In the latest tier rotation SaltyTrack tracked, 32 fighters slid from B-tier down to P-tier — SaltyBet’s bottom tier, the Potato tier [1]. That’s the third month in a row we’ve logged this exact migration — and the cohort is growing each time. We saw 28 B→P drops on April 18, 27 on April 25 (we wrote about that batch here), and now 32 on May 2. Either SaltyBet’s tier system is going through a sustained re-evaluation, or our tier-mobility detector has found a recurring meta seam. Either way, it’s worth a look.
The headline. A 32-fighter B→P drop is the largest single-window slide into the Potato tier we’ve logged. The fact that this is the third such wave in six weeks (28 → 27 → 32) is the part that should make you sit up. This isn’t a one-off shuffle, it’s a pattern — a lot of fighters are washing out of B and into the basement.
Quick refresher (skip if you already know).
SaltyBet sorts every fighter into one of five tiers, from strongest at the top down to the bottom:
| Tier | Reputation |
|---|---|
| X | Top of the mountain. The rarest, most powerful (often “cheap”) characters; the biggest pots. |
| S | Elite. Consistently strong, well-known fighters — just below X. |
| A | The big competitive middle. Where most active fighters live. |
| B | The proving ground. Newer or weaker characters, recovering from cold streaks. |
| P | Potato tier — the bottom. New or barely-functional fighters; most never climb out. |
For a deep dive into what each tier means statistically, see The SaltyBet Tier List Explained.
B→P is a one-step move — the last rung down, from the proving ground into the basement. One fighter dropping to Potato is routine; it’s where a long losing streak lands you. What’s not routine is 32 of them landing there in a single window, three windows running. That’s not a shuffle anymore. That’s a trend.
Here’s a sample of the 32 fighters SaltyTrack flagged in the May migration [1]:
(That’s the first ten, alphabetically. The full 32-fighter list lives in our internal data — we’re not going to wallpaper this article with the rest of it.)
A few familiar faces are back. Alex Mercer, Android18, Alpaca, Alsion3rd EX, Antman — these are recognizable names, and several of them were on the April 25 list too. Shout out Krillin’s baby mama, again.
Here’s where the cohort gets interesting. We checked it against the last 30 days of P-tier matches: 40 P-tier matches across the cohort, 18 wins → 45% as a group [1]. Sit with that for a second — even down in Potato, against the weakest competition on the board, this batch is winning less than half. That’s the tell of a genuine demotion cohort: a lot of these fighters are landing exactly where they belong. Most are on a single P-tier appearance — some won it, some got dunked on. 16 of them are 1-0, 12 of them are 0-1, and a handful have multiple matches under their new tier already.
The exception, again, is Alex Mercer. His lifetime P-tier record is 15 matches, 12 wins → 80%, spanning 2022, 2024, 2025, and 2026 [1]. His most recent P-tier win was 2026-04-04 against Ark. He’s been dropped, climbed back, and dropped again multiple times, and he’s the cohort’s clearest case of a fighter who’s simply too good for Potato — he stomps it whenever he lands there and then claws back up. If you’re going to bet on a freshly-dropped name in this batch, Mercer is the one with the strongest receipts.
Other names with multiple matches already: Another Kyo is 2-1 (66.7%), Brad Armstrong is a clean 2-0, Android18 and Arthur and Burger King are each 1-1. On the other end, Athena and Bowlman are each 0-2 — the cohort’s worst performers so far, and the ones least likely to climb back out of the basement.
A few things change instantly when a fighter drops to Potato:
Where the edge is. A freshly-dropped fighter is mispriced in both directions. The crowd may still fear an old B-tier reputation that no longer applies — or it may write off a fighter who’s actually over-qualified for Potato (see: Mercer). The data hasn’t caught up to the new label yet. If you can read the matchup independently of the tier badge, this is the window.
Some will, some won’t. A drop to Potato isn’t a death sentence — fighters climb back out with a win streak just as fast as they fell in. The cohort’s 45% P-tier win rate tells you how it’ll likely split. Specifically, we’d expect:
The receipt that won’t quit. Remember the April 25 article, where we called out Alucard SOTN as a fighter who’d already cycled B→P→B? He’s on this list AGAIN. The man is a literal yo-yo. That’s two complete B↔P cycles in six weeks. If you ever needed a single fighter to demonstrate that a tier drop ≠ tier permanence, Alucard SOTN is your guy. Frame this on the wall.
The recurrence is the real story here. Last month we said “we’ll watch how this batch shakes out and follow up if there’s a pattern worth writing about.” This is that follow-up. The pattern’s real, it’s growing (28 → 27 → 32), and the same names keep cycling through. We’ll keep tracking it.
Why did 32 fighters drop from B-tier to P-tier in SaltyBet?
SaltyTrack’s tier-mobility detector flagged 32 B→P demotions in the May 2 window — the largest single-window drop into P-tier (the Potato tier, SaltyBet’s bottom tier) we’ve logged, and the third such cohort in six weeks (after 28 on April 18 and 27 on April 25). Fighters fall to P-tier on long losing streaks or roster re-evaluation, rather than on a single result [1].
What does it mean when a SaltyBet fighter drops to P-tier?
P-tier (Potato) is SaltyBet’s bottom tier — new, broken, or badly underperforming characters. A fighter dropping there has a much weaker matchmaking pool, a betting reputation that may lag the new label, and a SaltyTrack confidence call that re-baselines on the new context. For more on how tiers shape outcomes, see The SaltyBet Tier List Explained.
Should you bet on newly demoted fighters?
Carefully — and look at the receipts before you commit. A fighter freshly dropped to Potato is mispriced in both directions: the crowd may still fear an old B-tier reputation, or may write off a fighter who’s actually too good for the tier (Alex Mercer wins 80% of his Potato-tier matches). Read the matchup independently of the label. Just remember a 45% cohort win rate means most of these fighters keep losing even at the bottom.
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