Black Mage (Super Smash Flash 2)

Black Mage is a playable newcomer character in Super Smash Flash 2. Released in demo v0.7, Black Mage was the first unannounced or surprise character to appear in SSF2. His sprites are custom made and based on his appearance in Final Fantasy. He mainly uses devastating magic to combat his opponents, but as an extra, he also uses Blue Magic, as seen in his "Goblin Punch" and "Chocobo Kick" attacks. Black Mage is a starter character since demo v0.8a.

Black Mage is ranked 15th on the tier list; this is the same position he held in the last demo, but his relative position is higher due to there being 26 characters as opposed to 20. Black Mage has a solid aerial game, good reach in the majority of his attacks, long-lasting hitboxes, and a variety of KO moves, including his forward and up smashes, meteor, and dash attack. He is also one of the only characters who have a pseudo wavedash; if Black Mage performs his forward aerial while he is in close proximity to the ground, he will do a momentum slide, allowing him to follow up very quickly with a combo extender or finisher. Black Mage is one of the best edge guarders in the game due to the large variety of attacks he can use for different situations; as aforementioned, his meteor is a solid KOing and gimping move, his back aerial semi-spikes opponents, and his forward aerial has long range to push faraway enemies back even more. Due to this, it is extremely hard to guard break Black Mage. Additionally, he has a way to reflect projectiles with his neutral special, Stop, which can be useful against characters with powerful projectiles such as.

However, most of his finishers are rather sluggish and smart opponents can escape his combos, so Black Mage players must have good cerebral and technical ability to be able to make reads and overwhelm enemies. Black Mage also has quite poor mobility, so he can easily be outmaneuvered by fast characters like and. Black Mage is also brought down by his recovery; while it is very long, it is predictable, with a large window of time that the enemy can gimp him out of the charging stage. Black Mage's light weight and lack of reliable approach options also hinder his effectiveness. His great power potential is certainly not to be overlooked, but his array of problems, as well as his mediocre matchups, prevent him from going into the higher tiers.

Attributes
Black Mage uses devastating magic in his attacks. Black Mage has good reach in most of his attacks with many of them having disjointed range. Black Mage has KO moves in his uncharged forward and up smash, dash attack (which grants him Super Armor) and Meteor. When fully charged, his smash attacks covers great distances, especially both his down and forward smashes. Black Mage has good priority and reach in his aerials giving him a solid aerial game. Black Mage is one of the best edge guarders in the game and his guard is hard to break. Black Mage can use Stop to freeze and reflect projectiles giving him a way to nullify most characters projectile camping; it also paralyzes his opponents who come in contact leaving them open(depending on how long stop has been charged). He can juggle with his up tilt and up aerial. His down aerial is a meteor smash and when Sweet spotted, it inflicts death which will meteor smash the opponent after a certain amount of time. Black Mage has a decent grab game, despite possessing the seventh shortest grab in the current demo, being able to chain grab with his down throw. His back throw can kill at high percentages and his forward throw can set up his excellent edge guarding ability. Black Mage can use Haste to edge guard his opponents. Warp gives him a long recovery.

However, Black Mage suffers from poor mobility which allows characters with better mobility to rush him down. (ex. and ). Even with having a pseudo wavedash; due to Black Mage's high traction it is very short and not very useful for mobility. Warp, although gives him a long recovery is easily predictable because the opponent knows where he is going to land based on the green circle. He has problems dealing with characters who can really camp him out and Stop can only reflect one projectile on one side at a time. A prime example of this would be Fox's Blaster; Fox's blaster is fast, can be spammed, covers a good distance and does not make the opponent flinch so even when reflected it will not deter Fox from projectile camping Black Mage. Also combined with his poor mobility gives him less options on how to prevent camping.

Ground attacks

 * Standard attack: Punches forward with his right hand. 2%
 * Standard attack 2: Punches forward with his left hand. Decent knockback. 4%
 * Down tilt: Takes out a knife and stabs it forward across the floor. 7%
 * Down smash:
 * Uncharged: Uses Blizzaga on the floor adjacent to him, freezing enemies on hit. 9%
 * Fully charged: The Blizzaga spell travels along the floor. 3% per hit. Both versions have high knockback scaling, but are unable to KO until the opponent is above 115% damage or higher.
 * Side tilt: Swings his staff forwards. 8%
 * Forward smash:
 * Uncharged: Uses Thundaga on enemies in front of him. Very powerful, though slow start up. 14%
 * Fully charged: Creates a pillar of thunder that advances across the entire stage. 20% per hit. Black Mage's most reliable KO move.
 * Up tilt: Goblin Punches upwards. 9%
 * Up smash:
 * Uncharged: Uses Firaga as a fire uppercut aka Shoryuken, doing minimally 15% damage. 20% if second hit connects.
 * Fully charged: Two pillars of flame pop out of the ground on either side of Black Mage and converge on him. When they meet, an explosion occurs. Pillars deal 1% per hit, and pushes the opponent for the explison, that deal 7%. total 18%.
 * Dash attack: Uses Petrify on himself while he falls/trips on the floor. Grants him Super Armor, but he can be grabbed out of it. Good knockback. 12%

Aerial attacks

 * Neutral aerial: Spins around in a great fireball. Eight hits, each hit deals 2% for a total of 16%.
 * Forward aerial: Chocobo kick. One of his best aerials and can be used to wall-chain. If short hopped close to the ground he will perform a Pseudo Wavedash. 9%
 * Back aerial: Stabs with his knife behind him. It is a powerful semi-spike. 9% sweet spot, 6% sour spot.
 * Up aerial: Uses Flood magic to attack upwards. Good juggler. 10%.
 * Down aerial: Black Mage swipes a scythe downwards in an arc. This move can send opponents in different directions. Anyone who touches the blade at the beginning of the move will be sent downwards. Anyone who touches the blade at the end of the arc will be sent diagonally downwards. Anyone who touches the blade at the very end of the move is sent upwards with good knockback. Different parts of the attack do different damage. All parts of the scythe do 6%.
 * If the blade hits the opponent at a certain angle (an image of Death will show), a grim reaper will hover above the opponent and attack the opponent after a randomly decided period of time. It gives about 6% damage, and it is a meteor smash. The Grim Reaper effect is actually disconnected from the actual damage-dealing swipe, and as such has a separate hitbox (can hit even if the swipe may miss); most importantly however, is that the status may be inflicted even if the opponent is shielding or invincible after returning by the revival platform.

Grabs and throws

 * Grab: Black Mage grabs the opponent.
 * Pummel: Stabs opponent. 1% for each hit.
 * Forward throw: Creates a small tornado to lift the opponent up, then hurls them forward. 10%
 * Back throw: Levitates the opponent backwards, then stabs the ground with the end of his staff, causing a pillar of earth to jut out of the ground. 8%
 * Up throw: Changes his hat into a Cactuar and uses 1000 Needles on the opponent. Each hit gives 1% damage, the last giving 4%. 9% total.
 * Down throw: Uses Bio Magic to poison the opponent with his staff. Does no damage, poisons the enemy. Poison deals 1% each half-second, for a total of 21% over 6.5 seconds. It is the second most damaging throw in the demo.

Other

 * Ledge attack: Hits forward with his staff. 8%
 * 100% ledge attack: Leaps high into the air and stabs a giant broadsword into the ground. 8%
 * Floor attack: Swings staff on both sides. 5%

Misc.

 * Entrance: Gets chosen from a list of playable characters.
 * Taunts:
 * Neutral: Spins and raises a hand into the air while a small melody from the Final Fantasy victory theme plays.
 * Side: Takes out a rat's tail and pokes it.
 * Down: Plays the lute from Final Fantasy.
 * Victory theme: Victory theme from the Final Fantasy series.
 * Wins: Jumps on his scepter and makes a win pose while floating along with a green, red, yellow or blue gem.
 * Loses: Claps to winner.

Tier placement history
Since his introduction into Super Smash Flash 2; Black Mage was already viewed as a low-bottom tier character. In the tier lists for demos v0.7; Black Mage was ranked 12th of C tier on the first list and was ranked 14th of Kirby tier on the second list. In demo v0.8b; Black Mage's tier position didn't change that much when he ranked 15th of D tier. In demo v0.9a; Black Mage held on to his 15th place position where he is now viewed as a mid tier character.

Trivia

 * Black Mage is the only character whose fully charged smash attacks are different from his non-charged smash attacks.
 * Black Mage is the only character whose down throw induces poisoning on opponents. He is one of 2 characters so far to induce said status (the other being Peach, if she pulls an Oddish from her down special).
 * Black Mage could be unlocked in demo v0.7 by playing 10 battles on Brawl mode, then beating him in a duel on Chaos Shrine. Doing this also unlocked the latter stage.
 * Black Mage, along with, , and  are the only characters so far who wear their default costumes in team battle when they are on the blue team.
 * Black Mage and Mega Man are the only characters so far whose normal attacks act as projectiles. In Black Mage's case; his fully charged forward smash.