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Guilty Gear Strive Tier List (Season 5, July 2026)

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Guilty Gear Strive Tier List
Guilty Gear Strive roster promo art with the full cast of 32-plus fighters posed together under the tagline Choose Your Favorite Fighter

Here is the short version: on the current Guilty Gear Strive tier list (Version 2.00, Season 5, as of July 2026), Potemkin is still widely rated the best character, with Chipp, Jam, Nagoriyuki, Leo, and Anji right behind him, while A.B.A, Lucy, Testament, and Venom sit near the bottom. Read that with a big asterisk, though: the 2.00 patch landed on April 9, 2026 and rewrote the entire roster, so this meta is only about three months old and the pros disagree on almost everything below S.

This is a living Guilty Gear Strive tier list for Version 2.00. Treat every placement as a snapshot, not a verdict — at this point in a brand-new patch, your character and your fundamentals matter far more than which row a name sits in.

Why this GGST tier list looks different from last season

Version 2.00 is the biggest balance overhaul in Strive’s roughly five-year history. Every character was retuned, three fighters (Sol, Nagoriyuki, and Ky) got brand-new special moves — Leo picked up new attack options inside his existing Brynhildr Stance rather than an all-new special — and the Wild Assault mechanic was removed entirely and replaced with a new universal mechanic called Counter Blitz (activated during the brief slow-down after a counter hit, at the cost of 50% of the Burst gauge, to land a unique follow-up attack), per Arc System Works’ official Version 2.00 patch notes.

That matters for tiers because it scrambled the math on offense and defense across the cast. The post-2.00 meta reads as aggressive and rushdown-favored, which is why pressure and okizeme characters (Potemkin, Chipp, Jam, Leo) cluster at the top while slower zoning and defensive picks have a harder time. The core systems you already know (Tension, Roman Cancels, Wall Break, universal Burst, Faultless Defense, the R.I.S.C. gauge, and Positive Bonus) are all still in play; what 2.00 changed is how each character leverages them after a roster-wide retune.

The current roster sits at 34 characters (15 base plus 19 DLC across Seasons 1 through 5); Robo-Ky is now the newest addition, having released on July 2, 2026. Two housekeeping notes: a minor follow-up patch, Version 2.01, landed on May 14, 2026 and tuned Counter Blitz, and Version 2.02 added Robo-Ky plus light touch-ups for Faust, Leo, Jack-O’, and Johnny. The Season 5 / 2.00 overhaul is still the meta that defines this list, and Robo-Ky is too new to place below (see the closing note).

How to read this tier list

S to D here is about a character’s ceiling in strong hands in the current patch, not a promise about your win rate:

  • S: top of the meta right now; consistently strong tools with few hard matchups.
  • A: fully viable at any level; a tier or a buff away from S.
  • B: solid picks that ask more of the player to compete with the top.
  • C: workable but fighting an uphill battle in 2.00.
  • D: the cast members most sources currently agree are struggling.

Two honest caveats. First, the sources disagree: this table is an aggregate of post-2.00 reads from Dustloop’s tier-list hub, EventHubs’ community tiers, and named pros (Leffen, Bushin, iDom, LordKnight), and they do not line up cleanly. Second, two months is nothing in a patch this large. Day-one “worst eight” lists have already been revised once. So below S, the gaps are small and matchup-dependent.

The current Guilty Gear Strive tier list (Version 2.00, June 2026)

TierCharactersThe read
SPotemkin, Chipp, Jam, Nagoriyuki, Leo, Anji, Happy Chaos (volatile)Strongest tools in an aggression-favored patch; the biggest risers live here
ARamlethal, Millia, Asuka R, Johnny, May, Goldlewis, Axl, Elphelt, I-NoTournament-viable; a small buff or a good week from S
BSol, Ky, Sin, Zato-1, Giovanna, Jack-O’, Bridget, Baiken, Dizzy, FaustFine picks that lean on player skill more than free strength
CSlayer, Unika, Bedman?Real holes after 2.00; doable but demanding
DVenom, Testament, Lucy, A.B.AThe cast most lists currently agree is struggling

Tiers shift with every patch and every major. This table aggregates Dustloop and EventHubs community and pro reads as of July 2026, after the 2.01 and 2.02 balance patches. Robo-Ky released too recently for these sources to place him.

S tier: who is actually on top

Potemkin is the closest thing to a consensus number one. He took targeted nerfs in 2.00 and still came out dominant — the patch’s aggressive lean suits a grappler who turns one read into a round. Chipp is the headline riser, jumping from the A range up to S on the back of health, frame-data, and recovery buffs that made his already-fast offense safer. Jam Kuradoberi, the new character, slotted straight into the top: she is a kick-based rushdown fighter with a charge resource for powered-up specials, a parry, and oppressive pressure.

Nagoriyuki got new moves in 2.00 and looks potentially overtuned, while Leo and Anji round out a top tier built on strong neutral and corner pressure. The wild card is Happy Chaos, the undisputed number one of the Season 4 meta, whose ammo (bullet) management got nerfed in 2.00. Opinion on him is genuinely split: some top players still rate him among the very best post-patch, while others read the nerfs as enough to knock him off the throne. Treat him as high-ceiling but unsettled.

B and below: who is struggling

The bottom of the list is where sources agree most. A.B.A sits at the floor of nearly every post-2.00 list, hampered by an inconsistent transformation gimmick. Lucy (the Season 4 Cyberpunk: Edgerunners guest), Testament, and Venom round out the D cluster, with Unika falling hard after 2.00 and Bedman? lingering in C. None of this is a death sentence. Strive matchups are close and a single patch can flip a tier, but if you want the path of least resistance right now, these are the harder roads.

Who should you main?

If you want to ride the current meta, pick from S: Potemkin if you like turning reads into damage, Chipp or Jam if you want fast, suffocating rushdown, Leo or Anji for grounded pressure. If you would rather climb on fundamentals than tier strength, the A and B tiers are loaded with characters that win on player skill. Sol, Ky, Ramlethal, May, and Giovanna all reward clean play. And if you main someone in C or D, the realistic move is to lean into the matchups you do win and out-execute people, because the gap below S is smaller than tier lists make it look.

Want to know what climbing the ladder actually demands? See our Guilty Gear Strive ranks explained guide for how Duel Tower, the Celestial Floor, and the newer Ranked Match RP system fit together. Buying on a new platform to play with friends? Here is whether Guilty Gear Strive is crossplay. Splitting time with Capcom’s fighter too? Compare notes with our Street Fighter 6 tier list.

When this list will change

Expect movement. The post-2.00 meta is still forming through the ongoing Arc World Tour circuit and the year’s majors, and Arc System Works has a track record of follow-up balance passes: Version 2.01 landed in May 2026, and Version 2.02 followed on July 2, 2026 with Robo-Ky’s release (the second Season Pass 5 character) plus light touch-ups for Faust, Leo, Jack-O’, and Johnny. Robo-Ky is too new for tier consensus to have formed, so he is not placed in the table above yet. We will revise these placements as results come in, so check the dateline at the top before you take any cell as gospel.

GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- | Season 5 and 2.0 Update Trailer

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