Super Smash Bros. Melee has 25 characters on the character select screen, 26 total when counting Zelda and Sheik separately. Among these are seven characters that the Melee community has deemed top tier.

Fox

Fox is widely considered the best character in the game. With a general consensus of no losing matchups and high levels of versatility, there are no glaring holes in this furry fighter’s game. His Firefox and Illusion give him one of the best recoveries in the game. His shine is one of the most versatile moves in the game, being a great combo starter, low percent edge-guarding tool, great out of shield option, among other things.

For a more in-depth look into the character, check out our article.

Falco

Falco is similar to Fox in move-set, but functions quite differently in how they execute punishes and neutral game. Falco uses his lasers to control the pace of the game, limiting the opponent’s movement and allowing Falco to approach and retreat safely in a lot of situations. His Shine and down-air are both tools used for combos and pressure, sometimes alternating between the two moves in pillar combos on Final Destination on certain floaty characters. Falco has a similar recovery to Fox as well, but his Firebird is quite a deal shorter than Fox’s Firefox, making him easier to kill off the side.

Falco is considered to be relatively even with characters like Fox, Marth and Peach depending on who you talk to. Falco does not have any matchups that are glaringly bad for him, though Jigglypuff can sometimes be awkward for Falco to deal with due to a lack of consistent kill moves on larger stages. Captain Falcon is one high tier character Falco is quite favored against due to Falco’s heavy punish game and lasers working especially well to shut down a lot of Falcon’s gameplan.

Marth

Marth dominates neutral with his sword’s long range and his great dash dance and has one of the most potent punish games of the cast, especially on fast fallers like Fox and Falco. Poking with his down-tilt, controlling space with his nair and fair, and catching opponents with dash dancing into a grab, a good Marth is a hard puzzle to solve. His edge-guarding on most of the cast is deadly, with moves like down-tilt and forward-smash covering the ledge quite nicely.

Marth does not have any glaringly bad matchups, but Sheik is one that Fox and Falco players have opted for specifically to fight Marth due to her great crouch-cancel game and edge-guarding against Marth. Fox and Falco are not winning matchups on paper for Marth, but the floor for execution is much lower for Marth, which means he often has the upper hand in practice. Peach is one character that struggles with Marth, as she has a hard time getting past Marth’s long hitboxes.

Captain Falcon

Captain Falcon is considered to be the glass cannon of Melee, despite being quite heavy. This is because while his mediocre recovery makes him quite easy to edge-guard and kill fairly early, his punish game can evaporate stocks just as quickly as he loses them. If he hits a knee on someone when they are not ready to DI it properly, he can send them to the blast zone at a shockingly low percent. Falcon can explode out of his dash dance with any of his aerials,

Captain Falcon has some bad matchups at the high level, like Fox, Falco and Sheik. All three of these characters have great tools to open up Falcon in neutral, stop what he wants to do, and combo him to death. Jigglypuff is light enough that Falcon can blow her up quite early, but if she gets him off-stage, he has a very hard time getting back. Marth is considered even for Falcon, with the stage they play on determining who might have a slight advantage. The thing about Falcon is that no matter how bad the matchup might be for him, his insane punish game keeps every Falcon in the game.

Jigglypuff

Jigglypuff is the master of the air in Melee. She spends most of her time weaving in and out of her opponent’s space, primarily using back-air to wall out their approaches and apply pressure. She has her Rest move, which kills at extremely early percent, but leaves her vulnerable for a few seconds. Missing this move can lead to taking a lot of damage or losing a stock, so Puff players have to be very precise with this move and use various setups to get consistent results with the move. Puff is very light and dies earlier than the majority of the cast, meaning Puff players have to be careful not taking bad trades or running into kill moves.

Jigglypuff can invalidate characters like Peach and Ice Climbers, staying in the air and making them put themselves in disadvantageous positions to get punishes. Sheik also has a hard time against Puff as she can crouch under Sheik’s grab, which is normally a focal point of Sheik’s game, and Rest her. Puff also has good punishes on Sheik, and Sheik does not have moves that kill Puff early off of a missed Rest consistently. Fox is considered Puff’s worst matchup, as he can rack up lots of damage with lasers and has strong kill moves and set-ups that wipe the balloon Pokémon off the map, like up-throw into up-air or his up-smash.

Sheik

Sheik is the master of edge-guarding, having many tools like back-air, needles and forward-air that can extinguish most of the cast’s chances of coming back to the stage. On-stage, her platform movement makes her very hard to keep up with for slower characters, and her grab game helps her put lots of percent on most of the cast. Fast-fallers fall victim to her down-throw tech-chasing, which if the player reacts correctly can lead to death off of just one grab. Quite a few low-tier characters are able to be chain-grabbed by Sheik’s down-throw, which helps her dominate those matchups.

Sheik loses the Fox matchup as he can just dominate the flow of the game and punishes Sheik very hard, but if her tech-chasing is on point then she can match his punish game and get to edge-guarding him, which she excels at. Falco is more of an even matchup as they both have good punishes on each other. Falco controls neutral with his lasers, but Sheik has good options to either avoid his lasers or punish lasers that are not completely safe. Falcon is one of her better high tier matchups as she stuffs a lot of his approaches and punishes him extremely hard. A Falcon off-stage is as good as dead against a seasoned Sheik. One matchup outside of the top seven that Sheik struggles with is Ice Climbers, as her grab game is heavily nerfed when both Climbers are alive and the solo Climber has a chain-grab on Sheik. With her struggles of separating the Climbers, they get to run their gameplan of desyncing and getting grabs with less resistance than normal.

Peach

Peach is a highly technical character, with a lot of her game revolving around float-canceling and micro adjustments to make up for her lack of speed. Peach is looking for trades in a lot of cases as her moves like neutral-air, forward-air, and back-air hit very hard and she typically comes out better in most trades. She pulls turnips at varying rates depending on the matchup which help her make space in neutral and aid her in edge-guarding. She can pull special turnips like Stitchface and Dot-eyes, as well as items like Bob-ombs, Beam Swords and Mr. Saturn, which can change the momentum of the game if she can capitalize on them. Her down-smash attack is one of her staple moves, as it can deal over 50% if the opponent does not DI it properly.

Characters like Marth and Puff are really hard to deal with as Peach. Getting in to get a solid hit is a struggle, and their punish games are brutal on her. She has to pull a lot of turnips against Marth when she has the space to help her combat his long sword and open him up. Once she gets him off stage, her edge-guarding is decent with her turnips. Puff is harder than Marth, as Peach has to force interactions and put herself in bad spots if she falls behind in order to try to even things out. Fox is another hard matchup for Peach, but her punish game is strong against him. Similar to situations with Falco and Captain Falcon, if Fox does a poorly spaced or crouch-cancelable aerial, she can rip a down-smash and rack up the percent. While she has a hard time keeping up with these characters, her ability to punish mistakes keeps her in the fight and makes the matchups doable.

Conclusion

These seven characters have seen the most success at high levels and have great representation among top players. If you are seeking to see great success with your play and get results at tournaments, trying out each of these characters is a good call to see which one fits your style the best.