Street Fighter 6 Tier List Rankings – The Best Characters of the Early Meta
In this tier list, we’re breaking down the best Street Fighter 6 characters of the early meta post-release.
Note that with all of our tier lists, we want to stress that the player ALWAYS comes before the character. Your skillset, playstyle, and drive to improve with a character are of the most importance.
Additionally, SF6 has proven to be very balanced on launch with nearly every character having advocates, drawing complaints, and improving with each day.
We’ve been ravenously playing and consuming the early tournaments/gameplay of top FGC players to define this first edition of our list but it is far from being law of course. Expect our rankings to change quickly!
Here are our rankings for the best characters in Street Fighter 6:
| Tier | Street Fighter 6 Tier List |
|---|---|
| S | Luke, Ken, JP, Juri, Cammy |
| S- | Blanka, Guile, Marisa, Chun-Li, Dee Jay |
| A | Rashid, Manon, Dhalsim, E.Honda |
| B | Kimberly, Ryu, Jamie |
| C | Lily, Zangief |
We also have a handy infographic version below:
New to Street Fighter 6? Check out our list of the top 5 SF6 beginner characters.
S-tier Characters (Top Tier) – Reliably Among the Best
| Tier | Street Fighter 6 Tier List |
|---|---|
| S | Luke, Juri, Ken |
In S-tier, we have characters that have strong matchup spreads, some of the most broken kits overall kits, and have a lot more room to scale as the game ages.
S-tier Character Notes
Luke
Luke has been positioned as the face of SF6 and is the Ryu for a new generation. He’s easy to pull off, effective at any range, and was even #1 on Tokido, Mago, and Gachikun’s first-tier list. Since then, he’s only gotten better and better and appears to be a mainstay at the upper echelons of the SF6 meta. MenaRD, the winner of CEO co-mains Luke alongside his Blanka.
Ken
Ken was very highly rated since the beta and has still been incredibly hot throughout SF6’s official release existence. He’s one of the best aggressive characters in the game and is currently one of Daigo’s mains – despite being incredibly popular and simple to play, he is still very strong so he’s likely overtuned.
JP
JP is the new villain of Street Fighter 6 and he’s appropriately an oppressive zoner who will cause many to break their sticks in frustration. He was very popular in the top 100 of EVO and Kakeru, his best representative, took the 400k 1st place prize at Gamers8’s invitational.
Juri
Juri is one of the best offensive threats and the top slow fireball character. She’s fallen out of top 3 since she can struggle against characters like Ken and Blanka, but she’s still very good.
Cammy
Cammy is used to being a dominant choice in SF and although she isn’t as broken in SF6, she’s proven to be very strong. She has been a popular choice in the competitive scene with pros like Punk/Pink and her playbase has bypassed the original community perception that her damage output is too low.
S-Minus Tier Notes (Lower Top Tier)
| Tier | Street Fighter 6 Tier List |
|---|---|
| S- | Blanka, Guile, Blanka,Marisa, Chun-Li Dee Jay |
We created this new category because Luke, Juri, and Ken set themselves a cut above the rest.
Blanka
We said in our previous notes for Blanka that you shouldn’t be surprised to see him jump up the ranks next time you read this. Well, MenaRD just the Grand Finals of CEO 2023 (he played Luke as well during the rest of the tourney but only played Blanka during GFs) using the Brazilian menace. Some argue that Blanka is currently a knowledge check, but we think he has enough legitimate tools to justify his placing.
Guile
Guile WAS the best zoner in SF6 but now he’s competing with JP for that top spot. With his ease of execution and gameplan along with being one of the best defensive characters, Guile is a great choice if you want to climb as a zoner but don’t want to be as hated as JP mains or work as hard as Dhalsim.
Marisa
Marisa has been a literal wrecking ball and is much stronger than many thought based on her first reveal. She’s a solid choice right now due to her ease of use and armor but will likely fall off in strength as players become more experienced due to her simpler game plan. That being said, she is likely deserving of a higher tier since we’ve seen Big Bird make her look insane at the top levels (check out Kumite) but we need more data.
Chun Li
As always, Chun Li offers one of the highest ceilings in terms of mechanical execution so she’s always a top-level threat. However, in SF6’s early meta, it remains to be seen if the work she requires is worth it.
Chun-li had her charge move, Kikoken, impacted by the Battle Change List (24.07.2023). Pro player Haitani recently went on a 72 win streak in ranked with Modern Chun-li, so she was obviously very strong already, but perhaps these changes will give Modern Control characters like her a few, slight situational improvements.
Dee Jay
With incredible mobility, feints, one of the fastest Drive Rushes, and just an overall awesome kit, Dee Jay is deservedly S-tier. He’s been highly rated by many top players but has a very high execution demand to be played at the very highest levels. If you’ve been enjoying playing him, keep at it because he looks like a safe bet for time investment.
A-tier Characters (High Tier) – Really Good, but Slightly Worse
| Tier | Street Fighter 6 Tier List |
|---|---|
| A | Rashid, Marisa, Manon, Dhalsim, E.Honda |
The characters in A-tier are powerful but below S because they’re either harder to pull off, are slightly weaker than a similar character, or are more reliant on gimmicks.
A-tier Character Notes
Rashid
Rashid’s unrivaled selection of movement options and projectile variations give him incredible versatility. Players are able to have Rashid adapt to themselves and express their own individual playstyle. His top-tier offensive pressure, approach mix-ups, and defensive options are really only held back by his slightly below-average damage output.
The majority of his combos are just not as hard-hitting as those characters placed above him in our tier list, and will often demand more Drive and Super gauge resources to match S tier damage.
Manon
Manon has been a sudden contender with top players like Sticky Fingers picking her up. As a grappler with potent footsie capabilities, Manon offers reliability, versatility, and best of all, one of the best resource systems on the roster. Prepare for a mountain of medals and la la la deaths.
E. Honda
Wow, E. Honda came flying out of the gates as an early strong pick but as time goes on, he has become a bit more predictable alongside counterplay the community has developed. He’s still a terror at lower ranks but has fallen out of favor at the highest levels.
Dhalsim
Dhalsim is one of those characters that usually scales well as an SF title ages and we can likely expect the same for SF6. While JP and Guile have been in the spotlight for zoners, be ready for his inevitable rise due to the inherent nature of him being the stretchy yoga man.
B-tier Characters (Mid Tier) – Have Some Stuff, but Not Broken
| Tier | Street Fighter 6 Tier List |
|---|---|
| B | Kimberly, Ryu, Jamie |
In this B-tier batch, we have characters who definitely have some good stuff and strong representative players out there, but are typically worse than other characters that are similar to them.
Character Notes
Kimberly
Kimberly was the best rushdown character during the beta, having an insane amount of mobility and shmix. After her pre-release nerfs, she has fallen out of favor compared to Juri and Cammy. Although she has one of the best punish games, her neutral is a bit gimmicky.
Ryu
Ryu is just solid, a fine choice for those looking for a well-rounded character with a great projectile game. He can definitely shine in good hands but doesn’t really have anything too oppressive to push him into the higher echelons.
Jamie
Jamie is one of the coolest characters in the game when it comes to style and swag, but the execution of his kit is much worse than its concept. Especially when you compare to Manon’s medal system that scales between rounds, Jamie has to work super hard to come online. We’ll see how he looks after he’s given more time though as a new character.
C-tier Characters (Low Tier) – The Most Honest and Hardworking
| Tier | Street Fighter 6 Tier List |
|---|---|
| C | Lily, Zangief |
Lastly, we have the C-tier characters. Don’t get us wrong, just because they’re lowest on the list doesn’t mean they can’t be deadly in the right hands. However, they’ll typically need to work harder than the other characters on the roster to do so.
Character Notes
Lily
The new member of the Thunderfoot tribe does have some advocates in the scene but she’s been widely ranked as underpowered when it comes to her kit’s capabilities and damage output but she is easy to pilot.
Zangief
In a zoner-centric meta and with the addition of Manon, it’s been tough to justify playing Zangief outside of being loyal to your character like Snake Eyez or destroying lower ranks with Modern. He’s still one of those characters that’s super satisfying to win with but some matchups will be torture for you.
As of Battle Change List (24.07.2023), it turns out Zangief being the only character to have an extra long Burn Out recovery time was supposedly not intentional and now he recovers at the speed as every other character.
Thanks for reading our rankings for the best Street Fighter 6 characters! Be sure to check out our other tier lists.
