Sandbag (SSF2)

Sandbag is a new starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was first revealed in SSF2 Dev Blog #5 on April 1st, 2016, as an April Fools' Day joke. Two days later, a special blog, SSF2 Dev Blog #5.1, confirmed Sandbag's inclusion as the game's "joke" character. Sandbag was created by developer TSON in just one week's time due to using creative animation tricks that required only a few sprites to be made. He made his debut in Version 1.0 as a hidden character, though he was made a starter in Version 1.2.

Sandbag is currently ranked 32nd in the tier list for Version 1.3 of the game. He uses a highly unorthodox playstyle that breaks many conventions of character design in the game to great effect, making him one of the most unpredictable characters in the game. He possesses a high number of moves that are deceptively strong, capable of racking up big damage or scoring some very cheesy KOs. He also has a strong air game, with fast aerials and quick burst movement options like Sanddash and Sandgrab. His grab has long reach while his throws are ridiculously powerful, giving him an amazing grab game as well. His unorthodox recovery moves have a lot of flexibility and, when mastered, allow Sandbag to recover from a surprisingly high number of offstage situations.

However, as one would expect from a joke character, Sandbag has his fair share of weaknesses. His unique walk and dash have bad mobility where he slowly "hops" forwards, forcing him to rely on exploiting mobility quirks and sanddashing to get around effectively. Many of Sandbag's strong attacks have a lot of endlag, making them highly punishable on whiff. His neutral getup is by far the longest in the game, making him extremely vulnerable to jab resetting. Sandbag's biggest flaw is his inability to grab ledges at all, removing his ability to edgehog opponents while giving him a very poor disadvantage state offstage in spite of his unique recovery. Speaking of which, his primary recovery tool causes him to literally blow himself up, which deals a lot of self-inflicted damage and will cause him to KO himself if his damage gets too high.

While Sandbag was initially considered to be one of the weakest characters in the game, many players have since overcome his difficulty curve and placed strongly in tournaments, defying the previous tier list. As such, public opinion has improved by enough of a margin to catapult him out of the low tiers.