Black Mage (Super Smash Flash 2)

Black Mage is a playable newcomer starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. Released in demo v0.7, Black Mage was the first 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 has been a starter character since demo v0.8a.

Black Mage is ranked 13th on the tier list; a slight rise from his 14th place rank on the previous tier list. Black Mage is one of the best edge guarders in the game due to the large variety of tools he can use to cover almost any attempt to guard break him, to the point where he has the potential to take off an opponent's stock every time he knocks them offstage. He has a solid aerial game, giving him the ability to approach and combo with forwards air, juggle with up air, rack up damage with neutral air, and KO with down air. He also has a very strong down throw that can potentially chain into itself, a command grab with a large reach that can hit most downed opponents, and a variety of KO moves, including his forward and up smashes, Meteor, dash attack, and back throw. Additionally, his neutral special, Stop, can be used to enhance his combo game, set up for a free KO, or reflect projectiles.

However, Black Mage has a rather weak neutral game due to his average movement speed and over-reliance on forwards air, forward tilt, Meteor, and Stop as spacing options. Similarly, most of his finishers are rather slow and his combos are easy to drop, giving him a steeper learning curve due to a greater emphasis on precision and reading the opponent. Black Mage has only average mobility overall, allowing faster characters such as and  to completely outpace him. Similarly, he has difficulty fighting against characters with greater reach than his, such as and. Black Mage is also brought down by his recovery, which covers a long distance, but is very predictable and easy to gimp, as he effectively turns into a sitting duck until he gets his teleport into place. He also has below average accelerated falling speed, which allows him to be KO'ed vertically early.

His strengths are definitely not to be underestimated. However, his array of problems have only become increasingly more apparent as the meta has developed. He also has disadvantageous matchups against most of the higher-ranked characters, keeping him out of top tier.

Attributes
Black Mage uses devastating magic in his attacks. Black Mage is a medium weight character with below average accelerated falling speed, who has good reach in most of his attacks with many of them having disjointed range. He has KO moves in his uncharged forward and up smash, dash attack (which grants him Super Armor), back throw 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).

Black Mage has a decent grab game, despite possessing the seventh shortest grab in the current demo. He is able to chain grab with his down throw at low percents and can allow him to rack up a lot of damage on his opponent. His up throw can be a good combo starter. His back throw can kill at high percentages and his forward throw can set up his excellent edge guarding ability.

However, Black Mage suffers from average 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.

Black Mage also has low accelerated falling speed, which makes him more susceptible to getting KO'd off the top boundary than most characters. He also has problems dealing with characters who posses better range and high priority attacks.

Taunts

 * Standard: Spins and raises a hand into the air while some fanfare from the Final Fantasy victory theme plays.
 * Side: Faces the player and hops
 * Down: Plays the Final Fantasy theme on a lute.

On-screen appearance
Gets chosen from a list of Final Fantasy classes and jumps onto the arena. Based on the character creation screen from the original Final Fantasy.

Victory fanfare
A remix of the victory theme from the Final Fantasy series.

Victory poses

 * Jumps onto his floating scepter and folds his arms while a large red, yellow, green, or blue gem orbits around him.

Lose pose
Claps to winner.

Changes from v0.9a
Black Mage has received a mix of buffs and nerfs. Black Mage benefits from the lower hitstun due to being less susceptible to combos while being able to combo like last demo. Black Mage is seen as a more effective character.

Tier placement history
Initially, Black Mage was considered to be the best character in the game upon his introduction in demo v0.7, due to his disproportionately strong attacks and high kill power. However, in the weeks that followed, he was severely nerfed, causing him to fall to the bottom of the tier list. In demo v0.9a, he finally crawled out of the low tiers due to a number of buffs he received. In demo v0.9b, he was initially seen as a very strong character, placing 8th overall. However, as the meta progressed, his flaws became increasingly more visible, causing him to fall six places, from the top to the bottom of A Tier.

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.