On Sunday, I saw short clip from TheKura’s stream with collaborative Korean tierlist that looked nothing like what we are used to see in Europe or America. I become… curious. I couldn’t help myself so I reached out to him, asking for details.

Writers note: The original tierlist (you can find it at the very end of the article) was done by multiple Korean players. Once I reached to TheKura, he adjusted it to better reflect his own, subjective points of view upon which he will be able to comment properly.

But first of all, TheKura wanted everyone to understand one thing: No matter the multi-layered tierlist reaching up (down) to F tier, I believe that SC6 is very well-balanced overall. The evidence is that the most stacked tier is B. All characters have good personalities and core concepts and each have his own strengths and weaknesses. It’s common to beat S tier character with someone from low tiers – and any of 28 characters in current roster can win tournaments.

F tier does not mean “unplayable bad” as it is perceived in many 2D fighters. It just mean “not E tier”. Overall, you can say that S+A are very close to each other. Then comes B. Then C+D+E+F which differs mainly in other things then raw power. In this sense, this list does not follow usual tierlist standards.

S tier
By current standards, this are the four strongest characters in the game right now. Their meter utilization is excellent and strong. But even without meter, this four can dominate the game without any issues. Main strong points of this characters is they can force opponent into specific (disadvantageous) situations.

A tier
This characters are very strong but have distinctive weaknesses you will not find in S tier. This is the main difference here and also the reason why they are A and not S. The main point is that despite being very strong, this three characters can be forced into unfavorable or frustrating situations.

B tier
This characters are still strong but they require specific conditions or situations to shine what is the difference between them and tiers above. However, if the conditions and situations are met, their destructive power and ability to dominate the game are never second to the S~A tier characters.

C tier
This are still good characters. They are well-balanced in general what is their main selling point. However, their ability to actively and continuously dominate the game is lower then for higher tiers.

D tier
It’s not much different from C tier characters, but you have to take more risks to pressure or damage your opponent. On other hand if you succeed, this characters tend to be more destructive than C-tiers and have a higher ability to dominate the game.

E tier
This tier complements C and D as all three are very close in power. This two characters can’t rely on relatively straightforward gameplan but instead, they need to use their stances. Without using them, they will not be able to control the game flow. And this comes with critical issue they face – their ability to get out of clutch situations is limited by the necessity to rely on stances. Also, they both are highly dependent upon proper meter usage and management.

F tier
Talking raw power, this tier quite similar to the C-E tiers. The actual diference is that this two characters, unlike anyone else, require you to play them in a special way. Both this characters are designed with weak block punishes and overall are struggling to properly use block advantages what makes their defense somehow weak. Also, their “straightfowrard” offensive capabilities are quite weak too. As a result, they need to maintain mid-range to control the thempo of the game. To succeed with them, you need to have strong movement and neutral game and you need to be good in counter-hit fishing.
Only if you are very good in this three areas (spacing, counterhit fishing, tempo control), you can make this characters shine.

Of course, I must have ask for Setsuka being S and Hilde being B:

Setsuka

If you look closely at her skills, concepts, and structures, you can see that she has very good ability compared to all the characters. She have strong LHs, punishes, meter utilization, good low and middle attacks, strong oki, great throw etc.

  1. She can use 8way skills in 236 stance, differentiating her from other characters.
  2. 6A+B (Umbrella) makes many characters suffer a lot.
  3. 66B forces her enemy to Side Step.
  4. At the same time, she have many Anti-SideStep skills such as 66A, 214A, 8B+KA, 3A, 6AA, 3A+B etc.
  5. Her LHs are heavily focused on defense, but they are very powerful and intimidating. This puts a lot of pressure on her opponents.
  6. Her Special Stances are very good at creating variables.
  7. Throwing is very good to charge the meter, so it is less burdensome to use shortcut command when needed.

I think the reason why she is undervalued in North America and Europe is because important tournaments and events are currently being held online due to the coronavirus. No matter how good Parsec is, there will always be some delays what makes it hard for her to shine. But I think some of the best players in North America and Europe are aware that she’s a character with tremendous abilities and potential and they’re practicing her as a future main or as a joker card.

Hilde

I know how powerful Hilde is because I can often fight with two strong Hilde players – Jashin and Hyunmu.

Her CA, CA6 and CA4 attacks are really powerful and intimidating. Hilde can control and stop the sidestep with minimal risk. This is even stronger as the same attacks allows her to collect Sword Regalia. Also, her basic damage is good and if she have Spear Regalia, it’s even worse.

But there are 2 significant drawbacks:

  1. CA, CA6 and CA4 are too focused on her strengths. In other words, if she is out of range of this attacks, her power is greatly reduced. And if you look at the tier list I set, six of the S~A tier characters (all except Yoshi) can fight Hilde outside her CA, CA6 and CA4 range.
  2. Her meter usage is weak. I don’t want to say that her meter ability is bad as it’s definitely worth to be used. However when compared to the rest of the cast, her ability to use meter is objectively middle, if not low tier. If her meter utilization was as good as what Cervy, Azwel, Setsuka and NM have, I think she would have become the A-tier easily.

Also her punishes aren’t very good, but I don’t think this is actually big problem due to two reasons.

  1. If you collect the Sword Regalia, her standing i14 punish is very good.
  2. Her punishes may not be the best but they still hurts.

So for this reasons, I believe she is a B-tier character. But if she will improve her meter usage, she will definitely go up to the A tier. But not to S tier as I think Cervy, Azwel, Setsuka and NM are too strong right now.

Lastly, I don’t think my opinion is absolutely right. What I said to you is entirely my subjective thoughts, so I have no intention of forcing my thoughts on others. I’m a human being, so I’m sure there’s a mistake or a misunderstanding. So I’m really curious about other players’ thoughts and opinions.

The Kura

And as promised, here is the original (collaborative) Korean tierlist:

All the statements and texts were kindly provided by TheKura. I edited them for the sake of readability and English corrections, doing my best to not change the original message.