Sorry for the long time to respond, Armor. I was a bit busy with uni and I genuinely just forgot to check around here
With that being said, it's been a doozy reading everything. This thread got very big and with some very ugly discussions, but I get the general point everyone was trying to make, and the indignation some have expressed here. I may have missed something, but in any case, just to make it easy for anyone in the future who is skimming past the threads and whatever,
I will bold the parts of my commentary that TL;DR what I will write. Hope that helps.
On the issue at hand and the discussion held by Armor,
I am in agreement with a downgrade, although I am of opinion that, with the evidence provided and discussion had here, particularly with Smashor's and Armor's arguments, that
tier 8 is the most consistent one, probably around the 8-A range from eyeballing, but I also like DaReaperMan's suggestion of making a tier consisting of "at least X value, likely Y value, possibly Z value", or something like that. It feels apt for the kind of series that Mario is.
I believe further threads will be necessary to tackle the issues pointed out earlier about a possible Mario Galaxy key and DDM's statements. Personally, I believe that at least tier 4, if not 3 for a Mario Galaxy and Grand Star-scaling tier are feasible.
On my personal opinion on the anti-feats and the discussion that was had on that topic, the first thing I must point out is that
while it is an important discussion, the topic of validity of anti-feats should be tackled on a separate thread, so my opinion on this paragraph may be ignored on the context of this thread. I fully and deeply understand the indignation at the current policy and the need to debate it, but this discussion has only derailed and, rereading it, visibly distressed many members from both staff and the wider community on this thread, which is understandable, given how important Mario is as a verse. That being said, I'll say this:
While personally the standards may be fine, this thread has shown the need to perhaps increase the given explanation and perhaps even have a dedicated page or blog post to it. Verses like Mario are, however, inherently difficult to consistently tier, and there is a point to be made on its actual possibility, in a not too dissimilar a vein from something like Bugs Bunny. It reminds me of a previous suggestion a long time ago about separating Mario on the arbitrary scale of different eras and groups of games - I know that it most likely isn't feasible and not the purpose of this thread, but I do like it, conceptually at least. On a more personal note, I have a personal method of evaluating characters that is very different from the wiki's standards, so everything I write here is on the context of the currently used standards, not on my own preferences.
Oh, by the way
@Agnaa - do you require assistance in checking out your blogs about ItRtG? It is outside my knowledge, but I can at least check the feats and logic out.