How to Choose Your Main in Melee

[@aprfinancing481]

you forgot the other fox negative: the fate of your hands

[@Arch3rDota]

or -200$ for a box :)

[@jakepalmer8201]

Or 5$ for z-jump! I played Melee and gained Fox for years, than picked up Ult cause my hands started dying when it dropped, went back to Melee when Slippi dropped and never went back. Z jump spared my hands of being able to play Melee

[@tadskerzhakov]

Damn you did ICs dirty

[@yobobby9]

Here my pro/cons, I would change some stuff. It is also in tier list order. S tier: Fox - Can play any style but is a rush-down character. It is easy for him to get %, deal with zoners and kill off the top. Cons - easy to combo, can get outranged and everyone plays him. He is good on every stage except FD where he gets chain-grabbed and beats every character except Marth/Falco which is close to even. I would watch Leffen as his fox will teach you the game the cleanest. Marth - he focuses on juggling, grabs, edge-guards and spacing/zoning. He is weak only if someone is under him, kill confirms or he mis-space attacks. He goes even or beats everyone in the game besides Sheik. His worst stage is Dreamland, but best is FD. Watch Zain, or if you want to play more simple then Kodorin. A tier: Falco - he is good at controlling the pace of the match, which leads to better stage/platform control, mixups and his pillar combos. He has the best spike/D-air in all of smash games. His weakness is he is easy to combo, recovery and lack of a grab game. He goes even with all characters except for Falcon who he beats. He is good on all stages but focus on the tri-plat stages for better combos+neutral. I would watch PPMD or Ginger since mang0 is too advance for right now. Watch him after a while to learn mixups and combos. Jigglypuff - If you like aerial combat, edge-guards and high risks/high rewards. She is for you, her weakness is her slow ground game and light weight. She is great on Dreamland and FD, avoid Stadium. She wins or goes even against every character besides Marth & Fox. Watch Hbox, but still learn all the fundamentals of the game like L cancelling. Sheik: If you like grapplers/corner pressure chars, edge guarding and bursts of speed. Her weakness are her approaches, recovery and low %. She beats Marth, losses to Puff and Fox. Then goes even/beats everyone else. She is good on every stage. She technically is the best edge-guarder in the game. Watch Jmook A- Tier: C. Falcon - Rush down brawler, He has speed, power, grab combos and air combos. His weakness is recovery, out of shield options and easily combo’d. He goes even with Puff and Marth. Loses a bit to Fox and Sheik. Loses bad to Falco and beats everyone else. He is good on every stage but FoD. Watch both Wizzrobe & n0ne. Peach: She is a slow defensive wall on both the air and ground, who picks apart the enemy in a close range way. Her weakness is being on the ledge, light weight, speed and approaches. She loses to Fox, Marth and Puff. Goes close to even with Falco, Sheik and Falcon. Then she destroys all mid/low tiers. Her stages change a lot depending in MU but Dreamland is always good. I would watch LLOD and Armada. Trif also has videos of him beating people on slippi. Yoshi: He is a bit janky, but he a counter hit character. He uses aerial armor to hit people after they swing on him. His pros are his shield pressure, weight, hitbox and platform movement. His cons are his out of shield, bad against multi hits and low recoveries. He is the hardest character in the game and needs a lot of homework, without the advance tech he is bad as a baseline. He loses to Fox, Peach and slight loss to Falcon and Sheik. He is good on every stage but FD and Dreamland. Watch Amsa and many tutorials. End of high tier, those are all the characters you can solo-main.

[@yobobby9]

Mid tiers: B Tier * Ice Climbers, they are grapplers that fight on the ground. They have a unique combo game, instead of stringing hits together they do handoffs. Where you grab, hold them in place -> attack -> 2nd Icies grab them and repeat. Then you finish it with a smash attack. They are the 2nd hardest character to play in the game. Their cons are the fact they can be separated and aerial approaches. They beat Sheik, Pikachu and are close against Marth, Falco and Yoshi. They lose to Fox, Puff, Peach and Falcon. Luigi and Samus can give them a hard time. However, their damage output makes it where every MU besides Fox and Puff is doable because they can just kill off a few grabs. They are good on FD, Dreamland and Frozen stadium. Watch Slug and lots of tutorials. * Samus - She has great zoning, defense, recovery and many kill options. Her cons are her approaches, tether grab, missiles clank and has a few moves that don’t work. She does good against Fox, close to a 45-55. She can win against Falco, Puff, Marth and Yoshi. Peach, Falcon and Sheik are pretty tough. She is good on all stages except FD. I would watch a mix of all Samus like Morsecode. Then old plup, Duck and Hug$. Out of all the mid-tiers she is probably the closest to solo-viable. She has no invalidating MUs. Pikachu: He is a rushdown character with lighter damage than Fox and Falcon. He has the best recovery in the game and great edge guarding. His cons are his shield + defense, easy to combo and kill off the top, has 3 moves in neutral, and hard loses to crouch canceling. He does well against Falcon, Marth, Yoshi. And Luigi. He Losses but Sheik, Falco, Samus, Doc are manageable. Then hard loses to Icies, Peach, Puff and Fox. He has chaingrabs on fast fallers on FD, he is good on every stage but dreamland. Overall, he has real strengths but not solo mainable. Everyone under him 100% needs a secondary. * Luigi, he is the king of jank, fast ground movement, has good combos, can break out of combos. However, he is awful in the air, has short range and a weak recovery. His best MU is probably Falcon, Icies and Pikachu. Puff, Sheik camping Falcos and Marths is hard for him to deal with. His stages depend on the MUs, he has a lot of quirks but also has the wavedash that is hard to react too. Watch eddie mexico. * Doc he is kinda an all rounder character, a bit on the slower/heavier side but makes up for that with pills and strength. His weakness is recovery, range, air drift and easy to combo. His best MUs are Sheik, Peach and Puff. He loses to Spacies, Falcon and Marth. He does well against all mid tiers. He relies on fundamentals, brawler type of character, he is less explosive than Luigi making it easier for people to play better against without knowing the MU. Watch Franz

[@yobobby9]

Mid tiers: C tier * Young Link, he sucks against spacies and Falcon but can do well against Floaties. The issue though is that camping is necessary, but also good fundamentals to make use of his speed. Watch Axe or Rocket. * DK - He pretty much is a linear grappler character. He uses bair, up air, grab and giant punch mostly. He can combo every character in the game besides, but can be combo’d just as hard. Watch Junebug. Mario - Weaker to crouch cancelling and less kill power. Just play Doc or Falcon. Watch A rookie * Gannon, just play Falcon literal clone. Watch n0ne or mekk. * Adult Link, he is good against Marth and Peach on non-triplats stages. He does well against Samus and can camp against other mid tiers. Everyone else bodies him just play Marth, Samus or Young Link instead. Watch Aklo or Savestate. Low tier: D tier * Mewtwo - he is probably the last character in the game worth touching on the tier list. He is a glass cannon, but you have to work extremely hard to even have the cannon. He does well against spacies, kinda has a punish game on all types of characters, good recovery. However, his hitbox, lack of cc breaking moves and defense is just too bad. Watch Leffen’s slippi mewtwo. Old Taj or Zoma maybe. Roy - Just play Marth, watch dont test me. Mr. G&W - if you are an aerial based G&W play puff, if you are more grounded/combo oriented play the marios. Watch Forrest or Qerb. Bottom tier D- : (LITERALLY USELESS DONT EVEN PLAY FOR FUN) * Pichu - just play pika or fox. Watch M2Ks. * Zelda - Just play Peach or Puff. Watch Jmook. * Ness - Just play anyone else. Watch Joe_ybats F tier: * Kirby - just play puff or doc. Watch Ginger or Triple R * Bowser - just dont. Watch DJ Nintendo

[@user-it2kq4ty9q]

junebug:

[@smoceany9478]

Low Tiers but not written off as just bad *Ganondorf, hits like a truck but hard to move around with and slow move options, to play this character you absolutely need L cancels and heavy reads are a great tool with him *Game and watch, my main! hes a really fun character, unlike most low tiers his offensive game is one of the best, but he really struggles in the defensive game, his punish game is incredible, and he chaingrabs many top tiers to death. you do have to be careful, he has little defensive options, and if hit can be killed off only a few interactions, this does however make for fast and exciting games, where any hit can kill either player. *Roy, despite being a clone of marth he really doesnt play with him, hes a fast falling sword fighter who prefers to be right next to his opponent, you will have to work hard, but he can combo others like hell *Pichu, really theres not much reason to play him instead of pika, but he moves faster, if you enjoy his movement more than pichu and are willing to put up with being pika lite then use him. *Ness, a DJC character, he has the best F smash in game, able to be spammed in neutral against an opponent not ready for it, his aerials are very good to spam especially with his double jump cancel, spam djc up air and back air, and continue combos with high djc dairs. another glass cannon who can combo very well but his recovery stops him from living very long *Zelda, a slow character whos 2 main moves are fair and bair, id recommend trying to avoid them when starting off so that you can gain a better appreciation for her other moves *Kirby, of all the bottom tiers kirby has the most options, but none of them will be better than your opponents 5th best option, an interesting character whos not dogshit in anything, but not good in anything except tilts either *Bowser, expect to be chaingrabbed, you dont have many options, youre gonna wanna stay on ledge often as his options from ledge are pretty decent, he has no combo game but even a 2 or 3 hit string can do lots of damage, youre gonna also want to spam up b a lot.

[@iammuffin2030]

Saying those are all the characters you can solo main is crazy when axe has been solo maining pikachu for *years* and junebug is getting top 8s with solo main donkey Kong

[@PkThunderMeleeCO]

I’m disappointed on only 5 seconds of talk about Ice climbers. They have mechanics that are unique to only them. To say they “good on the ground and bad in the air” is a simplification of who they are and defeats the purpose of the video. Sounds like the creator heard this at a local and just put that in the video

[@lostgriff]

Multiversus youtuber here trying to pick up melee casually because i'm a big fan of the comp scene. Thanks for the video man.

[@ripjawxx]

Holy shit dude I used to always watch your multi versus videos you should start making melee vids I’d watch

[@remy1452]

Fun video :D I enjoyed your take on the roster a lot, especially the low tiers.

[@logan_beats]

No coverage on anything IC's!

[@Over9k420]

rabbit hole dropped me here, just here to say the man now has 500 ways to stomp knee (i really like the particle accelerator)

[@yellow4525]

Im pretty sure samus is the heaviest floaty

[@happymonkeyfish]

as a puff player i love playing defensively and at the right moment going in aggressively is rewarding as hell

[@antech9986]

'i love camping, and then going in once i've broken their sanity'

[@EmeraldaKasim]

😡

[@happymonkeyfish]

​@antech9986 you'll be happy to know ive refined my gameplan since this comment and now exclusively go for throws off stage in order to kill by 50%

[@brok3n_806]

amazing video but where'd you get that marth document you showed for like two seconds lmao

[@brok3n_806]

nvm i found it but WTF WHY DOES THIS NOT EXIST FOR SHEI- I MEAN EVERYBODY ELSE

[@Arch3rDota]

Glad you found it, it's at melee.guru for anyone else looking :)

[@rapidretrovenue563]

Easiest chars to play. Puff, Doc/Mario, Luigi, maybe young link in that order. virtually anyone can pickup and play these characters to some degree. Best starter characters. Falco, Doc/Mario, Luigi, MAYBE sheik, but idk cuz sheik can create some weird habits. Hardest characters to play (top 5) Yoshi, Mewtwo, Pika, Fox, Falco. Worst starter characters (these characters will likely give you AWFUL habits that u need to break later on or when picking up other characters) Puff, Peach, Marth & ICs.

[@Arch3rDota]

I agree with this list, although I want to add that if a "bad startar character" is the one you find the most fun/fulfilling, I think you should stick with it (I would not play melee if it weren't for puff for example)

[@tkienjoyer]

11:06 reaction techchasing is not at the edge of human reaction time. It's not even close. Pipsqueak has a good video on it, would recommend. Anyone with a reaction time below 400ms can reaction techchase, and everyone has that. Genetics don't mean shit.

[@Arch3rDota]

You're completely right 👍

[@blep3505]

luigi doesn't struggle that much against camping to be honest it can depends ^^

[@Arch3rDota]

Yeah there was a ton of nuance that I missed due to having the video be so short, and with characters I don't have too much experience with like luigi, I just trusted the characters discord members

[@illford]

Tbf after seeing HFox beat Eddy Mexico im convinced he just struggled against any fast moving thing at full hop height

[@neorunic]

didn’t speak about ice climbers :(

[@myboy_]

Great stuff arch. Really cool seeing content by slippi kids, for slippi kids, giving that on-the-ground perspective

[@NIGHT-GAURD]

Main: falco secondary: luigi Play for fun: marth, roy, mario, samus, fox,

[@yobobby9]

Each character archetype, anything mid tier needs a secondary for at least 2 MUs Top: * Fox - Rush down * Marth - Swordy * Falco - Mixup + Zoner * Puff - Keep Away * Sheik - Semi-grappler High tier: * Falcon - Rush down * Peach - Turtle * Yoshi - Air Armor Mid tier: * Icies - Grappler + Puppet. * Samus - Zoner * Pikachu - Pixie * Luigi - Rushdown * Doc - Shoto Counter pick: * Young Link - Zoner * DK - Grappler * Mewtwo - Glass Cannon. Everyone else is not worth the time investment or has a better version.

[@nicolasleroux5302]

I main Pikachu cus he’s cute.

[@Arch3rDota]

Valid

[@myboy_]

Based

[@rakaydosdraj8405]

Back when I played melee (like almost 2 decades ago!) I was a M2 main, because my friend group needed a handicap or I would never get to play.

[@alo1050]

everyone should play fox so we can reach 20XX period.

[@susparia4724]

IC mains dont want to share their secrets 😳

[@Arch3rDota]

That might be the case haha

[@illford]

Yes absolutely

[@intifadayuri]

me: yoshi, pikachu and jigglypuff bcs they re cute and goofy:3

[@ZiNzoRGaming]

The big question is which character do YOU play Arch3r? 🤔

[@Arch3rDota]

I used to be a puff main and 90% of my matches have been on puff, but if (when) I return after my long break, I'm thinking of picking up a spacie :)

[@siennas254]

I love maining link but I don't love every single discord player ever dodging me as soon as they find out I main a low tier

[@Arch3rDota]

True, that's honestly a big disadvantage that I forgot to mention

[@CainCAUS]

Kirby mains really have it rough out here

[@roberdash4079]

Even if i like him, I still wonder why i do play Roy in this game, where he has like, nothing

[@illford]

Fun, you should play someone you enjoy or else you'll stop having fun

[@DublinSeafoodInc]

falco

[@zacharymacaroni7649]

bruh i clicked bc i'm an ICs main and i'm curious what you would say and their segment was 2 seconds 💀did you just fuck up the premier file or something

[@Arch3rDota]

I'm sorry 😔 (I actually enjoy both playing as and against ICs, just wanted to jump on the hate-bandwagon) In my mind at least (and I haven't played melee in probably almost a year now), IC's are the fun version of Luigi. All the fun sliding around but with an actually decent punish game (and a lot more interactive for both players)

[@susparia4724]

Samus is so easy to cheese out your opponent and I love maining her

[@yessfan]

God I hate that thumbnail detail of all the characters staring at your cursor

[@Arch3rDota]

Haha I'm glad you noticed, I agree it's unsettling

[@woodooo]

This is false info, Ness is a top tier

[@chairwood]

I wish. I love Ness

[@chomp4589]

L vid any character is playable in the right hands

[@Arch3rDota]

I agree to a certain extent

[@KieraQ0323]

All 13 of them.

[@Slipdash]

I main kirby out of familiarity at this point since i main him in ultimate. He really can’t do anything in this game.

[@Colebankzz]

jiggs at 3rd made me quit this video. that is insane. no way in fuck is that character there

[@peregrinecovington4138]

You're right, she's at least 2nd

[@curtisplays21]

they are

[@purplesky2369]

too based for you I see

[@user-uq6po8dv6i]

Great video, but very, very hard to understand you. Mumbling with a thick accent is not the way to go. Speak up.

[@Arch3rDota]

Thanks for the feedback, definitely something I'm working on :)

[@ohcomeon1111]

Heres a tip for everyone. Just don't play this old shit game lol

[@Arch3rDota]

Hard disagree :)

[@logan_beats]

Bad take

[@ohcomeon1111]

@@logan_beats infinite ledge grabs Haha

[@logan_beats]

@@ohcomeon1111 haha yeah

[@susparia4724]

:=(