All 28 characters ranked on post-final-patch performance data — with the one stat that defines each of them, the strategy it enables, and the hole it leaves.
Read the badges
This revision is built on a set of Japanese per-type character comparisons published in June 2019 — weeks after the final balance patch, which break every character down by reach, top speed, control, volley and recovery. That's the closest thing to frame data this game has. Where competitive results also exist, they're cross-checked against it. Every card says which.
Post-patch performance data and competitive results point the same way. These placements are as solid as this game gets.
Rests mainly on the post-patch performance breakdown. Good evidence, but nobody's tournament record is confirming it.
Sources actively disagree — usually launch-era reputation versus post-nerf reality. Read the card before trusting the tier.
Learn these first
Tier lists are downstream of these. If you only remember three things from this page, remember these — they explain why the top of the list looks the way it does.
The three characters with the longest reach — Waluigi, Bowser Jr. and Bowser — are the three most successful characters in the game, and it isn't a coincidence. Reach lets you return without moving, and returning without moving is what lets you charge shots. Everything else is downstream.
Trick Shots generate energy, Zone Speed burns it, Zone Shots spend it to threaten rackets. Long reach means you charge for free. Short reach means you sprint, and sprinting is how you go broke.
Even a correctly-timed block against a Zone Shot costs you one to two hits of durability — you don't escape damage, you just survive it. Rackets break, points are forfeited, and matches turn there far more often than on clean winners.
The ranking
Ordered within each tier. Click any name to jump to its full breakdown. Dot colour = character class.
No acronym needed. Waluigi, then the three B's, in alphabetical-ish order of how much they scare you.
Full breakdown
Each card leads with the defining stat, because in Aces that single number explains most of what a character can and can't do.
No characters match that filter.
Cheat sheet
Not hard counters — Aces has no rock-paper-scissors — but these are the tendencies that show up over a long set.
This list ranks singles. Doubles rewards a different set of traits entirely: Bowser Jr. is reportedly dominant in doubles as a rear-court player, where his reach covers the baseline and his weak control matters less. Diddy Kong, near the bottom here, is specifically recommended as a front-court doubles specialist on the back of the fastest dash speed in the game and a strong volley. If you play doubles, treat the bottom half of this list as unranked.
Receipts
The balance history, condensed. Repeated nerfs are the clearest signal a character was dominant — and the final two patches are the ones most tier lists on the internet never got updated for.
Changelog
This pass found post-final-patch per-character performance breakdowns — the first source that measures characters rather than describing them. Several placements built on reputation rather than data did not survive contact with it.
Revision 2 called him gutted by a triple nerf. But the post-patch data — published four months after that nerf — gives him the fastest lateral movement of any character in the game, good control and strong power, and rates him the most offensively versatile Defensive type. His real problem is slow vertical movement and a weak backhand, not a lack of tools.
Described in revision 2 as having no distinguishing feature. He has the fastest dash speed of any character in the game and a strong volley, and is a recommended doubles front-court pick. Still limited offensively in singles, but "completely harmless" was wrong.
He has the fastest topspin in the game outright, plus long reach and excellent control — three top-tier traits at once, and the consensus best Power type after the final patch. Slow feet and a weak volley are the price. He edges Yoshi out of S tier.
Revision 2 put him in S on global top-ten placement. The post-patch breakdown is blunter: strong strokes and balanced stats, but short reach and — the damning phrase — no defined winning pattern. High usage and a high ceiling aren't the same thing. Still comfortably A.
Holds the highest maximum speed of any character in the game, plus a powerful drop shot, and is named the strongest Speed type outright. Same tier, but he moves above Yoshi — the fastest character in Aces isn't the one everybody assumes.
Launch-era Japanese rankings had him third overall, part of a "big three" with Bowser Jr. and Waluigi. The post-patch breakdown calls him extremely slow with a long jump stun and a large hitbox. Both are true; they're just describing different patches. Flagged contested.