Marth

Marth (マルス, Marth) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. All Stars. He was announced on the official website on August 23rd, 2018; years before, four Fire Emblem games were released within a similar time frame; Fire Emblem on November 3rd, 2003 in North America, The Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance on November 4th, 2005 in Europe, and Radiant Dawn on November 11th, 2007 in North America. He was among the first wave of amiibo figures that are compatible with SSB All Stars, released on the same day as the Nintendo NX version of the game. He is voiced once again by Hikaru Midorikawa in all regions, albeit using recycled voice clips from Brawl.

Marth currently ranks 10th out of 58 characters on the tier list, in the A tier. This is a minor fall from his 5th place position out of 38 in Brawl. However, due to the expansion of tiers in SSB4, Marth remains a top tier character, as in all of his past appearances. Marth's positives include good overall mobility and disjointed range on all of his attacks. All of his sword-based attacks in particular are quite rewarding if they land only at the tip of his sword, often dealing absurdly high knockback despite their quick startup, most notably his forward smash and Shield Breaker. In addition, his overall frame data is very good, such as possessing one of the lowest landing lag averages in the game, and as alluded to above, the startup of his moves is also very fast, with most of his moveset coming out before frame 10, and certain moves having little endlag to complement this further (neutral attack, forward, up, and down tilts respectively).

However, the drop on Marth's tier placement is largely due to his initial transition into the game and the myriad of nerfs he received in the process. The transition had hindered his reach relative to the cast (though he still has a long reach overall, and it was also buffed in its transition), slightly increased the ending lag on many attacks, notably his aerials, and slightly increased his landing lag, making his moveset less safe as a whole. His forward aerial is an example; a staple move in his approaching and combo games in Brawl, is slightly laggier and harder to use than before. His throws are now ineffective for comboing past extremely low percents, while still unreliable for KOing, worsening his punish game. Marth's linear recovery is still susceptible to edgeguarding even with the new ledge mechanics (though it remains relatively risky to intercept due to its stage spike potential), and he is vulnerable to combos, juggling, and projectile camping due to his lack of safe methods to relieve pressure.

While Marth was considered to be a poor character in previous versions of SSB4 where he was ranked 41st out of 58th, his current position is a result of his heavy buffs brought by recent updates like 1.1.3 and 1.1.4, particularly in reach, interruptibility and damage for many of his attacks, which patched up the main issues bought about by the initial transition, such as his moveset becoming a lot safer than before, and possessing a better combo game. Additionally, all subsequent patches went to further nerf some of his harder matchups. Since the buffs in said updates, Marth has achieved some notable results in lower-level tournaments and has also achieved significantly better results in bigger tournaments, with Mr.E having placed 5th at KTAR XVII and 13th at EVO 2016 (and notably defeated ZeRo 2-1), and Pugwest placing 17th at Pound 2016, GOML 2016 and EVO 2016, while such results before the patch were almost unspoken of for him. He has also started gaining results in Japan, one of his driest regions for results, thanks to Fuwa. More recently, Leo won Smash Factor 5 while using Marth through a majority of the tournament, notably being able to reset the Grand Finals bracket against Mr. R's Sheik 3-0, using Marth. Leo also notably shut out ZeRo 3-0 at 2GGT: ZeRo Saga in the Loser's Semi-Finals and turned around a harsh deficit in Grand Finals against Larry Lurr using only Marth. Finally, Leo won GENESIS 4 using Marth for the entirety of Top 8 (although he used Cloud exclusively prior to this).

As a result, Marth had the largest rise between the first and the third official Smash 4 tier lists (+31), rising from 41st place to 19th and finally to 10th. Since the buffs, many top players such as Dabuz and ZeRo claimed that Marth's placement was too low, and that he was a top tier character; this would come true by the third official tier list. Overall, Marth remains a strong and viable pick in competitive play, much like in Melee and Brawl.