Bandana Dee (Super Smash Flash 2)

Bandana Dee is a playable newcomer starter character in Super Smash Flash 2 who was revealed during the Day 3 stream at Super Smash Con 2016. He hails from the Kirby series and, like, is a character who originally appeared as an Assist Trophy. His sprites are heavily edited from Kirby Super Star Ultra to give him his appearance from Kirby's Return to Dream Land.

Bandana Dee is ranked 26th on the current tier list, putting him at the middle of low tier. Bandana Dee has a great combo game, with his up tilt, neutral aerial, up aerial, down aerial, down tilt, dash attack, and throws granting him the ability to string together multiple attacks for good damage. He also has a good edgeguarding game, with three midair jumps, a powerful drag-down/meteor in his down aerial, and a powerful back aerial allowing him to fence of pain fighters into the blast zone. His throws all have utility: Forward Throw allows him to combo into aerials at low percent and can be used as a sacrificial KO; Back Throw can easily put foes into a bad situation, by either putting them in a tech chase scenario or launching them offstage into a bad position; Up Throw can be used to combo into his aerial attacks and Waddle Copter; and Down Throw is a solid combo throw that can KO at high percents. He also has a good punish game, as Waddle Copter is a fast, powerful KO move that can KO a foe with ease off of a single mistake or read.

However, he suffers from a lack of kill power, with his main KO moves being hard to land (back aerial, Waddle Copter) or moderate lag (smash attacks) and often relying on hard reads to pick up the KO. He also struggles greatly with his very low endurance, as his extremely light weight and floatieness combined with his abysmal recovery which relies on his weak double jumps and low-distanced Waddle Copter makes him incredibly easy to KO. His recovery also makes his edgeguarding game weaker, as going offstage with a Fence of Pain combo or down aerial often leads to a situation where Bandana Dee cannot recover, meaning his edgeguards often end up being stock trades instead of KOs. Additionally, many of his attacks are multi-hits, and although some of them connect reliably, attacks that would otherwise be potent combo moves (such as neutral and forward aerial) have significantly hampered utility due to not connecting reliably into the final hit.

Overall, Bandana Dee's strengths are mostly overshadowed by his drawbacks and this leaves him as a low mid-tier character. However, he was buffed in the most recent update, Beta 1.1, which may increase his viability in the future.

Attributes
Bandana Dee is a unique character, as although he is a slow, floaty featherweight similarly to Kirby, however, unlike Kirby, his spear gives him a massive disjoint. This allows him to compensate somewhat for his slow vertical and horizontal mobility (especially in the air) by effectively spacing out foes with long-reaching tilts and aerials. He has 3 midair jumps, albeit very short-distanced, and a decent recovery move in Waddle Copter. This low mobility, however, gives him a hard time making it back to the stage, as his jumps are short-distanced and Waddle Copter, although great for horizontal recovery, is one of the worst vertical recovery moves in the game and easy to intercept, making his vertical recovery is one of the worst. He also has rather unimpressive endurance, as he's extremely light (even lighter than Kirby) and has low gravity, giving him not only very poor vertical endurance, but worse horizontal endurance than characters of a similar weight class due to has abysmal recovery.

He has very potent combo starters, in Dash Attack, Up Tilt, Down Tilt, Down Throw, and Up Throw. He can continue his combos with his good aerials, and finish a combo with a Back Aerial or Waddle Copter. This gives him a versatile combo game that allows him to string together attacks for lots of damage. He also has solid frame data on most attacks, with examples of fast moves being Up Tilt, Waddle Copter, and Back Air, two of which are good finishers.

His grab game is also very good: Down Throw is a solid combo starter that can chaingrab fastfallers at low percents and KO at high percents, Up Throw can reliably start aerial combos at low to mid percent, Forward Throw can start combos at low percents and can force a sacrificial KO, and Back Throw is guaranteed to put the foe into a bad position, by either forcing them to recover low (which can easily lead into a Down Air) or forcing them into a tech chase scenario. He also has a very fast pummel, and can therefore rack up damage quickly while unstaling his moves.

However, his KO potential, despite having several solid finishers, is problematic; he struggles to pick up early KOs, as none of his highest knockback moves have KO potential on middleweights under 100%, and his main KO moves either are hard to land (Back Aerial and Waddle Copter), are slow (Smash attacks), or simply aren't reliable finishers until very high percents (Down Throw). Although his grab and combo games are outstanding at low to mid percents, this is not true at high percents, as Bandana Dee cannot reliably get KO confirms without platforms at any percent, despite having a myriad of combo starters. This lack of KO potential can force Bandana Dee to rely on hard reads or edgeguarding to take a stock; however, the latter is made extremely risky by his recovery, or lack thereof.

His lackluster mobility also hurts him, as it makes his moves much harder to land, and makes it harder to start combos, catch foes, and recover. His recovery is also arguably one of his worse flaws, as it makes it very hard to access his potent edgeguarding game and makes his poor endurance even worse. This also makes him very vulnerable to meteor smashes, despite his low gravity.

Overall, Bandana Dee is a mediocre character with good strengths but is held back strongly by his lack of mobility, recovery, and KO potential. He can function well with a bait-and punish playstyle, as his KO moves deal good knockback and are useful for punishing. He can also play defensive and zone out opponents with his Wave Beam, Spear Throw, and long-ranged attacks, and stall with his multiple jumps.

Update history
Overall, Bandana Dee has been buffed by the game updates. Update 1.0.3 increased the combo potential of his down tilt, while also increasing the KO potential of a lot of his moves (such as Foward smash and Forward aerial), although some of his moves had reduced damage. Update 1.0.3.2 significantly buffed his KO potential by giving him a fast, powerful KO option in his Waddle Copter. Update 1.1 improved his vertical mobility and recovery, improved his jab combo, and increased Up aerial's follow-up potential.

Beta 1.0
Added to the game.

Beta 1.0.3




Tier placement history
Bandana Dee has always been a low-tier character. His debut on the tier list, the Beta 1.0.2 tier list, placed him at number 33 out of 39, at the bottom of the C+ tier and as the 7th worst character in the game. This was due to his crippling lack of recovery and KO power. However, the latter was somewhat remedied by Betta 1.0.3.2, as it made Waddle Copter a powerful KO move, and he jumped up 7 spots on the tier list due to this huge change and his excellent combo game being advanced, placing him at the top of C tier, at number 26. In the future, he may rise farther, as he was buffed once more in Beta 1.1.

Trivia

 * Bandana Dee,, , , , and  are currently the only true "silent characters" in the game.