i'm so confused at what i just watched... but it was so good... keep up the good work YOU SHOULD DO HEAVIES NEXT!

This is the first video I've seen in my homepage from you and I'm immediately subscribing to you because of it. Your content is very similar to MoldyBagel, who I also like a lot. Not to mention, your art is incredible to look at and you explain everything in a very clear and concise way that isn't overbearing for people unfamiliar to the subjects you cover. You even spotlight players that I've never heard of in my life performing well, which I appreciate very much. (Also, as a side note, thank you for being the one person I've seen who doesn't insist Sonix's main game plan is to camp, I hate that rhetoric so much it needs to be put to bed immediately. If you're gonna blame any Sonic for camping, it should be KEN.) Keep on keepin' on!

This was a solid video essay. Thank you for creating it.

As a Ganondorf main in every smash game, the downfall of the rushdowns is just a happy moment for me, i just want to defeat everyone at 20% from a minimal error they made in the game

Phenomenal Video! Even though I only play ultimate casually, and frankly just SUCK at it, it's still fun to watch these types of documentary videos, keep up the good work! You also do remind me a lot of MoldyBagel, which I also love for their in-depth analysis of DBFZ, haha.

from the music choices to the art, the subtitles and the editing, and the top notch pacing and presentation, you've crafted a master class of a video. keep up the great work 🍻

As a Fox main, this video made me smile because the rushdowns might have lost some steam, but the fire still burns brightly!

I wasn't expecting the Sonic Heroes OST to smack me in the face like that, I rarely hear it, banger music choices

So THIS is what you've been working on, it's really good :D And this is exactly why Mythra specifically isn't doing so hot in the current meta. I do believe Aegis will rise up this year, but the players really gotta put the work in.

i respect the content and your production/editing is awesome, i will say though as a competitive player there is a lot of misinformation in this video

When you said Sonic was a rush down character, I got unreasonably hype lmao! He has the speed alone to just go in and out. On top of that there's a bunch of movement tech that lets him fly all over the place. Wish playing him aggressively was more optimal than defensively.

Great video, love to see content like this on my feed

Brodie, sheik is not a rush down and neither are marth lucina and chrom. None of these characters' gameplan is rushing people down, that is, pressuring them just by being in their face and being in close proximity. Kirby is more of a rushdown than those 4. Kirby is literally designed to be as annoying and hard to deal with as possible at point blank range while his weaknesses make it hard to actually get there. Sheik is designed around a precise neutral and whiff punishing ability, so her gameplan is to play neutral and whiff punish. The same is true for marcina. Chrom and roy are designed mainly around being really good at whiff punishing, while roy is better at rushdown and chrom is better at neutral. Roy has the ability to mash on people's shield for free advantage, so he is actually rushdown. This idea that fast = rushdown is simply wrong.

great vid and happy newyears

Happy New Year!😊

my interest in ultimate has dwindled a lot over these past two years, but this is an excellent video. very engaging. great art too!!!!

I didn’t know you make videos, this was pretty good!

Good news is there are still rushdowns with great results. Aegis, Roy, and Fox are still really high in results

Good video, it was really interesting analysis

As a greninja and aggro sonic main, I definitely agree that rushdowns have definitely fallen from grace at least a little bit, especially when the DLC became more focused on giving their characters broken comeback mechanics and gimmicks

this video seriously needs more views

really nice editing

Nice vid Raheem, subbed ❤

damn bro u got a great channel backlogm gonna watch all

I feel Rushdowns haven't been fading. They're still there. It's just now that people are learning how characters actually are now that we are over the DLC. People think Kazuya is busted and easy when, in actuality, he has many flaws against someone with a projectile. Personally, I am fine with how Rushdowns are now because this archetype has dominated smash for years since Melee or even before that. If anything, Rushdowns have been more of a steady line than most. Are they not at their peak? No, but I can say more for them than other characters like the Heavy Weights or even Zoners. Edit: I also would probably determine these Rushdowns as glass canons, which is fitting, in my opinion.

This always happens when a fighting game is brand new. People haven't yet adapted to the blockstrings or the pressure and getting your punishes locked down on them takes a lot of time compared to their easy to find combo routes and neutral. It's why at launch, Rushdowns are consistently top tier and Grapplers are considered broken but eventually people realize the grapplers suck and the rushdown characters are "figured out". We get their frame data and we find consistent punishes for their tricks because when offense is labbed, half the work for labbing counterplay is already done. Its only taken so long with Ultimate because the roster is so big and Covid happened. They don't fall off, its the meta that settles down. This is why DLC releases always shake up the meta a bit because it repeats the cycles seen at new launches especially when the characters have incentive to be made extra good or are given unique mechanics not seen in the base game characters. In Smash almost half the characters you listed here are still high in the top tier (Aegis, Pikachu, Roy and Fox) or are still contenders for low top tier such as Sheik, Lucina or Pokemon Trainer. The others are all characters that are either good, the weakest one here is Chrom who is mediocre at worst. Some of these guys aren't even very rushdown. PT is an all-rounder that switches between characters to suit the situation, losing and gaining strengths depending on which one is active and Pikachu mostly leans towards a campy neutral using his strong zoning to exhaust you and then use his death combos to take games. Trust me, most of these guys are doing just fine.

Well put together video, however I personally feel that rushdowns have recently seen a resurgence. Many players have proven the characters ability recently; Fox with Light/Kaninebe, Aegis with Sparg0/Shuton/Leo, Joker with Leo/Tsubake and even lower tier rushdowns like Falcon with Jogibu. Not only this but with the current meta, rushdowns are in a favourable spot due to good MUs; characters like Cloud, ROB, Minmin, Palu, Corrin (and most swordies) have negative MUs against the good rushdowns like Fox and Aegis. I think the key think to keep in mind is that some rushdowns are just bad not many characters in this game are rushdowns; for example Sheik and Greninja play a mix up/zone braking/combo game (not rushdowns), pikachu plays a zone braking game with t-jolt then combos (not rushdown) and characters like lucina are swordies (they put up walls of disjoints - not rushdowns). Even the not used characters that have an argument for rushdown (like chrom), are just bad, like Chrom hasnt been touched since 2019 cause his recovery is so bad. And even then, those other non-rushdowns you mentioned as rushdowns still have good results and use; notabily WebbJP and Sheik at LMMM/WTT, Sonix and Sonic (Hit and Run) at everything, ShinyMark and Pikachu at Delfino Maza and Coinboxes, Kurama/DarkWizzy/Sho and Mario (all rounder) at LMMM and many others. Rushdown playstyles dominate the SSBU scene and have had a resurgence. Those few true rushdowns in this game have actually stayed pretty consistent and even had more representation recently, like how 2 chroms made top 64 of DELTA 7, or 2 Foxes in top 8 of PP8, 2 Aegis in top 8 of WTT and continued to 8s at top level and the local scenes (like how half my local PR is like Joker, Fox and Aegis.

As a grappler enjoyer, welcome to the party rushdowners

Simpification: people realised that there was actually more characters than the supposed top teirs, and after those people got good enouth things evened out, and now those guys are whining

As a kazuya main thank god cause I couldn’t hit them before lol

At the beginning I didn't get it, I guess it has to do witht the fact that I don't have Smash Ultimate, plus I was not in the mood to read anything at the time. however there was something that kept me there and after a few minutes it clicked, kinda.... still fun to watch in the end. P.S. Eventhough I don't have Smash Ultimate I was expecting Sonic when you were about to include him in the topic.

The rush down archetype has more to do with pressure tools and speed, some of these characters you can’t really consider them rushdown like some of the sword fighters and captain falcon, that fall more along the lines of the bruiser or brawler subtype

If you like Sonic as a rushdown, play SSF2. He is a very fun character to play as imo. More fun than SSBU Sonic, that's for sure, and a very explosive character!

Smash bros ultimate proves that with the correct and unbiased balancing everyone on a fighting game roster can be viable And then there's kazuya

10K! LET'S GOOOOOOO!

Amazing video man, loves the format, the editing, the clips, also love a little touch at the end where all the rushdown smiles. Btw one question, do you think Inkling fits into rushdown?

Great video, but two things. First, a lot of these characters are not rushdowns. Second your draw style seems a bit about the adult cartoon Mr. Pickles. I hope you don't take this as a bad critic. But anyways, new suscriber and continue about this content.

fox can unironically contend with steve better than a majority of the roster, mii brawler is one of the dumbest most overpowered rushdown characters ive seen in a fighting game, then theres the fact that steve can be played in a rushdown way, id say rushdown chars arent going anywhere anytime soon.

marth a rushdown is an interesting take

As a Snake player, I can't help feeling like I'm contributing to the decline of rushdowns by picking the trappiest trap character that ever lived, but it's fun so I'm not stopping. Either way, really good video, and you've earned yourself another subscriber!

I'm not a smash man, but still, good video.

Marth and Lucina are zoners. Quite the opposite.

So what you're saying is that it's easier to find a character's weakness when they're the only character(s) you see?

Your points were a bit confused at parts, but the presentation was absolutely phenomenal and the core message is true. Big fan. Now, since it's relevant, time to soapbox. I've been around the block long enough to see the life, decay, and death of games, and I can say with confidence: Smash is a game that will always benefit campy play, no matter what. The freedom of movement inherent in the genre and how the stock system fundamentally works will always make non-interactive, defensive play the "winningest" strategy. Every game has already degenerated into this style of play, just at different rates. Smash 4? Check. 64? Check. Brawl? Double check. Ultimate? Looks like it. Even the mighty Melee with it's cult of hype was not safe from it's clutches. Camping is camping, no matter your APM. It's optimal. And when the players reach this point, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Whatever previous Potemkin meta the players constructed will crumble. Brawl is reviled because it holds up a dark mirror to the series. Beyond all the shitposting about tripping, Meta Knight, lame gameplay, etc., it is merely the game that accelerated to this "endpoint" meta the fastest. And it's ghost persists today, a specter that will haunt us for as long as we play the game. A grim reminder for what we will eventually become. For as long as Smash remains Smash, Brawl is our final destination.

They got nerfed, then powercrept, first by range, then by dlc.

I know this is just churning content for the sake of a video. But the meta is basically done, and the game is intellectually void of any meta shifting or updates. It's time for a new smash game.

um actually there’s a lot of rushdown characters and a lot of people that play rushdown characters

I wasn't really sure what you were trying to say about tiers around 3:00. I think you're trying to say that people weren't expecting for the high tier rushdown characters to fall so much post-launch but you don't actually link all those ideas together by explicitly saying any of that. You just say "we thought the high tiers were good" and "we thought the low tiers were bad" without elaborating.

I know what you're trying to communicate but it feels like two different arguments rn

So what you're saying is that characters whose best strengths are "closes distance and hits you" can't keep up with the other characters who -camp with projectiles -armor through attacks -get a dumb powerup just because they didn't die for thirty seconds ... No, that's just a skill issue, obviously. You should just git gud and perfectly read your opponent 100% of the time.

Incineroar is the slowest rushdown

how tf does this have no views

wher tf is mac???

*Pikachu is not a rush down lmao*

That's why I think Smash Ultimate is the most balanced title in the series (even though it's not perfectly balanced). Seeing the likes of Donkey Kong slowly climbing the tier list is a joy to watch, especially since I'm a Ganondorf main (yeah I know he'll never leave bottom tier though).

You clearly overestimate… everything. The reason that rushdown characters have fallen off is because the new characters have been introduced (namely Kazuya) that hard counter the playstyle.

so much reading

please play any fg that isnt smash

Half of what this video is wrong and half is pointless

The reason is cuz campy, spamming, losers like Steve, Sonic, Game and Watch and R.O.B became the meta.