Tier lists do not matter. Yup, I said it. Most people already know this, but lately there's been way too much stock put into tiers. What is this infatuation with tiers in the fighting game community? It isn't just us, however, in other communities it seems the top players don't care as much as our top players. Of course knowing match-ups is important, but don't you think people know it's a 7-3, or a 6-4 match-up? Even if they don't know that it's exactly 7-3, they probably know it's either a good match-up for the 7 character, and a bad match-up for the 3 character. Without knowing the numbers. Not to mention people saying it's 7-3 is subjective anyway. Doesn't matter how many top players agree, you can't objectively say it's 7-3 unless you play like 100 ft10's with players of exact equal skill.
Tiers are only important to newer players so they can learn who's good and who'd good against who before actually having much experience with the game. For the experienced player, what exactly does a tier list accomplish? Honestly, it causes more harm and headache than positivity. Sure the discussions are healthy, but you don't need a tier list thread to have healthy discussions about the game. And in those thread, it's not all healthy discussions. A lot of it is opinions on match-ups and it's completely arbitrary.
I just find it annoying all these threads that get made talking about tiers. What does it matter? I'm being serious when I ask this, it's not a rhetorical question. I think this community is putting too much time and effort into tiers and match-up lists. And they give you an easy cop out 100% of the time. If you lose a 3-7 or even a 4-6, you can just say it's a bad match-up. That makes it so easy to shift the blame from yourself, and never really improve. But even worse, when you lose a good match-up for your character, you get blown up for it. That will happen regardless, but it really derives from the amount of emphasis everyone puts on tier lists.
I hope everyone just starts playing the game. Stop worrying so much about tiers. The player is all that matters. Anyone can win at anytime. If you delude yourself into thinking the match is easy because it's a good match-up for your character, that's when you make mistakes and underestimate your opponent.
/end rant
Tiers are only important to newer players so they can learn who's good and who'd good against who before actually having much experience with the game. For the experienced player, what exactly does a tier list accomplish? Honestly, it causes more harm and headache than positivity. Sure the discussions are healthy, but you don't need a tier list thread to have healthy discussions about the game. And in those thread, it's not all healthy discussions. A lot of it is opinions on match-ups and it's completely arbitrary.
I just find it annoying all these threads that get made talking about tiers. What does it matter? I'm being serious when I ask this, it's not a rhetorical question. I think this community is putting too much time and effort into tiers and match-up lists. And they give you an easy cop out 100% of the time. If you lose a 3-7 or even a 4-6, you can just say it's a bad match-up. That makes it so easy to shift the blame from yourself, and never really improve. But even worse, when you lose a good match-up for your character, you get blown up for it. That will happen regardless, but it really derives from the amount of emphasis everyone puts on tier lists.
I hope everyone just starts playing the game. Stop worrying so much about tiers. The player is all that matters. Anyone can win at anytime. If you delude yourself into thinking the match is easy because it's a good match-up for your character, that's when you make mistakes and underestimate your opponent.
/end rant
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