I’m placing this is Brawl Discussion because this is the most read board and sees the most traffic from the flood of new members.
I’d appreciate it this got stickied, so that this explanation and argument will not have to be explained, fought over, etc.
COMPETITIVE SMASH
I. What is Competitive Smash?
Smash has been a wonderful game through all these years, from 64 to Melee and will be with the addition of Brawl. Everyone and their brother has heard of this game and probably played it at least once. But what is Competitive Smash and why do they play with such strict rules?
Competitive Gaming of any sort takes the game from its standard mainstream level of play into the most skill-based intense play. It’d be the same as playing Street Ball for kicks compared to the NBA.
So with more talented players testing their skill against each other, there must be an agreed upon rule system. While the game comes with a plethora of stages, items, and in Brawl’s case Final Smashes, rules have been created to account for higher level of play.
II. Metagame
How a game is played, through evolution in thought and practice is the Metagame. I will use some examples from Melee. Why do some new players to the game love Roy and dislike Marth? Why do some think Mewtwo is “really cool and awesome”? Well the answer to this is they don’t understand the current Metagame. Through exploration, practice, tournaments, etc., we have found many Advanced Techniques, which make some characters stronger than others. Fox’s down b, or shine, is very effective in higher play, making him one of the best characters.
III. Tier List
This entails the large discussion of Tier Lists. I won’t go much into that, but I feel that it should be covered in a discussion about Competitive Smash. A Tier List is the list of characters in descending order of their innate talent or abilities. Tier Lists assume equal ability or skill of all players playing at current Metagame.
This does not necessarily mean the top character on the Tier List (Fox) will always beat a character further down the Tier List. Marth, who is currently 4th on the Tier List, has a slight advantage against Falco, who is currently 2nd on the Tier List. The Tier List simply says overall who is “better”.
And yes, TIRES DO EXIST. Fox is significantly better than Pichu (Top vs. Bottom of Tier List). Players of EQUAL skill will find that characters on the bottom of the Tier List are not as good as characters on the top. Okay, enough of this…
IV. Luck
So you may still be asking, “What’s with all these rules? You might have explained Metagame and Tier Lists, but I’ve watched YouTube videos, I know this stuff.” Well, in short the aforementioned rules that the Competitive Smash Scene agreed to are not only standard rules in any professional setting, as the NBA would have standard rules, but are rules to eliminate as much luck as possible.
Luck is eliminated currently through no items being used and banning of stages deemed unfair. “But Vro, who gets to deem stages unfair? My friend says the tree in Dreamland 64 always blows in his direction when he tries to recover. And how can you ban Temple? I LOVE THAT STAGE.”
Easy there. Stages are banned per tournament, but generally ban the same stages. Some tournaments allow Green Greens, some don’t. But almost all tournaments will agree Icicle Mountain is not a good stage to fight on. Why? Because the factor of Luck. Well… any good player won’t be caught by the simple tricks of Icicle Mountain, but Flat Zone’s falling buckets are purely a matter of Luck. Also, some stages are better suited to certain characters. Fox will be used in a lot of examples, because he’s very quick and has a projectile. He can run circles in Temple without ever being caught. And if Bowser is on Icicle Mountain, he’s going to have difficulty following the silliness of stage scrolling at random.
V. The Casuals
“But Vro, I LOVE TEMPLE…”
Okay! Go ahead and play it. When I say it’s a banned stage I don’t mean no one can play it. I mean that in tournaments that stage is unusable. That stage really doesn’t measure skill. There are a lot of competitive flaws with that stage. But if you want to play it, be my guest.
When competitive players train often and go out of their way to tournaments, sometimes even out of state, they don’t want to put their skills to the test with luck involved. And I’m sure they don’t want to lose a match because a Fox player ran around Temple spamming lasers. They want to measure skill; mano a mano. (Spanish for hand to hand)
“But Vro, items test SK!llz”
Not really… They will drop randomly on the stage, giving random advantages. Faster characters, who are normally high on the Tier List become better. There’s just a lot of things going against items for competitive play.
But I mean. Play however you want. You want Temple timed-match with items on? Be my guest. I, and anyone here on Smashboards, WILL NEVER FORCE YOU TO PLAY A CERTAIN WAY. I choose to play competitively. I choose to agree to these rules when I enter a tournament. I choose to play by these rules. You can choose not to.
So who is right in this Competitive vs. Casual nonsense? NO ONE. No one is right. Ultimately everyone plays how THEY THEMSELVES want to play.
Sure, there are more competitive players on Smashboards, but guess what? These boards were created by competitive players and are run by them. Competitive players will want to drop by more than casuals because they feel this game is not just a casual game. But no one is right in this situation because again:
No one is right. Ultimately everyone plays how THEY THEMSELVES want to play.
TL;DR: No one is right. Ultimately everyone plays how THEY THEMSELVES want to play.
I’d appreciate it this got stickied, so that this explanation and argument will not have to be explained, fought over, etc.
COMPETITIVE SMASH
I. What is Competitive Smash?
Smash has been a wonderful game through all these years, from 64 to Melee and will be with the addition of Brawl. Everyone and their brother has heard of this game and probably played it at least once. But what is Competitive Smash and why do they play with such strict rules?
Competitive Gaming of any sort takes the game from its standard mainstream level of play into the most skill-based intense play. It’d be the same as playing Street Ball for kicks compared to the NBA.
So with more talented players testing their skill against each other, there must be an agreed upon rule system. While the game comes with a plethora of stages, items, and in Brawl’s case Final Smashes, rules have been created to account for higher level of play.
II. Metagame
How a game is played, through evolution in thought and practice is the Metagame. I will use some examples from Melee. Why do some new players to the game love Roy and dislike Marth? Why do some think Mewtwo is “really cool and awesome”? Well the answer to this is they don’t understand the current Metagame. Through exploration, practice, tournaments, etc., we have found many Advanced Techniques, which make some characters stronger than others. Fox’s down b, or shine, is very effective in higher play, making him one of the best characters.
III. Tier List
This entails the large discussion of Tier Lists. I won’t go much into that, but I feel that it should be covered in a discussion about Competitive Smash. A Tier List is the list of characters in descending order of their innate talent or abilities. Tier Lists assume equal ability or skill of all players playing at current Metagame.
This does not necessarily mean the top character on the Tier List (Fox) will always beat a character further down the Tier List. Marth, who is currently 4th on the Tier List, has a slight advantage against Falco, who is currently 2nd on the Tier List. The Tier List simply says overall who is “better”.
And yes, TIRES DO EXIST. Fox is significantly better than Pichu (Top vs. Bottom of Tier List). Players of EQUAL skill will find that characters on the bottom of the Tier List are not as good as characters on the top. Okay, enough of this…
IV. Luck
So you may still be asking, “What’s with all these rules? You might have explained Metagame and Tier Lists, but I’ve watched YouTube videos, I know this stuff.” Well, in short the aforementioned rules that the Competitive Smash Scene agreed to are not only standard rules in any professional setting, as the NBA would have standard rules, but are rules to eliminate as much luck as possible.
Luck is eliminated currently through no items being used and banning of stages deemed unfair. “But Vro, who gets to deem stages unfair? My friend says the tree in Dreamland 64 always blows in his direction when he tries to recover. And how can you ban Temple? I LOVE THAT STAGE.”
Easy there. Stages are banned per tournament, but generally ban the same stages. Some tournaments allow Green Greens, some don’t. But almost all tournaments will agree Icicle Mountain is not a good stage to fight on. Why? Because the factor of Luck. Well… any good player won’t be caught by the simple tricks of Icicle Mountain, but Flat Zone’s falling buckets are purely a matter of Luck. Also, some stages are better suited to certain characters. Fox will be used in a lot of examples, because he’s very quick and has a projectile. He can run circles in Temple without ever being caught. And if Bowser is on Icicle Mountain, he’s going to have difficulty following the silliness of stage scrolling at random.
V. The Casuals
“But Vro, I LOVE TEMPLE…”
Okay! Go ahead and play it. When I say it’s a banned stage I don’t mean no one can play it. I mean that in tournaments that stage is unusable. That stage really doesn’t measure skill. There are a lot of competitive flaws with that stage. But if you want to play it, be my guest.
When competitive players train often and go out of their way to tournaments, sometimes even out of state, they don’t want to put their skills to the test with luck involved. And I’m sure they don’t want to lose a match because a Fox player ran around Temple spamming lasers. They want to measure skill; mano a mano. (Spanish for hand to hand)
“But Vro, items test SK!llz”
Not really… They will drop randomly on the stage, giving random advantages. Faster characters, who are normally high on the Tier List become better. There’s just a lot of things going against items for competitive play.
But I mean. Play however you want. You want Temple timed-match with items on? Be my guest. I, and anyone here on Smashboards, WILL NEVER FORCE YOU TO PLAY A CERTAIN WAY. I choose to play competitively. I choose to agree to these rules when I enter a tournament. I choose to play by these rules. You can choose not to.
So who is right in this Competitive vs. Casual nonsense? NO ONE. No one is right. Ultimately everyone plays how THEY THEMSELVES want to play.
Sure, there are more competitive players on Smashboards, but guess what? These boards were created by competitive players and are run by them. Competitive players will want to drop by more than casuals because they feel this game is not just a casual game. But no one is right in this situation because again:
No one is right. Ultimately everyone plays how THEY THEMSELVES want to play.
TL;DR: No one is right. Ultimately everyone plays how THEY THEMSELVES want to play.
