MW Top 26s – Tackiest Sets (13-1)

13 – Grunty by KoppaKirby – MYM 8

This moveset is easily the most obscure yet on the list, and is also the first moveset of several on the list to get deleted out of sheerly terrible it was. This moveset wasn’t deleted directly, but KK was aware of how terrible this set was as the whole xat mocked him, and as a troll move I personally posted it to make it public domain. This set largely centers around quizzing the foe with Grunty’s Tower of Tragedy/Furnace Fun mini-game, with a selection of questions that would either be nigh impossible or easily memorizable for a Grunty match-up based off the quantity of questions. Nevermind how bloody obtrusive something like this is. This comes across as a very awkward centerpiece for the moveset, eating up the entire grab-game and two of the specials – one of the specials summons a minion exclusive to the terrible BK game that actively insults the series at every possible opportunity who’s only purpose is an enemy to participate against the foe in the quizzes. Oh, and said minion summon is randomly duplicated on the dair.

The set also has extensive number crunching issues that, if nothing else, show just what little of a grasp KK has on Smash Bros. Stuns for 7 seconds bring up imagery of garbage like the recent Frank West set and Evilgidgit. Aside from that, the set is self aware of how tacky it is, if not beating itself up more than even I can do, claiming the magic syndrome to be “props”. While not props, the magic syndrome is typical launch a magic ball and pull whatever effect you want out of your ass with each move. While Grunty has plenty to take from what she actually does, Junahu’s Grunty manages to come up with some more fitting original things for Grunty to do. Here, things just feel outright random, Grunty having earthquakes of all things.

12 – Doc Scratch by ForwardArrow – MYM 12

This is yet another set for a character with next to no actual attacks. It’s one thing for a character like Inspector Lunge, who if he had a “normal moveset” would essentially be a generic early Kupa/David set, but this character is essentially established as a god. His weapon of choice? A broom. Which he uses to mop the floor, as mops are for poor people, I suppose. The purpose of this is to make the stage slippery, which comes across almost as awkwardly as Freaky Fred’s bloody hair slip’n’slide which we’ll get to later in this list. Why Doc Scratch demeans himself to wiping the floor clean himself when he could just snap his fingers and have it done in a jiffy is beyond me – even only looking at what Doc Scratch is capable of in the moveset, what with me having barely touched Homestuck, Scratch is capable of opening portals to hellish dimensions of his own creation. Yes, this is a Flying Dutchman style alternate stage, and it’s just thrown in on a throw as a token afterthought that has minimal playstyle relevance. That is how bloody zany this moveset gets.

11 – Edgeworth by Spadefox – MYM 5

This is the next set in the list that was deleted out of how sheerly god-awful the moveset was – I wish I could say that, but this moveset was deleted out of spite, and was one of the few movesets unrecovered by the way-back machine when we got Golbez, Waluigi, and Eggman. This moveset is pretty hard to forget, though, as it was filled to the brim with props. Of course an Ace Attorney moveset needs props, but these are more pieces of evidence found throughout cases than fitting props, used for random tacky status effects. The most memorable example that sticks to my mind to this day, regardless of not having seen the direct text in what has been literal years, is that goddamn dtilt. It involves Edgeworth putting on a –BONNET- of all things, utterly embarrassing this lawyer who’s purpose is to be a “edgier” antagonist. This bonnet decreases the amount of knockback Edgeworth takes by half with no penalties, and all inputting dtilt does again is take the bonnet off. With literally no reason to not have it on, Edgeworth’s going to be looking like an adult baby for the entirety of his stay in Brawl.

Complete with his fetish, Edgeworth even has Gumshoe around to stick around and nurture him as a loving parent. This isn’t like Twilt’s set where Gumshoe and some other people are summoned by various moves, and regardless of being called an Edgeworth set is a dual set with Gumshoe. Whenever Edgeworth does not take out a prop, AKA the specials, Gumshoe does the heavy lifting, with most of the set’s creativity coming out of generic dual set style stuff that feels very unfitting for someone as dignified as Edgeworth. Edgeworth clings on to his parental guardian for dear life in the Up Special as Gumshoe extends out his coat to float slowly downwards.

10 – Misa by TWILTHERO – MYM 4

At first glance, Misa could be forgiven as a character with minimal potential, but she has a death note just like most of the other Death Note sets hovering around, and even makes use of the Shinigami Eyes. However, Twilt brings up one of the fatal flaws of Ryuk by playing too closely to every single rule of the Death Note, which ends up resulting in supreme tackiness. Here, Misa has to learn the foe’s name in order to write it down in the Death Note by seducing/”charming” them with various moves, having to rack up an arbitrary mechanic. This entire aspect of her playstyle can also be simply averted with the Shinigami eyes and skip straight to the Death Note, where you’d think it would simply end. . .But 75% of the time, the foe just falls into prone and takes 17%, bringing back memories of the initial version of Sweeney Todd. Yep, that’s your big pay-off, and Misa has no KO methods otherwise. 20% of the time, a random truck runs them over for a competent KO move. 5% of the time they suicide for a guaranteed kill. Then again, maybe this is fair, as Misa’s nurse form causes any attack an enemy does while facing Misa to deal no knockback, half damage, and for Misa to hit the foe with an unavoidable slap for 8% and decent knockback. Hope you’ve got a good bair.

The Luck factor doesn’t end with the Death Note, as many of Misa’s attacks have a chance of doing literally nothing to her enemies. I don’t mean some random tacky thing like Mach Rider’s bike randomly blowing up a small amount of the time, I mean, like, 50/50 chances for whether a move does anything. Move of these are the moves where Misa attempts to seduce the foe. Seduce is really too nice of a word, though, as sometimes she’ll just ask them to be friends like a My Little Pony, give them a CD, or win them over in song. Some of the moves are even accidental in nature due to Twilt scrambling for attacks, making an even bigger disconnect between Misa and the player’s motivations.

9 – Pennywise by BKupa666 – MYM 6

This set is pretty much the embodiment of all of Kupa’s negative tropes that resulted in him never being taken particularly seriously until recently. While Kaptain K. Ombo is the set most associated with Kupa’s MYM 6 heavyweight comboers, Pennywise is really the biggest embodiment of it – Kupa’s other heavyweights can skip ahead in the comboing process and use their heavyweight comboing moves, but not poor Pennywise, who randomly has to “salt the meat” in what has to be one of the most forced KO mechanics I’ve ever seen despite the simplistic nature of it, turning the set into a fully fledged comboer.

So how does Pennywise combo? With props, of course. Lots and lots of bloody props. The set’s essentially attempting to be the Joker, and when moves aren’t clowny props they’re clown based puns instead as a literal interpretation of what Tim Curry says is used for the move, in a manner much like AI Colonel. When it’s not playing off Pennywise’s clown aspects and rather looking into Pennywise’s more monstrous aspects that n88 wants to see explored in the MYM 10 version, the set gets even worse, as Pennywise’s nearly limitless powers leaves Kupa very confused as to what to do and results in things like Pennywise randomly animating the dead, the salting the meat KO mechanic, The FMA Man style Final Smash, and best of all, turning into his anti-climatic giant spider form.

8 – Near by TWILTHERO – MYM 5

Two characters from the same series by the same MYMer in a top 13? Say it isn’t so! You’d think this character would have more room for forgiveness due to how little potential the char has – this is one of the ones associated with the police who does –NOT- use the Death Note, trying to stop the people that do use it. . .And. . .It is so much worse than Misa that even despite that, it manages to earn a spot of shame even lower on the list. The main mechanic of building a Rubik’s Cube to give to the foe isn’t unfitting of Near, but when it’s presented as the centerpiece comes across tacky when all it does is stun the foe, with Near’s general lack of kill methods. His generic lie which randomly stuns the foe for 3 seconds being the blatantly superior move doesn’t help matters.

Where the set really delves into the fiery pits of hell, though, is the excessive use of toys in the set. Near’s childlike nature is more a gimmick of his character, and here it’s turned up to 11, with Near pulling out toy soldiers, lego staircases, airplanes. . .For almost every move in the entire set, and it’s a different toy almost every bloody time. If familiar with Death Note, all you really need to picture to put this into perspective is a set for L/Mello that was dedicated to them eating chocolate for most of the moves. Perhaps the best aspect of this set is that Near, one of the few characters in the series without supernatural powers, is given the most mystical power of all in this set of mind control – essentially, Twilt turns Near’s awkward as hell finger puppets into voodoo dolls.

7 – Dr. Strange by n88_2004 – MYM 9

This moveset is very self aware, immediately going out in the playstyle summary that it has a grand total of 6 attacks that deal damage. Does he have some sort of obtuse KO mechanic where damage is a non-issue? That’d still be bad, but not bad enough to put it significantly below Inspector Lunge, Father Time, AND Doc Scratch. Dr. Strange doesn’t give a damn about the foe, and is more concerned about survivability via an obtuse Reincarnation mechanic that wouldn’t be all that viable even if Strange could deal damage. Aside from this mechanic, most of the moveset is dedicated to barriers and such for generic spacing purposes. N88 tries to pass all this off by hand waving it as a set that’s intended for doubles, which feels like an incredibly weak excuse when there are other characters that are both far more practical and far more interesting in doubles. Not only that, but at the same time said characters still work just fine in 1v1 more often than not – examples of these sets are all over MYM 8, a contest before this abomination of a set came out, the most obvious being Nurse Joy, Octillery, the Komodo Bros, and Strike Man. For a guy that rides on characterization to not get booted out of town over sets like Goomba, it feels incredibly awkward that a character who does battle with the likes of Dormammu and Shuma Gorath is so intentionally weak.

6 – Lelouch by TWILTHERO – MYM 6

Where to begin? Well, first off, this is one of those sets that makes the foe’s characterization go completely and utterly haywire. He has an elaborate mechanic where he forces the foe to “hate him”, something that actually is biased against the lightweight female protagonists’s characterization for once. How does he make them hate him? By. . .Dodging attacks and hitting with his own! How revolutionary! This makes it come across as a very awkwardly labeled meter, and once you get enough hate on you you can re-enact the final scene of Code Geass by having a doppelganger of Lelouch come out and kill Lelouch then fight foe with said doppelganger as a Marth clone. But the foe is shocked that Lelouch was killed due to their hatred or something, and this stuns them for many seconds when Marth Lelouch comes out! When you’re done with Marth Lelouch, don’t worry, he’s not actually dead, but until then he cannot be attacked! While we’re on the subject of the foe’s characterization, his mind control Special, when it orders the foe to kill themselves, has them take a bomb out of hyperspace. I guess it’s better than Strangelove making the foe have a gun, but then again that served a thematic purpose. . .

For Lelouch himself, the moveset has an abundance of props, such as throwing a bloody chess piece, generating magic rainbows, birds out of nowhere from his cape as if he was some sort of magician, and of course, the moveset’s main calling card. . .Using Geass on the Smash Bros Cameraman to make the screen randomly zoom in on himself as an nair. Lelouch doesn’t stop at only breaking the fourth wall, though, as he’s willing to use geass on god himself to make light rain down on the stage. . .For whatever purpose, god knows. Perhaps most importantly, Lelouch barely uses his actual mech, which is kind of the point of the stupid anime, in favor of all of this garbage.

5 – Illidan by MasterWarlord – MYM 5

Everybody wants to see their most infamous sets get beat into bloody pulps – while almost all of us are tremendously egotistical, we’re also somewhat of masochists at the same time, and I’m no exception for my infamous MYM 5 trio in particular. If my sets feel a bit too high for your tastes, feel free to object, though I’m sure the 2 “winners” will be most satisfied with their placings.

Onto the actual set, Illidan doesn’t have the tackiest effects gameplay wise. Yes, he has random things like extra pointless effects on Mana Burn, a throw biased against heavyweights, a throw that heals him, and a bair that causes the foe to get attacked the moment they respawn on their platform. . .But when you’re in the top 5, that’s small stuff, as it doesn’t really interfere with how he plays. On the gameplay side of things, it’s more just how blatantly the set contradicts itself at every turn in the playstyle department in the name of “creativity” that today is very bland.

Characterization is the main vehicle to place this highly on the tacky lists, though, and that’s how Illidan earns a top 5 position. While Illidan has a single ability from Warcraft 3 that’d work in Smash, he’d need to be made as a more in-Smash set rather than resorting to this orgy of magic syndrome and props. He’s the leader of a group called the Naga? Have him summon a random egg that creates one of them! One of his main powers is fiery immolation, so have the egg turn into a Phoenix Egg because one of his commanders can summon Phoenixes if he uses it next to it! Okay, I know he’s not really a Night Elf after his demonic transformation, but why not have him use the orb from the Night Elf shop as his nair? He also has wings and horns, so clearly he should use sleep from the vampiric Dreadlords! And because it makes sense when a character is asleep, give Illidan the Pokemon Dream Eater combo to use on asleep foes! And. . .Uuuuhhhh. . .He’s really evil, I guess, so have him summon random demons from the Pit Lord, even though the main antagonist of his campaign is a goddamn Pit Lord! When he’s not stealing moves from random WC3 things that are entirely unrelated to him, he goes into main clichés involving his horns, which he never uses at all in any of his various forms of media, but here are practically used every other attack.

4 – Courage by Mythic02 – MYM 5

Not the Courage moveset you were expecting, now was it? Don’t worry, we’ll get to our infamous friend sooner than you think. . .This is undoubtedly the most obscure moveset on any of my lists, and probably won’t get topped any time soon. Never heard of Mythic02? The fact he never showed up before or after posting this set would help explain matters.

So just what –is- contained within this? I’ll summarize it for you in such a way that you won’t have to bother to go looking – every move summons a random Courage character, almost always a villain, to do an attack. Yes, Le’Quack and King Ramses are in here – even MYM’s beloved barber makes an encore appearance. Almost every character in the entire series shows up in this bloody moveset, and even as a newcomer set, Mythic02 is shocked at himself when he manages to make the whole 2 moves in the set that don’t involve a random character popping out.

You’d think with all the villians in the set, that they’d be threatening poor Courage, right? Well, not only is Courage immune to their attacks, but they aren’t even directly attacking Courage. If anything, they’re aiding him. This has obvious consequences for the characterization of all these villains, but more-so for Courage himself, as Courage is directly calling on the help of these villians whom he completely distrust and is utterly terrified of. Ironically, the only one of the bunch in all these villains that manages to actually scare Courage? Eustace.

3 – FMA Man by MasterWarlord – MYM 5

And here we reach the most infamous deleted moveset, one of two sets that’s been referenced a fair few times throughout the top 26. Now tell me, if you had Envy’s shapeshifting powers and wanted to fool someone from another universe, what would you do? If you answered anything other than turn into characters from your own universe, you’re obviously very wrong, as clearly these random characters that the enemy does not know will distort the foe. Transforming into Armstrong for generic muscles is one thing, but does he really have to transform into Hawkeye to use a gun? How about turning into Kimblee in order to use Alchemy, when time and time again it’s made a point of that Homunculi are physically incapable of using it? The moveset has very few moves which do not involve Envy transforming into a random ass character, and it shows very little of Envy himself as a result, being more of a representation of the series as a whole, hence the moveset’s label which it is now exclusively referred to by.

2 – Freaky Fred by Davidreamcatcha – MYM 11

This moveset is the face of tackiness, the main reason why David has all of his negative labels, and is just about the most universally hated moveset ever, being the butt of more jokes than Spadefox and Plorf. The moveset makes extensively awkward use of just about everything that can be thought of for Fred, such a random throwaway “freak points” mechanic, a straightjacket prop as Fred somehow drives the foe crazy, and my personal favorite, turning a throwaway scene into a central tacky device as Fred stuffs pancake props into the foe’s mouth, having an elaborate mechanic where he somehow shaves the pancakes.

Still, the moveset doesn’t do anything offensive enough to warrant second until we look at the purpose of Fred’s character, shaving people. It is blatantly downplayed in this set, as somehow David decides to –NOT- make this the KO method. Instead, the only purpose to shave the foe is to pop a pore on their head to start dealing poison damage to them. There’s also the purpose of shaving their hair to make a slip’n’slide runway, sure, but no, Fred can shave his own hair for said purpose – the only reason he wants to grab the foe at all is to pop a pore, as shaving his own hair is far, far more pratical. So yes, despite David desperately attempting to milk everything he can out of the character, he somehow makes a Freaky Fred moveset where there is no point to shaving the foe at all.

The top 5 minus Courage are pretty much the sets most hated by their owners of any sets, with the developers enjoying dishing out pain to them in any way possible.  David might well take the cake in this category, though, as he hates his moveset so much that he happily edited the moveset to be worse for a deal. You remember the chair Fred puts foes in before he shaves them? He edited it into a bathtub. Yes, really. And not just any bathtub – ROOL’s bathtub. Everybody both expected and wanted this moveset to win the list, and I’m unsure if the winner will convince all that many people that Freaky Fred isn’t the tackiest. In the least, though, I doubt there will be many arguments that it is Fred’s very best competition. . .

1 – Team Rocket by Junahu – MYM 5

The one time I beat this moveset up in the top 10 Junahu sets list from years ago, Junahu was thrilled, as he knew how terrible this set was and it had not received nearly enough hate – this is mainly due to it being what is, IMO, the most unreadable set ever made, thus not enough people read it to properly hate on it and just voted it because it was long and impressive looking. This is an early Junahu work before he truly got into his groove – this is Junahu trying to conform to the retarded state of MYM 4 and early 5. I won’t berate the moveset for the absurd quantity of props, as it’s very fitting in a similar manner to how props are fitting on the Joker. . .But that doesn’t save the moveset from much, as this moveset is tackier more in terms of gameplay than characterization.

I could make this about 10 paragraphs if I went into detail about all of the overdetailed examples, but more than any other set on this list, this particular moveset must truly be seen to be believed – there are far too many factors involved to give you a bite size style summary. More of the tackiness can be found in Meowth, who cannot use as many props as Jessie and James and thus has to resort to more insanely nonsensical shit. One of the best examples is very early on in the moveset, as Meowth has an attack that has 7 variations based off what day of the week it is – that’s just the tip of the iceberg. James’ dtilt where he kicks an enemy Pokemon is what the moveset is most infamous for, but in general the moveset has a very awkward repitore of screen filling ranged attacks with tiny actual hitboxes, building up mass random set-up  via itemfinder/planting berries/recycling crap for what usually ends up as zero pay-off due to the amount of luck involved. On top of all this, you have to juggle 3 movesets filled with this, either Meowth alone, Jessie and James, or all three together. If this moveset accomplishes anything in all its’ tackiness, it certainly –does- capture the hilariously incompetent and impractical nature of the trio.