The Samus Paradox
Your friend who goes 2–2 at his local and the top player who wins national tournaments usually have similar opinions on top tier characters’ tier placements. As average Melee players, we tend to let the experts determine what the tier list should look like. In this last tier list, Marth and Puff rose a few spots due to players like Zain and Hungrybox representing the characters and showing the strengths they have. On the flip side, with Armada’s retirement, Peach dropped in the tier list and Falco having no players in the top 10 who solo main him also dropped a couple of spots.
However, when it comes to mid tier characters and lower, players tend to agree less on tier placements. Mid tier characters don’t see as much representation in high level Melee, so we see less of what they can do at a high level. This makes it much harder to accurately rank them. One character who sees a lot of discrepancy between tier placement is Samus, who was ranked 11th on the last official tier list this past March. This placing was considered mid tier by the creators of the tier list, consistent with Samus’ placing for the last 6 years since the 2015 tier list. But in YouTuber MetiCu’ video titled “The Samus Paradox”, he presents evidence of Samus being considered a high tier on different occasions and a mid or even low tier on other occasions.
These mid tier characters in most cases will have one player representing them in the MPGR top 100 rankings. This is not the case with Samus. In the last MPGR in 2019, there were three Samus players, all ranked 44th or lower. If you look back at 2018 there were four Samus players on the MPGR, three of which were ranked in the top 25. Plup played Samus that year alongside Sheik and Fox and was ranked 4th. Duck was the highest rated solo Samus main coming in at 14th place. Compare this to Pikachu and Yoshi who have just Axe and aMSa playing them and you can see why this is a large factor why people treat Samus as a higher tiered character than where she is actually ranked.
Another factor that influences people’s opinions on Samus is how many low level players play Samus. I remember when I first started going to locals struggling against a Samus player who showed up every week. Then other Samus players would come from out of town now and again and I would usually end up facing them in brackets, continuing to struggle in the matchup. So why are there so many Samus players?
There are two reasons for this. The first is that with a decent number of top players playing the character, lower level players are drawn to her. This can be seen by how many 0–2ers play Fox, Falco, or Marth. The second reason is the seemingly low barrier of entry of Samus as a character. Most people will tell you Samus has a low tech skill ceiling because she is a floaty, has a really good wavedash, and big hit boxes that kill somewhat early. This isn’t accounting for the frame perfect tech that players like Goomy use. It also doesn’t account for Samus’ disadvantage in many matchups, lack of consistent combos, and need to play defensively to outplay your opponent. Meanwhile, characters like Yoshi and Pikachu have a higher mechanical skill barrier and less top level players to learn from.
The above argument covers why people consider Samus to be in a higher tier at times. Next let’s look at why they think of her as a lower tiered character. I believe this has to do with people’s dislike for the character. At locals, some Samus players will rely on her missiles, crouch cancelling, and wavedash back to create an incredibly campy playstyle. This is frustrating for a lot of players to deal with and even seen as a worse way to play the game by a large portion of the community. Because of this, people often underrate Samus.
The Samus paradox can be a frustrating phenomenon for many people who play the character, and even for others who want to talk about the game accurately. I don’t see it going away in the near future, but with Duck and Plup both dropping Samus it is possible that Samus will either drop in tiers or be thought of as a mid tier as her representation starts to look like other mid tier characters.