Smash is a mental game. At their heart, all fighting games are. Each match comes down to keeping common pressure, finding patterns inside your opponent's play, and building a game plan to beat them. But if Smash is a big brain game, then, who are the biggest brain characters? Who are the characters with some of the deepest mind games and the most intricate game plans? It's pretty tough to say. Pretty much every character in Ultimate can be played in a big brain way. What? Were you expecting a crom joke here? Seriously, every character can be a smart character in the right hands. And you can learn how to play those characters in smart ways by heading over to ProGuides.com. We've got coaches, courses from the pros, and character guides to help you play smarter. The truth is, some characters do have play styles that take more thought. Some characters have more tools and ways to trick opponents than others. Some characters have more things a player needs to keep their mind on than others. Some characters fit the big brain play style better right out of the gate. We're going to start off with the expected. You probably knew Snake was going to be on the list because how could he not be? Sure, it's true that the frame 1 grenade can make scrambled situations easier to think about, and it is true that Nikita is pretty easy to understand and use for edge guarding. But if you want to unlock Snake's full potential, you've got a lot to think about. Playing Snake decently means keeping track of all these tiny projectiles and traps that can blow up in your face. Playing Snake well means tracking the location of your opponent, learning their patterns, and adjusting your grenades and minds to them. It's not just reading your opponent either, it's also understanding Snake's many ranges. Snake has a lot of different throw arcs on his grenade that can help him place his grenades in unique ways. How he places them will then determine where he and his opponent can go. Since he has to shield his own grenades to avoid damage, he has to know his grenades, timings, and the reactions that provoke better than his opponent does. This makes Snake super big-brained in the sense that he gets even tougher to play when an opponent has matchup experience. For example, E-SAM rarely loses to any Snake player because he practices with MVD. He knows how the explosions work and what to look for. To do really well with Snake and beat players who know the matchup, you have to be playing unlike four layers of Yomni. Okay now it's time to hit you with a hot take. Pichu is actually one of the biggest brand characters in the cast, at least since his nerf. Since his nerf, Pichu is one of the few characters that has a limit on the move he can throw out. Now that Pichu is masochism has been dialed up in arch, he can't spam Thunder Joltz a neutral like he used to. His weaker forward tilt also makes you have to actually think about how to kill the opponent now rather than just running around the stage throwing out the big toe. Pichu also has to consider DI for his up throw into Thunder Kill confirm, unlike inklings up throw confirm. Pichu does have great edge guarding tools but they aren't nearly as free as Pikachu's because Pikachu can die very early by taking a hit that close to the blast zone. On top of all that, Pichu's quick attack also doesn't have a hitbox, meaning that he doesn't have the great mostly risk free movement tool Pikachu has. And that's pretty big because a stiff wind can kill Pichu. As the lightest character in the entire game by a pretty big margin, you're taking a risk just by playing the character. Two players need to seriously think about their approaches. If they mess up big time, they could lose their stock at 60%. If they just whiff in the opponent resets, chances are Pichu still gets some percent from hurting itself. We don't usually think of rush down characters as big brain because it just looks like running up and hitting people. And sometimes it is, but some rush down characters have more to think about than others and we think Pichu falls into that category. Hero got a lot of flack as RNG the character early into his lifespan and he does have a ton of RNG, but the RNG isn't necessarily easy to abuse. It often gives you a lot more to think about. First there's the raw reading comprehension you have to acquire so you can quickly pick options out of down special. Second there's knowing what those options actually do. There are a ton of projectiles in that list with a lot of different hitboxes and speeds. And finally there's the decision making aspect behind all of it. You gotta read the menu, know the exact effect of the spell, read the situation, and then pick the best option. If all that weren't enough, picking some spells like buffs will take them off the table and manipulate the RNG behind your next draw. So there's this weird card counting luck manipulation factor in there too. Even if you don't use Hero's menu spells very often, you still have a lot to think about. Hero isn't very fast and relies on his range and his disjoints to keep opponents away. Where some characters have go-to moves that they can use to play keep away, Hero doesn't. Hero needs to know when to use his side or neutral special and to be careful about whiffing moves. Hero was a very paradoxical big brain character though, because he's crazy good in casual play. Quick thinking may unlock Hero's full potential competitively, but in the chaos of the casual match, Hero's potential is already unlocked. We also tend to think of luck as skillless and brainless, so we'd think Hero would be easier for having a luck factor. But usually it just means Hero players have to react on the fly more and can't rely on a mental flow chart as much because his options aren't as consistent. Let's keep these owners rolling with Duck Hunt. Duck Hunt is kinda like Snake, but if Snake were worse and took even more thought to play to compensate for that. Like Snake, Duck Hunt does have a frame-1 defensive option to make getting out of combos a lot simpler. However, Duck Hunt has an even worse recovery than Snake and doesn't have the same way class, so he can't afford to take damage and get thrown into disadvantage as much. Duck Hunt has to keep his opponent down by swarming them with hip boxes that only Duck Hunt players really understand. And because Duck Hunt doesn't have any super great kill options, he's gotta do this for a while, which gives opponents time to learn, react, and get through the arcade obstacle course he sets up. Duck Hunt means do get an added advantage in that few people will know the matchup. However, once they do, Duck Hunt has to think even harder and set up more complex and off-kilter traps. Those traps have a lot of goofy mechanics that Duck Hunt needs to keep track of, too. Duck Hunt needs to know the HP of the can in addition to its trajectory. Duck Hunt also needs to know when his wild gunman will shoot and how that shot will send and damage the can. If you play this character, you also have to sort that information through the visual chaos that is Duck Hunt. There are cans, cowboys, and clay discs flying through the air and everything is exploding and you gotta know what to do next after each explosion. It makes sense that Olamar is a big-brained character because he's got that big ol' noggin. This Space Man was a little bit easier before the nerf when he could spot dodge and up-smash with impunity. He could still spot dodge and up-smash, but now with a little bit more punty. Olamar often seems really easy and brain-dead to people because his top players will dance around the competition, constantly staying a pickman's length away. However, it's a lot harder to do than you'd think because Olamar is surprisingly slow. His run speed is well below average and his initial dash is the worst in the game. Olamar players have to have a good mind not only for their defensive options, but for how to turn those defensive options into offense. Olamar's combos and damage can be pretty sick and not that tough to execute. The tricky thing is thinking about how to keep out a reach with that slow speed, but close the gap when you do get your turn in advantage. And that's just the beginning. Olamar has five different pickmen, which means he has five different versions of most of his moves. Olamar's grab is more vulnerable and longer reaching with certain pickmen and a certain pickmen count. Olamar's range and thus zoning potential is weaker with certain pickmen. Overs will kill at different percents with different pickmen. Olamar has to manage and change the lineup for different situations. That means finding the space to pull pickmen and sometimes hurl pickmen into the dark of this to get a different lineup. If Olamar isn't careful and runs out of pickmen, a lot of his moves don't work. Fortunately for the space man, he has some really good players championing him. The buzz and chuteon can make Olamar look really easy, but managing the pickmen lineup and staying out of range of the enemy takes some serious brain power. That's it for our top five most big-brained characters. In a game with over 70 characters, there are a lot of other big-brained characters out there too. There are even a few honorable mentions we couldn't get to. For example, Pac-Man mains have to know what all those fruits do, the order they show up, the fire hydrant, the water, and the general insanity that comes with all that. Rosalina and Luma mains have to keep an eye on that star and know a lot of bits of micro spacing to play optimally, and chic mains really have to work to get kills, either conditioning and reading the opponent's recovery or reading opponents in the tech chase and landing a big hit. Who do you think are the biggest brain characters in Ultimate? Who are some of the most brain-dead characters? Let us know in the comments and be sure to hit the subscribe button so you can get all our big brain tips. If you want to make the really smart play, head over to proguides.com and take advantage of our live coaching platform and lessons from the pros.