]

@@lambchu6459 Nah I'm just kidding dude, I really like this video/concept. I was just joking that Rose kind of mixed the phrases "lost in the sauce" and "up his own ass"

[@Gamesforus1]

idk why essence vs fill makes me laugh, I understand it, but like... idk its just one of those super melee things.

[@PokemonWalkthroughDS]

Why do I simultaneously find this conversation absurd while also completely understanding lmao

[@lambchu6459]

When i think of ESSENCE i think of something being boiled down to just one or two options. Think of the terminology "In Essence." When i think of FILL i think of drumming, and there's certain times in songs where drummers can improvise whatever they like until they inevitably have to be brought back to their bread and butter. Those times are called "fills."

[@HUMAN234789561290]

I think ginger is a percussionist so it's possible haha

[@rektyrektingson4668]

Agreed

[@deltatin2758]

When I hear fill I think filler-

[@MATTierial]

I'm so glad we have people like Ginger who looks at this 2 decade old game and decides to make a tier list about essence and fill. It's all about perspectives.

[@Berlinwood27]

how that twitch user said down smash with samus, toph said nah you've never played samus, then ginger said it and didnt say shit LMAO

[@senjoFan69]

Glad someone pointed it out 😂

[@nessbrawlaaja]

ginger mentioned the charge shot thing too though

[@Kybroma]

I have to say it man, Toph, you're killin it my dude! I'm loving the content, and the attitude man!

[@billymcneil7693]

In ginger’s stream this turned into a complete meme and then turn into completely dumbness and it was beautiful

[@PeppySweetheart]

Keep up the good vids Toph! 💜

[@octo_contra]

melee philosophy hour with Toph and Ginger, I'd listen to that podcast as a low-dimensional netplay falco the last segment is gonna make me think long and hard about the second character I'm gonna pick up and the decision will probably be informed by this tier list to some extent! Sick content.

[@IanZWhite00]

This is one of my favorite videos of all time

[@FrostPhoenix0]

I think one way you can look at essence vs fill is like this. In any given matchup, how many moves would you need to remove from a character in order to make them invalid in the matchup. If you can remove only one or two moves, and the character becomes useless, then they are more essence based. If you need to remove more moves, they are more fill based. This doesn't exactly cover everything, but it's a way to start thinking about it.

[@larrybadabingbadaboomba9785]

wtf is essence and fill

[@jmarvins]

I had never heard of these concepts til this tweet, but this is my understanding: Essence - the character is based around a few "essential" qualities which they are constantly playing for/around (what Toph is calling "win conditions"). Think wobbling, Rest, RTC - things that the whole neutral game ends up revolving around in matchups with that character. Fill - the character is based on having a wide variety of options that can account for all different situations, i.e. rather than having an "essence" that the character is playing around, the character has tools to "fill" various roles and adapt to new situations. Think Falco, who can always invent combos but doesn't have any centralizing kill moves he is constantly playing for (even his dair requires comboing to the edge to spike into a kill, and is only situationally the best kill move to go for).

[@larrybadabingbadaboomba9785]

@@jmarvins cool.

[@hahahalala-i1x]

essence = optimal playstyle spiraling into one win condition, or when a win condition is dependent on the character's single tool (i think ganon is the exception in ginger's tier list) filler = the opposite of essence, where a player can still find success being free flowing, with more self expression I BELIEVE. filler is a little bit more abstract to me just wanted to get my take in so i can get other's people perspective on my own thoughts

[@Kybroma]

I might be misunderstanding, but I think it's just the difference between relying on essential moves, and relying on filler moves. Characters high on the essence side of things, seem like they can win just using their essential moves (knee, rest), where characters lower on the Fill side, have to rely on a lot of filler in order to get kills. (think Kirby generally has to fill a lot of it's gameplay time up with low damaging moves, in order to get to a point where you have a clear win condition)

[@xlilsasuke4x]

Watch the first 15 seconds of the video my guy

[@michaelcastelpoggi1735]

Watching mang0 combos in 2021: THAT WAS SO FILL

[@bubsadoozy]

Cool tier list idea but there is a particular match up for most characters where you could argue the opposite. Falco - Puff / YL - Puff. are two that immediately come to mind.

[@grovestreet1520]

This is a pretty fascinating breakdown of m/u meta and even player styles. How cool!

[@its_vedra]

For those that don't understand: Essence = fishers Fill = mashers

[@themysticfedora]

Well put

[@johnstacey3927]

That's not exactly true. In what world can you mash with falco and win. I think Essence=confirm Fill=Custom Is what your looking for

[@lambchu6459]

@@johnstacey3927 more accurate

[@its_vedra]

@@johnstacey3927 "In what world can you mash with falco and win" low/mid level netplay lol But in all seriousness yea i agree with ur opinion. its probably a lot more accurate

[@wtflol6969]

This tier list is super interesting haha. I think it's really obvious how accurate this is when you consider that most people hate playing all the characters that are in the essence tiers, since they kinda have to play "lame" to win.. i.e. rely on their few essential moves.

[@lambchu6459]

Coolest Melee tier list ive seen.

[@lambchu6459]

maybe coolest tier list ever.

[@tagNickname55]

Wow this blew my mind, What a great tier list. Essence and fill are a bit confusing as terms, but the way I see it: Essence is this idea that there are very clear, obvious, and effective things you are going for that define your character, while fill is the absence of that.

[@muqmanor]

When Ginger first dropped this list I saw it on Twitter and had no idea what "Essence vs. Fill" meant, so I Googled it. And then Ginger's tweet was the very first result, lmao

[@kyuuketsukikun420]

Gannon is pure essence the one thing they work towards is a combo video (sometimes from the wrong side) everything else is secondary

[@Masaru_kun]

n0ne is the most fill player in the game but apparently falcon is the most essence

[@thenewyorkhip-hopspot5485]

Wait how is pichu not pure essence it’s jus nair

[@xlilsasuke4x]

But does getting the 1st nair lead to a kill like jigglypuff with up throw rest

[@Back2Zack]

He actually has grab upair dsmash dtilt uptilt as well. I think the nair is just the best move. Its kinda like shine is essential to being a spacie and their play style but it doesn't solely constitute how they have to play to win. They have other tools.

[@Barkchip]

Love seeing gingers chat show up in numbers in this stream

[@ryanlucht6625]

(samus main) one thing i always thought was interesting about samus is the nature of her essence and fill. think about it, all her moves are either pure fill or pure essence Essence: charge shot, hard missile, up-tilt, down smash, forward smash, nair, back air, crouch Fill: bomb, soft missile, forward-tilt, up smash, forward air, up air, wavedash Shes the only character in the entire game with two seperate side-bs and i think that embodies this idea pretty well. or maybe its more of a general "soft cutesy move vs big beefy move" thing but I do think thats what the developers where going for.

[@daisuke4bleach]

Dude samus should be on all fill honestly.

[@ryanlucht6625]

@@daisuke4bleach not really

[@daisuke4bleach]

@@ryanlucht6625 👍 I think so

[@Skapes11238]

The only reason Falcon is in the top spot is because Ginger cannot beat falcon eventhough he has a winning match up against the character AKA he's salt.

[@Back2Zack]

I think its because of how important his punish is and how effective certain punishes are *cough stomp knee cough* Because he is so easy to combo and to edgeguard... his essence is "hit them and make it hurt".

[@24hourcoffee]

This is not that kind of tier list, it's not ranking characters best to worst. This is about playstyles v kits/win conditions.

[@JackFlash771]

@@24hourcoffee But I think it's also throwing shade at people who play those characters, cuz it's suggesting they're easier, simpler, or require less thinking.

[@buggybaguette5916]

@@JackFlash771 well, puff and ices definitely require less thinking than falco, marth and the links

[@JackFlash771]

@@buggybaguette5916 For sure less tech skill/solo practice and wobbling ICs are almost a single player game, but level of "thinking" is debateable imo.

[@TimmWith2Ms]

This tierlist but Essence/Fill put on an X/Y axis would define the characters more fully IMO. Also, Toph having a mindblown.gif is quintessential melee-is-sick

[@AppleCider56]

Slightly confused by the logic for Falcon, considering the top 3 have completely different playstyles

[@ricolamuerte8976]

cool discussion. I THINK I UNDERSTAND FILL AND ESSENCE NOW.

[@milk4you1200]

Great video Toph

[@pexy94]

I remember watching this live. It expanded my melee brain.

[@MangoFishSocks]

What makes Falcon the most pure essence in the game? I feel like things like nair spacing and up-air poking through platforms to discourage and condition the opponent into a grab or stomp at least puts him behind Icies and Puff. Probably any answer here could pretty easily sway me waaay into the other direction.

[@James-ek3mb]

Yeah I feel the same way. n0ne is the perfect counterexample, but maybe they're talking about how typical falcons play? I'm guilty of bread and butter falcon for sure lol

[@brucewolff6894]

toph these videos are perfect to listen to when I need to do work thanks for the contact

[@jacobcampbell6005]

Peach main here, trying to figure out how she's "mostly essence" and can't even think of what her essential move would be. Obviously downsmash is great, but it's more something you use opportunistically than fish for. Other than that what could it even be, nair? Peach can kill off any aerial, dsmash, a grab... Can combo into a kill, can ledge guard for it, or can get it off a stray hit. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the concept but she definitely feels more on the fill side to me

[@duckfeet3912]

I think she belongs at the edge of fill and essence. Her game plan of spacing with FC fairs, turnips and other FC airals leads her to a certain game plan. Then once the opponent is offstage edge guard with turnips and float. Her most essence part is her spacing game which is really most of what peach does. Honestly he might be calling FCs in general her essence, but that feels weird to me because Peach is much more than turnips and FC airals

[@drinkmug]

Hey I'm Kao, the 3rd guy in the voice call in this video and I can say that I'm somewhat of an expert on this topic. Peach spends a lot of time dicking around with floats or a ground game but is pretty much fishing for a dsmash or a dash attack a lot of the time.

[@0penGamer]

changed my mind with the win screen bulge for sure. that is essence

[@timothyalarcon9184]

I just watched all 21 min and i still have no idea wtf essence and fill is

[@williamwilliam4944]

He explained it multiple times.... the more essence a character is, the more they rely on their win condition

[@myboy_]

Take a sip every time someone in chat asks for an explanation of essence vs fill

[@BlackHole-wc8vr]

Can someone explain what fill and essence are exactly

[@gwen6622]

who is the other voice besides toph and ginger? this video is mindblowing though for sure lol

[@riosol8950]

does fill just mean they cant kill?

[@PG13xStevieG]

Nope

[@BeBanthenz]

Actually quite an entertaining video for being about arbitrary ways to rank video game characters

[@Swampson1738]

Loving the vids toph

[@sam.lipchutz]

I really like that outro music

[@brendanleong9715]

This video proves the creators had absolutely no idea how deep of a game they made

[@jamesdongvideos]

This could also be interpreted as a tier list of character and their neutral to punish game ratio, with IC's for example having a bad neutral but comparatively good punish, and Falco having a much better neutral but more difficult punishes?

[@daisuke4bleach]

Samus should definitely be in either of the bottom 2 tiers

[@suborilltakeitpersonally290]

Someone explain what this is, I'm not very smart.

[@night8002]

this reads like a horoscope

[@jrkb89]

What's essence and fill?

[@Finneagan]

Peach is only essence against fast fallers. Against literally every other character she's either mostly fill or all fill.

[@CarloVaccariPlus]

This actually works well for thinking about Ultimate characters too.

[@EduardoGarcia-yd8qr]

arent like 85% of the ultimate roster purely fishing for one or two setups which makes them mostly pure essence characters?

[@CarloVaccariPlus]

@@EduardoGarcia-yd8qr I feel the essence in Ultimate comes in different stages. There are characters who have bread-and-butter damage racking (essence) who don't have notable kill setups like Palutena, and the opposite with characters like Inkling who have many ways to build damage but very "essence" kill confirms. But yes, at kill percents, nearly all Ultimate characters act like Falcons itching for that stomp knee. Probably the only exception I can think of is Lucina who is extremely "fill" in both damage racking and killing.

[@koitsuga]

Correct take on Marth being next to Peach

[@cstick2664]

What even is Fill and Essence? I’m so confused

[@MageKirby]

I think I understand and like what the idea of Fill and Essence is going for. But I don't think Ginger is being a bit wishywashy with some of the placements.

[@kadensmith8851]

I've never encountered a more niche video

[@1122markj]

I want to hear in YOUR words reader! "What is Essense and Fill"?

[@koitsuga]

Black Marth is all essence. Green Marth is all fill.

[@calebrobinson6406]

wth is essence and fill

[@help4599]

I feel like a tier list doesn’t accurately represent the ideas being put forth. We need like a political alignment chart.

[@TheSarenarass]

just think of essence as characters that are significantly worse if you take away one (or a few) move(s). Take away Falcon knee, dthrow, dair.. useless. Take away Icies wobbling/hand-offs, dsmash. Take away puff bair, rest. etc. Now for Falco (fill), sure you could take lasers, but the rest of his moves are still great. His nair is good, bair is good, dair is good, shine is good, side b is good, dsmash is good, fsmash is good, utilt is good.. etc. Similarly, Kirby doesn't really have any iconic move so taking away any one move also doesn't hurt him.

[@woobinthescrub]

is this the new honesty

[@Sir_Robin_of_Camelot]

Ganon, Marth, and sheik to essence. Samus to mostly fill.

[@williamwilliam4944]

Bowser to essence too. Just up b oos pretty much

[@MINISWISS1]

Am I only the one that doesn’t know what fill or essence means in this tier list

[@ChamplooMusashi]

essence meaning the playstyle gravitates towards a single point. ex. ics playstyle is wobbles, jiggs is bair rest, etc. fill means the opposite of that.

[@jjrambles683]

2:17

[@melee9183]

We need to graph this

[@Paradockzz]

5:10 is Toph incredibly high or what's up

[@rocket117]

probably an involuntary action to being excited about learning, mental strength manifesting as physical

[@SheeshFr]

Essence & Phil -- a hulu original

[@tedbonnot8910]

lol you can so tell this was made by a falco player, no one else would be delusional enough to put falco anywhere other than #1 pure essence

[@NecroGarfunk]

Wait what? I can't for the life of me understand how Falcon is the most 'essence' character, especially ahead of the likes of Puff n IC. Like maybe if Wizzy was the only Falcon lol, even then I'd put him lower than IC and Puff. But then you have n0ne who plays like the exact OPPOSITE of Wizzy. If the character were pure essence, why would both of these players have such widescale success with him? Either that's a joke or I'm missing something here. also sorry johnny i love you too but you're not at the extreme end of a spectrum like the other two

[@weekenddrew3330]

Lol every character in Ultimate is Pure Essence

[@feargripper]

Yo that’s straight up untrue

[@paperbags1924]

Play shiek and tell me that again

[@EduardoGarcia-yd8qr]

yeah...which means there are limited ways to express yourself in ultimate. I remember Leffen saying that if Ultimate had rollback online then people would realize ultimate's flaws at a much faster rate and it would grow dull quickly.

[@feargripper]

@@EduardoGarcia-yd8qr leffen will try to convince you any game other than melee is awful

[@randompianist8359]

​@@paperbags1924 shes really not as complex as people make her out to be, her combo game is hard to execute but in neutral its very obvious what move shes looking for at what percent. low-mid percent its fair/nair, high percent its dtilt. obv theres some other moves in specific circumstances like ftilt for the ftilt double up air kill confirm but like p much every character in ultimate her neutral is v straight forward

[@ukmell]

filled up full

[@SufferDYT]

This topic is bad but also happens to be good content.

[@EDoyl]

Jesse what are you talking about

[@BacchusGames]

Yo toph, love the videos you have been putting out, but can you turn down the endcard music? It's notably louder than your speaking and it is pretty jarring.

[@PG13xStevieG]

Hard read it with a down hold on the volume rocker, smh noob

[@Chucboris]

Wait Toph has a youtube? i should subscribe to support my favorite content creator

[@tjtribble.]

I have no idea what any of this means

[@awogbob]

I feel personally attaked... all my mains are in pure essence. Tbh I think this marks a divide in the smash community. Getting netplayed by the same brain dead falco and marth combos hurts my smash creative soul. I main DK not because im mindlessly going for a few things but because I feel like he has a lot left to explore. Tho as I was typing this Toph read my mind and said how 1 dimensional netplay falcos peter out at high level. Maybe im just too much ofa noob for this tier list.

[@sprout6447]

I don't have essence or fill, can't have shit in Detroit

[@su9cp]

0:17

[@danielwarren3138]

Gurning levels are a tad high

[@bool_master]

I love ginger with all my heart

[@luisserrano9355]

he is a model student

[@ParagonPKC]

this is assuming you can't have different playstyles

[@williamwilliam4944]

You can, but there are certain playstyles that are objectively better/used more often depending on the character. You're not gonna win very often if your playstyle is centered around zelda's up air rather than fair/bair, for example

[@Mar10Man94]

Yoshi is pure essence.

[@grashoprsmith]

Eating into the mic...

[@YURTZYN42]

i'm sorry, but if dk is pure essence, bowser is even more lol he's literally "upBoos, the character". There isn't room to do much else..

[@jpserrano1605]

5:15 Sheik

[@markbarlescu1853]

yoooo CATHERINE mahhhh brahhhh!!!!

[@legitqs4098]

He kinda looks like short red haired tweek

[@sauzeefy]

bowser should be at the top tbh

[@MWiit]

I'll say it. This list makes no sense lmao. Every example is just like "oh despite having plenty of bread and butter options the way they get to those options is sooooo fill". It's a cool list and idea but I can't buy it into it after hearing constant contradictions. No hate tho.

[@yamezjournal3916]

Yeah there also contradictory logic being used. Clearest example is how the same reasoning is used to draw opposite conclusions about Roy and Sopo.

[@CloneHat]

Ginger puts FALCO in pure fill lmao Flowchart ass top tier

[@williamwilliam4944]

I agree. I'm a falco main and he's really essence, even at the top level. Laser, dair, utilt, shine = gg

[@zacclark5945]

@@williamwilliam4944 Watching people sdi his shine and have good DI in general makes a lot of his stuff much less guranteed.

[@williamwilliam4944]

@@zacclark5945 that doesn't make him entirely fill. I would put falco one tier higher than entirely fill. To say that he doesn't rely on those 4 attacks is dishonest, even if they aren't guaranteed punishes

[@zacclark5945]

@@williamwilliam4944 It's not about relying on the attacks it's about game plan. Roys game plan is always f smash because that's the only way he will kill your. Falco can gimp, edge guard, pressure, kill off the top, f smash you. Thus he is fill

[@ParagonPKC]

all I know is everyone dislikes the characters I pick either way lmao

[@garo7839]

???

[@leaffinite2001]

Marth should be in essence cuz grab

[@GusJenkinsElite]

I know Ginger is sick, and breakdowns like this are cool for their abstraction. However, would you see IBDW or Zain taking time to make something like this, instead of grinding?

[@koitsuga]

Hey man, I'm sure Zain and IBDW contribute to the culture sometimes. Not everyone can be a multi-achieving polymath like Ginger.

[@TheRoguay]

Great comment man 👍