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Characters That Dominated Fighting Games in 2022
If you’re a fighting game player heading into 2023, you’ll probably recognize a lot of these faces.
Developers and players value balance. The last thing devs want is for characters they put everything into to sit on the sidelines, unplayed. For the players, they don’t want their favourite character to not be worth picking, but creating this delicate balance is harder than it looks.
This is why we have our low tiers, and our top tiers. We’ve seen fairy tale stories like Rangchu winning Tekken World Tour with Panda, or KaneBlueRiver winning Marvel at Winter Brawl over a Dark Phoenix player. Those stories have the impact they do because it's not the norm, strong characters win. So here’s a list of the most dominant fighters of 2022.
1. Luke - Street Fighter V
Street Fighter Luke
© Capcom
The shoto to end all shotos. Luke was added into SFV despite being one of the leading characters in SF6 after Capcom decided to delay the release of the next installment. Even after receiving some nerfs, he is still the character to beat.
Luke, at first glance, is just a regular shoto. He has most of the tools characters like Ryu, Ken, Sagat and Akuma are known for. The key difference is, he has better versions of those moves in almost all regards. With a lightning fast fireball, and an absolutely ridiculous dragon punch, he must be approached with extreme caution in comparison to the other fireball characters.
You might think it gets easier once you’ve closed the gap a little, but with his forward moving buttons like medium punch, and heavy kick, his ability to whiff punish or interrupt their opponents pokes is unmatched. He also uses the game’s core mechanic, V-Trigger as well as anyone.
Just over the first weekend of December, the North American online finals for Capcom’s Pro Tour had each of the top 3 players playing Luke.
At EVO 2022, Tokido came 4th playing Luke. ChrisCCH secured one of the rarest sponsors in the fighting game scene, TSM, while playing Luke. The character sees more and more play as the year goes on, and Capcom Cup will most certainly have a few Luke players finishing in the highest spots possible.
2. Android 21 (Labcoat) - DBFZ
Labcoat 21 DBFZ
© Bandai Namco
Dragon Ball FighterZ’s original character, Majin Android 21, is one of the series most popular faces that isn’t canon to the original manga or anime, so much so that she has references in new official animated media! This popularity must have been noted by Bandai Namco, as they released the characters original android form as the final DLC.
She had insane neutral with the fastest beam in the game, an advancing (and safe) anti ki blast spin forward, anti air, anti ki blast spin upwards, and a strong ki blast game. She still has all that after receiving some balance changes, but the beam is no longer as fast and her advancing spin forward is no longer safe on block.
That strength extends to her pressure with two separate grabs, an extra overhead normal (in addition to the standard 6M), a staggering six lows (the vast majority of characters only have two), and multi hitting mediums (twice as long a window to punish guard cancels). One of her command grabs heals her greyed out HP, while most heals only heal the blue health that you can recover as long as you aren’t the point character. Her other grab ( her alternate ground super) debuffs the opponent and permanently reduces that character’s damage by 21% for the game. Before it got nerfed, she could land it as part of a combo easily, but now that route has been removed.
Speaking of nerfs, they were only announced by Bandai once the (very loud) movement to ban the character succeeded at CEO 2022. It took the community collectively deciding to take the game’s balance into their own hands, before Bandai did anything. Before she was banned, Combo Breaker 2022 had six labcoats in top 8. After she was nerfed, she didn’t go anywhere, though. She’s still the clear best character in the game. People complain about the Goku and Vegeta fusions, but she is STILL a step above those. The latest major tournament, UFA had its top 3 made up of zero fusions, but all labcoat.
3. Happy Chaos, Nagoriyuki, and a little Ramlethal - Guilty Gear Strive
Nagoriyuki Guilty Gear Strive
© Arc System Works
One of the biggest fighting games released in the past few years, Guilty Gear -Strive- hasn’t come without its share of top tiers. Though series protagonist, Sol Badguy, was the star of the show at release, this year, the trio of Ram, Happy Chaos and Nago are running the show.
With the patch this past summer, Arc System Works was determined to keep these characters at a high strength level, and elected to shift some of their power around throughout their movesets. Nago had his blood resource gain more importance so players would prioritize being at a higher blood level, keeping them closer to going over the limit.
Ramlethal Guilty Gear Strive
© Arc System Works
Ram had her far pokes cut down a tad, with compensating buffs to spacing on her plus on block special, Dauro, as well as other normals. Happy Chaos had his unique concentration meter fill up quicker when closer to the opponent, and slower when farther, in order to combat his overwhelming zoning potential.
Despite this patch, these three characters were as overwhelming as ever, except maybe Ram. She won her only super major event just this year. However, Happy Chaos and Nagoriyuki are dominating as usual. With NBNHMR using Nago to win CEOtaku and UMISHO winning EVO with Happy Chaos.
Arc System Works closed the year out with another patch, taking aim at the game’s balance once again. Some of these characters have been addressed further, like Happy Chaos now risking the negative state for using their backwards advancing moves, so seeing how 2023 plays out will be very interesting.
4. Steve - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Smash Bros Steve
© Nintendo
It was Meta Knight in Brawl, it was Bayonetta in Smash 4, and some people would say: it’s Steve in Ultimate. There were hints of it during the online era, but Steve has had a major impact on Ultimate’s competitive history already.
Onin is leading the way in North America, winning Combo Breaker, Get On My Level, Stampede II, and Super Smash Con. The last tournament he made grand finals at, Let’s Make Moves Miami, he lost to the Japanese Steve, Acola. Both these players have been absolutely dominating their respective countries with Onin’s run slowing down just a bit in the last third of the year.
Acola however had a few strong showings in his first trips to the USA. In addition to winning Let’s Make Moves Miami over Onin, he finished second at Ludwig’s Smash Invitational, and was fourth at Smash Ultimate Summit 5.
Steve has a terrific combo game and his unique toolset creates situations that are absolutely unbeatable without the proper counterplay on deck. To have a chance, you must understand his resource management, and then grasp and counter what Steve wants to do with them. His other specials are strong on their own, such as the minecart, and once he has proper materials, his combos become dangerous. The trouble people have had fighting Steve alongwith Kazuya and other members of the DLC roster have people asking for bans, and a tournament series in the US is actually experimenting with those ideas.
Honourable Mentions
- Melty Blood Type Lumina: Vlov
- DNF Duel: Swift Master
- Tekken 7: Feng
- King of Fighters 15: Krohnen
While some of these aren’t as dominant as the ones listed above, we felt there was no way we couldn’t add them. Swift Master has already been nerfed, but the other 3 are still super strong picks, arguably dominating their game as well.
That’s the wrap up for the characters that dominated fighting games in 2022. With an unbelievable line up of FGs in the future, shout out Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 coming in hot, as well as the possible developments in current FGs, it is a wonderful time to be a fan of the genre. Don’t let this list fool you, with enough determination, anything is possible.
