Thoughts on 2V2 matchups and partnering

Hey guys, I didn’t see any thread concerning this topic so I decided to go ahead and make one. Brawl is unfortunately the only game where I live where the tournament attendance can at times well exceed 30 people and in the Melee days more than 50, for us this is a pretty good number. In December we’re having a team based tournament and I was wondering about who you guys think are the best teams in the game. You’d be surprised at the amount of double Marth teams I’ve seen, which in my opinion isn’t really a strong partnership. I main Lucas and Ness, my teammate uses Snake. Thoughts? Which teams do you believe to be strongest, based on the characters? Let’s hear it.

AiB’s Official Doubles Tier List

**-S Tier- **
Meta Knight

**-A Tier- **
Wario
Game and Watch
Snake
Lucario
Dedede

**-B Tier- **
Donkey Kong
R.O.B.
Luigi
Diddy Kong
Pit
Toon Link
Olimar
Marth
Kirby

**-C Tier- **
Zero Suit Samus
Fox
Falco
Ness
Peach
Pikachu
Wolf

**-D Tier- **
Ike
Lucas
Sonic
Sheik
Mario
Jigglypuff
Zelda
Pokemon Trainer

**-E Tier- **
Samus
Falcon
Link
Yoshi
Ganondorf
Ice Climbers
Bowser

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Okay perhaps I didn’t phrase myself correctly but I didn’t mean the game’s tier list, everyone knows for example that Meta Knight is the game’s S-tier character. But I mean, would you still call it a great team if it was a Meta Knight partnered with a Link up against a team consisting of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. Sometimes the strength of a team is not measured alone by the tiers of the characters in it but the strategies devised by the team and how well they work with the assets of the characters chosen.

I’ve never been to a Brawl tournament, so I don’t really have a much of an accurate view on the game. I’ve only been to Melee tournaments so I really don’t know who works well with who in Brawl. Just try to pick whoever the players play best with and hope they’re as close to S tier as possible.

If an S/A tier is going to team with an E tier, E tier is going to get singled out and killed so easily. It’s not as good as a more balanced team like 2 C tiers teaming. That’s how Mew2King + Jman and MaNg0 + LuCKy brought ARmada + Aniolas down to 3rd place at Apex 2010. Aniolas isn’t at all a super top pro like the other 5 players. He got singled out so hard.

But I guess you could say that teams need balanced traits, like a team needs to have someone who can get kills well.
[media=youtube]hcmknlrt9ZM#t=1m36s[/media]

It seems that many melee players enjoy brawl 2v2 because the pacing changes and the things that seem overpowered in singles aren’t as prevalent.
However, I asked TheReflexWonder and kismet2 (two of the south’s top players) and they both said that in brawl doubles, you kind of just spam your best move until you get a hit. There was more to it, but I don’t remember exactly what they both said.

Ah alright, thanks for sharing the link. Decided to watch some top level play and it’s a bit sad to see how much it’s slowed down since Melee. The top competitive matches are nowhere as fun to spectate as Street Fighter in my opinion. But it was still insightful on some areas. Melee > Brawl for life. Cheers man.

EDIT:
Cool, no popular moves that are used in conjunction with another that you might know of? In either case me and my partner are sticking with Lucas/Snake, it usually works out well for us.

Competitive Brawl just needs to use 1.1 damage ratio to be more fun

I seriously honestly don’t know anything about Brawl teams strategies.

why is bowser at the bottom? That’s my go-to character from 2v2 and I would at least put him above ice climbers who can be at a bigger disadvantage when it’s 2v1.

Depends if friendly fire is on or off. If on, then the tier list above will work out. If not, then you can got what ever you want and you can make it work. Teams that I’ve seen work are Link/Ike (not sure why, but it’s a good team), and power/speed teams (Pikachu/Ike and Bowser/Diddy work really well). There are a lot more strategies and tactics you can do without friendly fire so try them out. Try to have at least one character will reliable K.O.s. As long as one character has a good way to K.O, you’ll be fine.

(Aside: Why is Ganondorf so low on that list. Thought he was good in teams).

Friendly fire off in teams would turn into a spam fest. Imagine Falco in the back ground spamming lasers all the time while an aggressor hits their opponents. They’ll be trapped in hitstun from Falco’s lasers and they’ll get comboed and killed from the other opponent. Friendly fire prevents the game from turning into a contest of broken strategies.

Of course teams need balance. A team without anyone with much kill power wouldn’t get any kills. A team without an aggressor wouldn’t be able to rack up damage fast enough to get kills. And of course imbalance would ruin a team. 2 aggressors teaming would trip over each other and ruin synergy.

Ganondorf is bad in teams because he’s just bad. Shure he’s a little bit better in teams, it’s just that he’s really bad.

Mr Game and Watch can own in teams. All his smashes are very powerful, he has insane priority, and his moves linger. Although he is light, a technique known as ‘bucket’ braking can help him live longer.

IMO, heavy characters do great in teams since they can just be ‘stock tanks’ and hold lives/stocks for a long time.

Snake is great in teams IMO, he kills easily, his explosives can set traps everywhere, you can have your partner stick c4 on you, then you run and have the c4 stick to your opponents and he can then set it off.

The ‘heaviest’ character I can use is Wolf, his blaster can be annoying in teams, used to control space, his Forward smash isnt a good kill move, but can be somewhat spammed due to its massive range. Downside is his recovery sucks and he can and will be edge hogged.

I’ll make this quick.

If you are complaining about two Falcos spaming lasors, then you’re a noob, plan and simple. Good players find ways around that. Instead of having a team of two Meta-Knights, you have Samus, Lucas, Mario, or Fox on your team. The reason the team tier list mimics the 1v1 tier list is because they are the same. Team games are about coordination rather than tactics or strategy.

um what?

That’s your response?

Anywho, team games with friendly fire on boil down to coordination rather then a strategy. By turning it off, new tactics and strategies arise.

Too bad the new strategies are mainly abusing 2v1’ing opponents.

The coordination requirement prevents broken strategies from occurring.

It’s chill and all. But this one tournament I was at had a pick up style tournament.
They chose teams randomly. I got a good a partner and we synced pretty well. But some people got chosen with a shitty one.
But if your going into a tournament that you know will be 2 vs 2.
Start making plays to get quick KO’s.
Me and my brother usually have plans. Launcher and Attacker.

Attacker softens the opponent and racks em up for damage and then sends them towards the Launcher.
And Launcher basically finishes the job. It’s won us a couple local tournaments.

But Wombo Combo is a perfect example of what I’m talking.

The problem is that no strategy is broken. There is always a way around it. Most of the reason things are turned off in Smash Bros is that the players just don’t want to deal with it. Friendly fire is a great example. Now, with it on, you don’t have to deal with projectile spam (even though it is a legitamate strategy).

Competitive Smash Brothers is like living in fantasy land. They want to turn off all the stuff they consider “cheesey,” yet their matches try their best to abuse the “cheesey,” ****.

Sorry, double post

About to reply… … … … … … … …
Nah, why do I have faith in Smash at SRK? This place is retarded.

Why is Smash retarded at SRK? Care to explain?