What Does S Tier Mean?

S Tier Meaning at a Glance

If you only remember one thing, remember this: S = best of the best, above A. In a tier list, ranks descend as S → A → B → C → D (and sometimes F). Anything you put in S tier is dominant, category-defining, or in a league of its own. It's not "very good" — that's A tier. S tier is the ceiling.

The system is deliberately non-numeric. Unlike a top-10 list, a tier list lets multiple items share the same rank, which is why "S tier" is a group and not a position. Two things can both be S tier without one being "better" than the other.

What Does the S Actually Stand For?

There is no single official answer. The most common readings you'll see across the internet are:

• Superb — the reading most Western tier list guides settle on.
• Super — how the letter is typically read aloud in gaming communities.
• Superior — sometimes used interchangeably with "Super."
• Special — occasionally used when S tier is treated as an exception rather than a rank.

All four readings mean roughly the same thing in practice: something above the top of an A–F scale. The lack of an "official" answer is normal — the letter's meaning was assigned informally as it spread through online communities, so any of these is correct as long as you use it consistently in your own tier list.

Where S Tier Comes From

S tier is not a Western invention. It comes from two Japanese traditions that overlapped in the 1980s and 1990s.

The first is Japanese school grading. Traditional Japanese report cards used characters like 秀 (shū, "excellent") and 優 (yū, "superior") above the standard A–D letter grades imported from the West. The 秀 mark, in particular, sat above A as a rank reserved for exceptional performance — a rank that couldn't be captured by the imported letter scale.

The second is Japanese arcade and console games. Beginning in the 1980s, Japanese developers used an S rank on end-of-mission grading screens to sit above A. You'll recognize this from games like Devil May Cry, the Metal Gear series, Bayonetta, and countless rhythm and racing titles: the standard grades are A, B, C, D, F, and S is the "you did better than we expected" bonus rank on top. It was a natural fit — S already meant "above A" to Japanese players from their school days.

From there, the label spread to character rankings in fighting games. When Japanese and Western players started publishing Street Fighter, Super Smash Bros., and Guilty Gear matchup charts in the late 1990s and 2000s, they used the same S/A/B/C/D scale they already knew from arcade grading. The fighting-game community (FGC) exported the format to gaming forums like GameFAQs and Smashboards, and internet culture eventually stretched it far past gaming into anime, food, sports, and pop-culture rankings you see on Reddit and YouTube every day.

The Full Tier Scale: S, A, B, C, D, F

Here's the standard tier list scale and what each rank tends to mean in practice:

Rank	Meaning	Example
S	Best of the best — category-defining, dominant	A game character with the highest tournament win rate
A	Excellent — strong, reliable, near the top	A very good pick that isn't quite meta-defining
B	Good and reliable — solid but not standout	A dependable everyday choice
C	Average — fine, forgettable	Something you'd use but wouldn't recommend
D	Below average — weak, situational	A pick you'd only take under specific conditions
F	Bad — avoid	Something openly considered unusable

Some tier lists add E between D and F as an extra weak rank. Others go the other direction and add SS or even SSS above S for outliers that "break" the scale — think a character so overpowered that calling them S tier feels like an understatement. These extensions are common in gaming tier lists but rare in pop-culture ones.

S Tier vs A Tier: What's the Difference?

This is the distinction most beginners get wrong. A tier is "excellent." S tier is "category-defining."

Concretely: an A tier pick is one of the top options and clearly better than most alternatives, but you could imagine swapping it for another A tier pick without much loss. An S tier pick is one you'd actively build a strategy, thumbnail, or list around — removing it would meaningfully change the shape of the ranking. If two items feel roughly interchangeable at the top, they're probably both A tier. If one feels like it deserves its own row, that's S tier.

How People Use "S Tier" in Conversation

Because tier lists escaped gaming years ago, "S tier" now shows up as everyday slang. Some examples of how it's used in the wild:

• "Kazuha is S tier in this patch — every top team runs him."
• "Honestly, cold leftover pizza for breakfast is S tier."
• "The bathtub scene in Parasite is S tier cinema."
• "That was an S tier save from the keeper in stoppage time."

In all four cases, "S tier" is used the same way you'd use "top notch," "elite," or "goated" — but with the specific implication that it's the top of a scale, not just a compliment.

Related Terms

God tier — Informal slang for anything so good it sits above S tier. Often used interchangeably with S tier, but when both appear in the same list, "god tier" is the higher rank. You'll also see this written as "God Tier" as a renamed top row in custom tier lists.

Top tier — A general phrase meaning "in the highest tier," without specifying which letter. Someone who says "these are all top tier" usually means "S or high A." It's the umbrella term; S tier is the specific one.

F tier — The bottom rank in an S–F scale. F tier is reserved for picks openly considered bad or unusable, and it's often used ironically ("F tier decision-making" = a bad choice).

Mid — Modern slang for "average" or "unremarkable." In tier terms, "mid" maps roughly to C tier — not bad, not good, just there. Something labeled "mid" is the opposite of S tier.

Frequently Asked Questions

See the answers below for the most common questions about S tier meaning.

Ready to try it yourself? Make your own S–F ranking with our free tier list maker — or type items instead of uploading pictures with the text tier list mode. For a broader definition, see what a tier list is, and if you want a walkthrough, read how to make a tier list step-by-step.