Tier list

In gaming, a **tier list** is a list that ranks all characters based on the strength of their fighting abilities and their potential to win matches under tournament conditions, assuming equal skill on the part of each player. A tier list is decided based on the analysis of the following:

* The metagame and the effectiveness of the characters' strategies
* Each character's moveset and statistics
* Each character's matchup spread
* Each character's tournament results

Tier lists are commonly made for fighting games that are played on the high competitive level, such as *Mortal Kombat 9*. Some games that are not fighting games, but have large character sets, such as the *Pokemon* series, can also have their own tier lists.

The metagame of each game in the *Super Smash Bros.* series encompasses all the currently known techniques and strategies that have proven useful during tournament matches, thus, the tier list for each game ranks and measures the expected competitive performance of every character, based upon analysis of these techniques and strategies. The most widely accepted tier lists in the English-speaking community are those produced by the Smash Back Room on Smashboards; the first tier list for *Super Smash Bros.*, however, was produced by GameFAQs.

Individual matchups affect, but do not ultimately determine, characters' tier list rankings. Often, a particular character will carry a supposed advantage over another character — such a matchup is known as a counter. However, some characters have an advantage over a character that is higher on the tier list. For example, in *Super Smash Bros. Brawl*, Peach holds an advantageous matchup against the Ice Climbers, but suffers from matchups poorer than the Ice Climbers' against nearly every other character in *Brawl*. While she can be considered a counter to the Ice Climbers, Peach is still ranked lower than the Ice Climbers on the tier list (due to poorer overall matchups, among other reasons). Thus, if two players at the top of the known metagame played a match with Peach and the Ice Climbers, the tier list alone could not predict the outcome of the match. Furthermore, tier lists do not rank characters relative to the numerical average of their matchup scores.

How much matchups affect a character's ranking is mostly on how well they perform against the more common characters in tournaments. For the most extreme example, in *Brawl*, a character's matchup against Meta Knight is a major part of their ranking, as Meta Knight is so ubiquitous in *Brawl* tournaments that a character cannot feasibly perform well if they are significantly countered by him. As a result, many characters, such as R.O.B., Pit, and Ike, perform noticeably worse in competitive play and suffer a significant drop on the tier list because of their inability to effectively fight Meta Knight. Other characters get boosted by their effectiveness at fighting top/high tier characters, such as Wolf, who despite having a few notable counters, is ranked rather highly in large part because his ability to go even or near even against the entire top tier and several high tier characters. On the other hand, performing especially well against lower tier characters has much lower impact on a character's competitive success and tier position. The most prominent example, King Dedede, harshly counters many borderline and lower tier characters, even moreso than top and high tier characters do besides Meta Knight. However, Dedede is in return countered by many of the top and high tier characters in *Brawl* (including the aforementioned Meta Knight), the characters he'll play against much more often in tournaments, thus preventing him from doing as well in tournaments as the top/high tier characters do, resulting in a lower tier ranking.