Steve (SSBU)

* Alex
* Zombie
* Enderman
 **Tier** | S+ (**1**)

**Steve** (スティーブ, *Steve*) is a playable character in *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*, the second fighter from Microsoft after Banjo & Kazooie, and the eighth DLC character for *Ultimate*. He was confirmed as a playable character on October 1st, 2020 as the second downloadable character from Fighters Pass Vol. 2. **Alex** (アレックス, *Alex*), a **Zombie** (ゾンビ, *Zombie*), and an **Enderman** (エンダーマン, *Enderman*) also appear as alternate costumes. Steve was released as part of Challenger Pack 7 on October 13th, 2020 and is classified as Fighter #77.

Steve is ranked 1st out of 82 on the current tier list, placing him at the very top in the S+ tier. Steve's ability to create platforms and walls of his own with Mine / Craft / Create Block gifts him with an extremely potent defensive prowess that also grants him great stage control, recovery aid and gimp potential while also allowing him access to a myriad of unique advanced techniques. These blocks also allow him to greatly extend his combos with incredibly fast attacks such as his moving jab attack and axe ladders among others, allowing him to command one of the best advantage states in the game and rack up massive amounts of damage. His damage potential can be further increased by upgrading his toolset with the materials he mines; diamond tools are viewed as a high threat because of it. His back aerial and smash attacks yield incredible kill power, as do his down aerial and TNT, which are notable components in Steve's trapping game. Minecart is not only a useful horizontal recovery tool, but also a command grab, a powerful KO option, and a tool Steve can use to approach opponents. Elytra's gliding mechanics allow Steve to mix up his recovery and can provide him great vertical coverage if angled right. Nearly every move in Steve's arsenal can be used for multiple purposes, such as his down tilt, which can ledgetrap opponents, block projectiles and set up combos.

However, Steve is not without weaknesses. His lackluster aerial and ground mobility hamper his approaching options, and his crouch and crawl are ineffective against projectile attacks. Furthermore, his *Minecraft*-inspired playstyle forces him to constantly mine for materials throughout the match; running out of materials denies him access to certain moves such as Minecart and TNT. Steve's tools will eventually break over a period of usage, leaving him with an ineffective punch attack unless he uses a crafting table to replenish his tools. He can be denied usage of his crafting table (and his toolset) if he is kept airborne and off-stage, while respawning it forces Steve to use up resources. His up smash and down tilt leave him vulnerable to punish should he miss, and while Steve's tool attacks are fast, they have short reach, making them not as effective as a combo disruptor against other characters. Their short reach also forces Steve to engage in close-quarters combat as he lacks a conventional projectile, where he can easily be outclassed by characters with either ranged or disjointed attacks.

Overall, Steve is an incredibly versatile character who is able to manipulate stage terrain to corner opponents, which lets him reap the rewards of an excellent advantage state with massive damage outputs and kill power, on top of already impressive frame data and recovery. Although he has difficulty approaching opponents that outclass him in range, these weaknesses are greatly overshadowed by his strengths and he is considered by many as the best character in *Ultimate*. He has achieved excellent tournament representation and results, with many of Steve's mains such as acola, Onin and Jake ranking within the Top 100. acola achieved widespread success as Japan's best player, winning major tournaments such as Kagaribi 7, Let's Make Moves Miami, Umebura SP 9 and Smash Ultimate Summit 6, among others. Additionally, Onin has placed first at Get On My Level 2022 and Super Smash Con 2022, while Jake established himself as one of the United States' most prominent Steve players during the Wi-Fi era.

Steve quickly became a focal point of contention within the competitive scene following his release, with many in the community calling the character "broken". Although a character ban was discussed and heavily debated on throughout 2022, the February 2023 discovery of a tech involving Create Block that allows Steve to cancel hitstun and immediately act out led to Steve being banned from competing in multiple regions and tournament series.

## Contents

* 1Attributes
* 2Update history
* 3Moveset
	+ 3.1Durability system
		- 3.1.1Tool durability
		- 3.1.2Durability cost
	+ 3.2Announcer calls
		- 3.2.1Steve
		- 3.2.2Alex
		- 3.2.3Zombie
		- 3.2.4Enderman
	+ 3.3On-screen appearance
	+ 3.4Taunts
	+ 3.5Idle poses
	+ 3.6Crowd cheer
		- 3.6.1Steve
		- 3.6.2Alex
		- 3.6.3Zombie
		- 3.6.4Enderman
	+ 3.7Victory poses
* 4In competitive play
	+ 4.1Tier placement and history
	+ 4.2Most historically significant players
	+ 4.3Ban discussion
* 5Classic Mode: Journey to the Far Lands
* 6Role in World of Light
* 7Spirits
* 8In Spirit Battles
	+ 8.1As the main opponent
	+ 8.2As a minion
* 9Alternate costumes
* 10Reveal trailer
* 11Gallery
* 12Trivia
* 13References

## Attributes[edit]

Steve is a fighter who possesses slightly below-average weight and unremarkable mobility. He has the shortest jump out of the entire roster, in addition to a peculiar crouch and crawl based on *Minecraft*'s "sneaking" mechanic where he simply hunches over, neither of which are very useful in battle. In addition to this, his walk speed, initial dash, running speed, and air speed are all among the bottom 10 of the respective stats, with his initial dash in particular being the worst in the game.

Taking many attributes from his home game, Steve is one of the most unique fighters on the roster. His battle strategy almost completely revolves around mining materials from the stage itself for several of his attacks, alongside crafting stronger weapons and the ability to place blocks almost everywhere within the fighting boundaries. These three attributes appear as his neutral special, Mine / Craft / Create Block. Mine can take a lot of time to get the desired materials, but Steve starts each stock with a set amount of materials for him to use, so he's not completely defenseless at the start of a fight. Craft is also fast, and in conjunction with the ability to teleport his crafting table to his current position, makes camping Steve's crafting table an ineffective strategy. Create Block is the most potent out of Steve's options and has a myriad of uses; this includes building temporary walls to interrupt opponents, stalling his recovery or his opponent's followups by standing on a floating block making it arguably one of the best recoveries in the entire series, blocking projectiles, mindgames, and extremely deep edgeguarding and gimping opportunities. Steve can even use the short longevity of Create Block to immediately cancel some of the lag in his grounded moves while in the air such as up smash and down smash, leading to some of the most dangerous and diverse aerial combos in the game should he be able to set it up. Create Block is thus one of Steve's essential techniques, though due to the difficulty of building and managing his resources in combat, it can take much experience to truly master.

Minecart is a powerful side special: by itself, it is a capable KO option, and can be used as a horizontal recovery tool. Uniquely, Steve can jump out of a moving minecart, turning it into a grabbing projectile that can scoop up a foe, forcing them to struggle out of it. This lets Steve follow up with attacks or edgeguard/gimp recovering opponents. By using up gold and redstone, Steve can use powered rails to accelerate his minecart and catch foes off-guard with the sudden burst of speed. Additionally, he can recover the iron used up from creating the minecart if he is the one to break it afterwards. TNT is Steve's explosive down special, and can be set off from afar by the minecart or by a redstone trail to a wooden pressure plate of Steve's creation, which is extremely useful for ledge trapping. However, it acts as a double-edged sword, as the explosion affects everyone including Steve, and the person who triggers the pressure plate takes reduced knockback from the explosion, which can be used in Steve's advantage for mind games, or against him by a crafty opponent. Additionally, Steve can safely detonate TNT if he uses down smash and properly times a buffered air dodge. Elytra requires no materials on Steve's part to use, has a hitbox upon startup, and its *Brawl*-like gliding mechanic allows Steve to mix up his recovery path, thwarting attempts at opposing edgeguards. While its horizontal recovery potential is almost unrivaled, it renders him vulnerable after the initial startup. He is also unable to switch directions after using it and will enter free fall if it is angled too high or hits a solid object, making a misinputted or misangled Elytra fatal.

Apart from his specials, Steve has noticeable strengths in his other attacks. His neutral attack, forward tilt and neutral aerial all involve a rapid sword swing, but unlike Mega Man's similar attacks, Steve's does not stop until the sword in question breaks, allowing him to continue a chain of sword hits for longer in comparison and set up for combos. This rapid-hit property is also seen in his up tilt and up aerial, which can juggle into various moves. His down-tilt flint and steel is a highly useful edgeguarding tool, as its flames are affected by gravity and can repeatedly block off the ledge for a two-frame punish, in addition to absorbing weak projectiles. In the same vein, down smash has lingering hitboxes on both sides and can be used as a semi-spike, especially in combination with Create Block. Steve's forward and back aerials also possess useful perks, the former possessing meteor smash potential if the opponent is hit near the end of the swing and the latter possessing powerful knockback. While his down aerial costs iron to use, Steve's anvil deals exceptional damage and knockback and can be canceled to avoid falling along with the anvil, making edgeguarding with the move far less risky. It should also be noted that his tool based attacks are further improved with high-tier tools, as gold swings faster and can combo more effectively, while diamond has excellent damage and knockback, especially when using his forward smash, forward air, and back air.

Steve's grab game is also respectable. While his tether grab cannot be used to grab the ledge, it can still grab shielded opponents from afar, granting Steve another ranged option to make up for his short-ranged normal attacks. His grab does have a noticable blindspot however, and can be low profiled in certain situations. His back throw angle leaves much to be desired, but his forward throw launches foes in a semi-spike manner and, along with his up throw, have very high base knockback, but average growth, making their KO potential lackluster. His down throw uses iron to slam an anvil on an opponent, dealing very high damage for a throw and sending at a useful angle for followups; however, it becomes incredibly weak without iron, as Steve will simply fling the opponent on the ground.

One of Steve's more powerful attributes is how much he can capitalize off of the advantage. Steve is widely agreed upon to have among the best advantage states in the entire game, with a wide range of tools that can lead to large amounts damage fairly easily, and with combos like axe ladders and pick loops, he can preserve the advantage to last even longer. His advantage stage is also uniquely strong at the edge, where he can place traps with TNT and and use blocks to hinder certain options like jumping. Steve also has a very unconventional neutral game, which in spite of its passivity can be highly effective; Steve can use Create Block to build walls between himself and his opponent, and hide behind them to mine and upgrade his tools, possibly with gold or diamond. The high threat level of diamond tools means that the opponent is usually forced to approach to prevent Steve from crafting diamond tools, and may have to navigate around or destroy the blocks that may have been placed by Steve, which can be exploited by him to more easily find openings for whiff punishing.

Despite his strengths, Steve's attributes present flaws. His mobility is underwhelming, having among the worst ground mobility in the game due to the combination of poor run speed and the worst initial dash in the game (as opposed to most characters of this speed class usually having relatively high initial dash in contrast to their run speed). His aerial mobility is also unremarkable, having poor air speed and very low jump height, to the point where he's unable to reach the lower platforms of Battlefield without burning his double jump. Finally, despite being relatively short compared to an average humanoid character, Steve's crouch and crawl barely reduce his height and his hitstun animations leave him in an upright position, preventing him from ducking under attacks and leaves him vulnerable to being attacked.

His moveset has its own downsides. His down tilt and up smash leave Steve stuck until the animation is finished, making him open to a punish from the sides. While many of his core moves (such as his sword and axe moves) are very spammable, they only cover a very short distance and do not cover below or behind him, leaving Steve without a useful "get-off-me" option against combo-centric opponents, excluding using iron to summon an anvil or building a block to stall his fall, which are only effective with enough iron and within the stage's build limit, respectively. Additionally, the spammability of his moves are held back by Steve's low mobility, making it unwieldy for him to attempt rushdown tactics. His grab's range is offset by its very high ending lag, making his grab game less effective against mobile fighters, and his down throw is significantly less damaging and effective without iron.

Steve's *Minecraft*-inspired playstyle can also leave him in troublesome situations. If he mines more materials than his inventory can fit, he will end up discarding resources that might have otherwise been valuable. This negatively affects Create Block, as it always prioritizes the weakest block first; weak blocks can be broken very easily by hitting them with attacks or hitting the bottom side of the block, making them less effective for edgeguarding or creating a blockade. Additionally, walling off a recovering opponent may not be an effective option, as damaging hitboxes can easily plow through weaker blocks without much trouble, and hitting Steve (or placing them near the build limit) will cause his blocks to break significantly faster. His tools can break if used up enough, forcing him to mine to collect materials and craft to re-upgrade them. Furthermore, getting KO'd results in Steve's tools reverting to wood (though he keeps resources already in his inventory), and mining for materials/crafting new tools can be difficult against faster opponents, who can constantly pressure Steve and deter him from gaining resources. His reliance on materials for the majority of his strongest techniques prevents him from repeatedly using them to a greater extent, due to the glaring downsides of running out of a specific material (ex. his down air and down throw accomplishing nothing with a lack of iron). Careless use of his resources will essentially leave him with almost no useful abilities: the time needed to mine can become very detrimental when fully depleted of resources, or when barehanded/using wooden or stone tools, as it takes a significant amount of time to fully replenish resources or dig for gold/diamond.

His lack of a conventional projectile and short attacking range demands he gets in close to dish out damage, upon which fighters more suited for close combat than Steve can leave him constantly juggled. Steve's recovery, while having amazing horizontal and vertical reach, is also limited in some ways due to his low jump height and airspeed. Elytra takes some experience to get used to, as its mechanics can make it difficult to angle, and it can also be cut short if he bumps into an object. Minecart can be used for horizontal distance, though it does not grant good distance without gold, and cannot be used without iron. (Although Powered Minecart also uses up redstone, it and TNT use so little that running out of redstone never happens without specific setup to do so.) His blocks cannot be placed too far out from the edges of the stage, and the block Steve is standing on deteriorates faster than normal, which can limit his ability to stall offstage due to him requiring materials. TNT can be used in niche situations since it gives Steve a slight vertical boost when dropped in the air, but it's usually not recommended due to its extreme resource cost.

Overall, Steve excels in a strange combination of close-up fighting, stage control, and fearsome edgeguarding, resulting in a large learning curve for players eager to pick him up. His toolkit gives him powerful overall abilities when mastered, some of which are not possessed by any other fighter in the roster; however, poor use of his resources can render him almost helpless and remove some of his best options, and his terrible mobility, compounded by a reliance on fairly linear options for approaching, means he faces an uphill battle against characters that outrange him, or are fast enough to weave around his defenses. Although initial impressions of the character were mixed, dedicated players such as Jake and yonni helped change the character's perception for the better.

## Update history[edit]

The majority of changes Steve received from updates were bug fixes focused on removing game-breaking glitches. Aside from these and an aesthetic change, Steve has only received two balance-oriented changes: version 11.0.0 slightly buffed his down smash by eliminating a blind spot close to Steve, and version 13.0.1 nerfed his up smash by reducing the hitstun of each multi-hit, making Block-canceled up smash follow-ups slightly harder. Ultimately, aside from making the game and character play as intended, Steve is mostly unchanged.

**9.0.1**

* Fixed an issue in which certain characters could fall though the stage when breaking Blocks.
* Fixed an issue in which the anvil from Steve's down aerial could fall through the stage when pinching an opponent with the anvil and a Block.
* Minecart:
	+ Fixed an issue in which fighters could be frozen if hit with Minecart.
	+ Fixed an issue in which Minecart does not hit opponents when reflected off a wall.
	+ Fixed an issue in which a fighter caught by Minecart teleports to the position in which they were caught.
* Steve's up victory pose was changed to remove the Steak after he eats it.

**9.0.2**

* Tap jump will now function correctly for jumping off a falling Anvil after using down air.

**11.0.0**

* Down smash has more range towards Steve, removing a blind spot in the move.

**12.0.0**

* Minecart has been adjusted to prevent certain situations where the opposing fighter would get hit by the minecart, become trapped, and then sometimes go through the landscape.
* Elytra will no longer give Steve extra jumps if he is hit at a certain time during the starting animation.

**13.0.1**

* Hitbox ID 0 of up smash's magma block has less fixed knockback (40 → 20), making it harder for Steve to combo off of it should he cancel the move with his blocks.

## Moveset[edit]

* Steve can crawl.
* Steve can tilt his head up and down by tilting the Control Stick in said direction when he is walking, jumping and creating blocks. This mechanic is purely aesthetic and reflects how the player's head moves in *Minecraft*.
* Steve possesses a unique "resource" mechanic, which allows him to carry resources to build blocks, use certain moves, or upgrade his tools. The resources that Steve can possess are dirt, wood, stone, iron, gold, diamond, and redstone, all of which can be obtained through mining (detailed further below). Depending on the stage, dirt may be substituted with sand (such as on Tortimer Island and Coliseum), ice (such as on Summit), or wool (such as on Magicant and Living Room). All resources (except for redstone) are displayed above his in-game portrait, with a limit of 100 for block-building materials.
	+ Steve starts the game with 36 units of dirt, 18 units of wood, 3 units of iron, and 2/3 redstone, the latter two of which are replenished should Steve lose a life without sufficient said material in stock.
	+ Gold and diamond are only shown when available by the right of the gauge, while iron, which occupies the right of the gauge, displays its exact quantity up to 8. Cheaper materials are displayed proportionally and make up the left of the gauge.
	+ Five tool materials exist: wood, stone, iron, gold, and diamond. Except for gold, each material mentioned is incrementally more powerful and durable than the last. Gold weapons are weak and fragile, but attacks with them are faster than those with weapons made from other materials, making them ideal for combos, and outside of neutral attack, up tilt, and up aerial, gold weapons have greater knockback scaling than the other tool tiers. The typical damages of each tool type are:
		- No weapon: 0.8x damage
		- Wood or gold: 1.0x damage
		- Stone: 1.1x damage
		- Iron: 1.2x damage
		- Diamond: 1.35x damage
* With continuous use, Steve's sword, axe, pickaxe, and shovel will use up durability points. Once all durability points for a set tool have been used up, it breaks apart and Steve can no longer use that tool. If Steve tries to use an attack that requires a weapon he does not have, he will perform a weak punch with minimal range instead. This prevents him from constantly brawling out at close range with his weapons, and every so often forces him to mine the ground for resources and craft new tools at a crafting table. The durability varies between tools made of different materials, with wood and gold being the least durable while diamond and iron are the most durable.
	+ As each tool has its own durability, Steve can have different levels of each tool during a stock (eg. crafting a diamond set, using up a diamond pickaxe, then crafting a gold pickaxe while retaining his other diamond tools).
* Steve's tools reset to wood when he is KO'd, though he keeps any resources throughout stocks. If he is KO'd with less than three units of iron, he will respawn with three.

*For a gallery of Steve's hitboxes, see here.*

*Note: All numbers are listed as base damage, without the 1v1 multiplier.*

### Durability system[edit]

True to *Minecraft*, Steve's tools can break after a certain amount of use. While similar to the durability system of Robin, there are a few differences, including the lack of a hitbox upon a tool breaking, no visible durability indication, and the need to craft replacement tools.

#### Durability cost[edit]

 Forward Smash
 Axe attacks
 Up Smash
 Dash Attack
 Forward Aerial/Back Aerial
 Mine