So I just finished watching the entire 3DS tournament at Comic-Con. The tournament was absolutely dominated by Bowser players, not only in the 4 player matches, but also in the 1 vs. 1 matches. His moves are absolutely devasting in terms of knockback and he doesn't seem as slow as he was in previous games. Maybe he won't be the next Meta Knight, but he could be the most preferred player (like Fox in melee). Granted, the whole roster wasn't available for this tournament, but Bowser wrecked everyone he faced. It was incredible.

Anyway, did you watch the tournament and what do you think?

These tournaments are not high level play...we really can't make any balance assumptions from them.

I didn't watch the tournament, but maybe I should. Do you have a link?

Before watching it, all I can say is that I'd be VERY surprised if Bowser turned into the new Fox, much less the new MetaKnight. Maybe he won't be bottom tier this time around, but I doubt he'll be top tier. Maybe B tier. Again, that's just without watching the tournament.

Bowser and ZSS got huge buffs overall, and looking at them now i think they can be in the top tier or 2, but there is a few problems for now...

1. We didn't get the full roster, just about half which means its not close to knowing who's better than who yet.
2. Thats not the final build, we know that the game tht was played at E3+SDCC was a demo made before June. Things can change.
3. Not everybody there had time with the game and the competitive community hasnt really played the game yet for comparison. Pokemon XY didn't have the full tiers intilll at least 2 months after game release.

Its too early to say, that said the game is definitily looking to be the most balanced overall. Bowser is faster and alot stronger, but we must wait to after the game comes out :)

Let me  tell you a little secret.... NO CHARACTER IS EVER GOING TO BE AS BROKEN AS MK!

Well, Nintendo now has the ability to patch games through updates, so I doubt we'll ever see a character nearly as broken as MK again.

We don't have the full roster yet so we cant make any solid judgments. There is also custom movesets which can make some characters surpass Bowser.

I think making tierlist for this game is going to be rather useless with the huge variables from custom movesets.

Tournaments will obviously ban custom movesets, and you aren't allowed to use custom movesets against randoms online, so tier lists will not have to factor them in.

Well, Nintendo will be able to release patches to keep the roster balanced.