A Metagame is a commonly used tactic or strategy that is developed and employed in expert play and in the competitive community. In Smash, the metagame is a trend in strategy that is used during expert play inside smash tournaments. Metagames have the ability to change over time as strategies develop or simply become more popular within a community. Through analysis of the metagame, people in the competitive smash community are able to determine the relative performance of each and every character and with this, tier lists are developed.
Examples of Changing Metagames in Smash
- Marth, a character from Super Smash Bros. Melee was originally seen as a character who relied too heavily on C-Smashes and roll dodging. Ken Hoang, a player widely known as the former world champion of SSBM revolutionized on how others saw Marth by utilizing and introducing tactics such as dash dancing and wave-dashing as well as bringing a greater emphasis on Marth's aerial play. Due to this, Marth's tier position quickly rose to one of the top characters on the tier list.