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:

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

In S-tier, are characters that were dominant during the SF6 beta along with the menace, JP.

In general, these characters have strong matchup spreads and some of the most broken kits.

S-tier Character Notes

Ken

Ken has been very highly rated since the beta and has still been incredibly hot. 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. The likes of Sonicfox have already begun to main him and he has one of the most broken counters in fighting game history (can’t be beaten by grab!).

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.

Juri

Juri is one of the best offensive threats and the top slow fireball character. She has become a common sight in Top 8 and has separated herself from Cammy and Kimberly who are very comparable in terms of playstyle.

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

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

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.

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 Justin Wong and her playbase has bypassed the original community perception that her damage output is too low.

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.

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 legitmate tools to justify his placing.

E. Honda

Wow, E. Honda has come flying out of the gates and has many players claiming as one of the best in the game. We don’t want to say he’s S-tier just yet because we think players will become better against his playstyle but we’re keeping a close eye.

Kimberly

Kimberly is the best rushdown character right now with an insane amount of mobility and shmix. Still incredible after her pre-release nerfs although definitely more fair now. Although she has one of the best punish games, her neutral is a bit gimmicky so we’re keeping her at A-tier since players are learning how to recognize her limited ways in.

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.

B-tier Characters (Mid Tier) – Have Some Stuff, but Not Broken

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

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 Angry Bird make her look insane at the top levels (check out Kumite) but we need more data.

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.

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.

C-tier Characters (Low Tier) – The Most Honest and Hardworking

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.

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.

Thanks for reading our rankings for the best Street Fighter 6 characters! Be sure to check out our other tier lists.

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