Grim Tuesday
Smash Legend
Hey everyone!
A recent post by MegaRobMan where he went over every stage in the game, covering whether he felt they should be starter, counterpick or banned inspired me to make this thread.
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WHAT IS COMPETITION?The theorycraft behind Smash rulesets is a lot more complicated than many realize, which leads to misinformed posts where people believe that decisions should be made based on arbitrary pieces of information, rather than the core, objective facts that form the basis of a competitive game. What I'm trying to get at here is that our goal, for every single rule or set of rules that we as a community make and enforce, should be to improve competition as much as we feasibly can without causing any double standard situations.
But how exactly do we decide what is competitive and what isn't? I believe that Budget Player Cadet put it best in one of his blogposts.
The fundamentals of competition are as follows:
- Competition must involve 2 or more scores or players to compare.
- Competition must be able to show which of the two scores/players is superior.
The first criterion is obvious, one cannot compete without something or someone to compete against. The second is the real driving force behind competition, as the entire premise behind it is to prove who or what is superior in the field.
The reason people do not compete in "coin-flipping" or "dice-rolling" competitions is because these events are "random" (a word which effectively means 'a situation where there are too many variables to take into account when making a decision'. When a winner is decided by chance, they were not shown to be any better than the other player(s) in any field, so it cannot be considered a true competition or "test of skill", if that is a better way to phrase it.
Similarly, a solved game like Tic-Tac-Toe is uncompetitive because it is so simple to master that at the height of competition, the players of the game will be equally good and determining the better player becomes impossible.
What we can infer from this is that a game with more effectively different situations will be harder to master, and the harder a game is to master, the more competitive it becomes (to a point, as if a game is too difficult to master, such as predicting a coin toss, the players will be equally bad at it). It is a scale of sorts, both ends are uncompetitive but for completely polar reasons. With that in mind, competitive will be used in the way I have described for the remainder of this thread as I believe it is the most logical definition for it.
I will refer to a "skill ceiling" numerous times in this thread, by which I mean the maximum level of skill you can achieve in a specific field. When something has a lower skill ceiling than something else, it is easier to master and thus less competitive. To use a 'Smash Bros. Brawl' example, the King Dedede vs. Donkey Kong match-up has a much lower skill ceiling than many other match-ups as the overall skills tested in the scenario are fewer and shallower.
Dedede gains such a high reward from landing a grab that he has much less incentive to use tactics that do not involve grabs or grab set-ups; on the other hand, Donkey Kong is punished so hard for making a mistake that he has much less incentive to make "risky" decisions. All in all, the match-up calls for far less effectively different situations than a standard match-up and is less competitive because of it.
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THE COMPETITIVE CRITERIAMy criteria for whether a stage should be banned or not is as follows: "Does the stage in question cross my arbitrary line of competitiveness?" I believe that this should be the only criteria when determining stage legality, and the only thing that should change between rulesets is where the line is drawn. There is quite literally no logical backing for any other criteria - saying "this stage should be banned because it moves!" holds as much merit as saying "this stage should be banned because it is purple!". However, while neither of those examples have any direct correlation with "competition", they can and should be taken into account as part of my competitive criteria (i.e. this stage is purple - does that cause it to cross the line of competitiveness?).
Some of you may be thinking "Grim, I didn't know that you supported a subjective approach to determining stage legality?"
This is only a recent epiphany for me, however obvious it seems in retrospect; I do not believe that an objective criteria is feasibly possible or even the best option for us to take. We can't really say how uncompetitive something has to be for it to be too uncompetitive (as it is impossible to achieve competitive perfection in Brawl), that is at the TO's discretion. We can, however, objectively order the stages in terms of their competitive merit (however difficult it may be, competitive merit can be quantified by counting the number of effectively different situations). That is what I will attempt to do in this thread.
Two more things before I begin;
1. I factor in how popular a stage is when it comes to legality, as that does affect how competitive it is. This is a variable that I, and many other players have largely ignored in the past simply because it exists outside of the game. I no longer see a reason to ignore it, thus stage popularity will be taken into account for this list.
An unpopular stage will provide for shallower competition when played on as its metagame is not as advanced or well-known as the metagames of more common stages, and a very unpopular stage can deter people from entering a tournament where it is legal. Conversely, a stage being more popular than its in-game competitive merit warrants does not change its overall merit to the same extent (unless there was a stage that was so popular that people would enter tournaments that they wouldn't otherwise just because the stage is legal), as it does not alter the approach players have to the stage. A popular stage will, however, be played on more and will probably be closer to its skill ceiling in competitive play - there is no situation in Brawl where this changes a stage's competitive merit aside from possibly Final Destination.
2. As a general rule of thumb, the more skewed a match-up is (note that skewed, in this case, is referring to how different a MU ratio is from 50:50 - not how different it is from it's average), the less competitive it is. With that said, a stage that skews match-ups will be less competitive as well (there are definitely exceptions to this; Mario Bros. makes a huge amount of match-ups even while at the same time replacing most of the match-ups intricacies with "use hazards intelligently", for example). The point is that how a stage affects the depth of the match-ups played on it will also be factored into its competitiveness. This is why many stages with "unique" (match-up skewing) traits are considered less competitive than static stages.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 0
:temple:The size of these stages and the abundance of platforms means that the player who has a percentage and/or stock lead can effectively run away from the other player until the timer has run out to secure a win.
Winning on these stages boils down to three things:
- Choosing a character who is either more mobile than, equally as mobile as or only slightly less mobile than your opponent's character.
- Landing the first hit.
- Running away until the timer runs out.
The above skills are the only skills required to win on these stages, and they are very simple to use. So simple that the skill ceiling (the maximum amount of skill it is possible to attain in a given situation) for this stage is so low that the outcome of matches on this stage will not show who the better player is with any level of consistency.
As these stages cannot reliably determine who the player with more skill is, they are uncompetitive.
:mariobros:
Mario Bros. is a very interesting case. When looking at the stage by itself objectively, it is clear that it is more competitive than the other stages in this category. The stage's randomness is permissible and it does not foster any competition-killing tactics. (to anyone who disagrees with this, I recommend reading the opening post in my thread: The 8-Bit Ultimatum) The hazards are intricate enough to set a skill ceiling high enough to arguably foster competition, depending on where you draw the line.
So, what does this stage have against it?
1. Popularity. The number of people who would refuse to enter a tournament with this stage legal lowers its competitive value massively. Especially when you consider the ramifications of legalizing it; the few players who would continue to play the game competitively would likely live a fair distance away from one another, making competition between them very difficult. The sharp decrease in player numbers would result in significantly slower metagame advancements, also resulting in a loss of competitive depth.
2. This stage reduces the competitive depth of the match-ups played on it. The hazards are a better tool than the movesets of most characters, meaning that many of the options players are required to consider on other stages are simply replaced with hazard-related options that are effectively the same as one another. This trait could arguable make the stage uncompetitive, depending on where you draw your line.
Mario Bros. is uncompetitive due to its incredible unpopularity.
WarioWare Inc.'s randomness is what puts it in this category. The strength of the "Invincibility" reward lets a match swing massively in one player's favour by chance (even when both players win a microgame, there is still a chance that one will come out on top), which interferes with determining the more skilled player.
Contrary to popular belief, this situation does not happen as often as many players believe.
It is possible to ensure that neither player "wins" in several of the microgames, such as: Kitty Cover (Stay dry!), Lose Your Marble (Chisel it!), Blowin' Up (Pop it!) [3 Balloons), Don't Move! and Taunt!
The other microgames are very simple to "win", which means that most of the time either both players will be rewarded, or neither player will be rewarded.
While probably slightly more competitive than the above stages (due to the fact that this stage has a chance of being competitive, depending on the microgames encountered and the rewards given out), its popularity places it in this category for the same reason as Mario Bros.
WarioWare Inc.'s random rewards make it uncompetitive.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 1:bigblue:
Big Blue is similar to the quadrinity (75m, Temple, New Pork City and Rumble Falls) in many respects; the main platform is a massive circle, the stage is huge (making it difficult to corner players who are running away), it provides many platforms for players to escape to and jumping onto the road at the far right of the screen gives players another way of escaping their opponents. All of this adds up to a stage with a very low skill ceiling.
Several traits set it apart from the quadrinity, however. The Big Blue itself (forming the main circle) isn't even on the screen for the majority of its cycle, the escape platforms aren't very accessible to characters without high mobility, which limits the amount of match-ups that truly become "get the lead; run away".
Big Blue's significantly low skill ceiling places it in this category as uncompetitive.
1-2 (Underground)Note: Holding down L or R when selecting the stage will select Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2 specifically, avoiding the random chance of getting 1-1.
1-2 shares a lot of similarities with 1-1. The stage scrolls horizontally with numerous walls, pits and destructible terrain affecting the match on the way.
The trait that sets 1-2 apart from its cousin is the "ceiling" of blocks above the top. Breaking one as an entrance and then travelling along the top gives a mobile character many runaway options that reduce the stage's skill ceiling considerably.
Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2 is uncompetitive because of the low skill ceiling caused by the ease of running away as a mobile character, which is in turn caused by the ceiling of blocks.
Spear Pillar has a very obvious and exploitable circle due to its lower level. The circle is technically temporary, however, due to the stage's hazards. The few hazards that do stop circle camping do not last very long, meaning that gameplay on this stage is still limited to mobile characters, and instances of combat are still quite rare.
The hazards which can interfere with circle camping are:
Dialga's Vertical Hyper Beam (if both players are on the same side)
Dialga's Roar of Time (avoidable)
Palkia's Horizontal Hyper Beam
Palkia's Gravity Manipulation (match-up and position dependent)
Cresselia's series of Psycho Cuts (avoidable)
Cresselia's single "boomerang" Psycho Cut (avoidable)
While the Palkia version of the stage could be considered competitive, it does not warrant further testing because it would be too unwieldy to have such a rule for tournaments (there is no way of telling which Pokemon will appear until it has appeared and there is no guarantee that Palkia will appear within a reasonable amount of time).
Despite the hazards alleviating some of this stage's competitive problems, Spear Pillar's circle still makes it a clearly uncompetitive stage.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 2Bridge of Eldin is flat, large and platformless. These traits serve to increase the strength of projectile camping (characters like Falco and Pit can remain largely untouchable against characters with poor or even standard mobility), increase the strength of characters with strong gound games and skew match-ups in their favour, and give several characters instant-death-grabs, further skewing match-ups.
While there are match-ups that can seriously and competitively be played on this stage, they are few and far between and even rarer in high level tournaments.
This stage cannot really be considered uncompetitive, as the more skilled player can be reliably found. It does, however, have a lower skill ceiling than most stages and would cause a large number of players to quit in the event of it becoming legal, giving it questionable competitive merit.
Hanenbow suffers from all the same problems as the quadrinity but on a much smaller scale. Match-ups on this stage will be heavily skewed in favour of the character with higher mobility, but the smaller overall size and distance between the platforms makes indefinite run away tactics a lot harder than they would be otherwise.
Hanenbow is also one of the least popular stages in the game, and would presumably cause a mass outflow of players should it be legalized, despite not being "as bad" as some of the more tolerated stages below it.
Hanenbow's competitive merit is questionable due to its popularity and skewing of common match-ups.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 3:summit:
Another circle camping stage, Summit is (similar to Hanenbow) a milder version of Temple and Spear Pillar. The stage has several traits which help with interrupting circle camping:
- Increased tripping rate on ice can help interrupt a camper who has constant pressure applied to them.
- The lowered gravity while the stage is falling will interfere with the tactic in several match-ups.
- If the stage sinks low enough during the final transformation, the water (and thus, the fish) can interrupt the circle.
- The small size of the stage lets characters like Snake and Pit hit circle campers via projectiles without needing to catch up to them.
All in all, the circle camping interruptions are noticeably much more frequent than in the other stages I've covered so far, and their are fewer match-ups where the circle is relevant.
Summit's competitive merit is questionable due to the circle skewing some match-ups.
orneria:Corneria's main problem is the large fin and the area below it on the stage's right-hand side. Camping in this section with the percentage and/or stock lead means that you can only be approached from a single point relatively high above you (excluding scrooging), countering approaches from above is quite simple in many match-ups and leads to a lowered skill ceiling compared to many other stages.
The Arwings fire randomly upon characters, often from off-screen, which can interfere with results in some circumstances (especially when characters have tied stocks and similar damage percentages, as maintaining a lead is an important strategy on Corneria).
The ship's main gun/laser at the bottom left provides an extra platform for planking players to escape to, as well as providing a spot for players to camp (though this tactic has not properly been tested, and could presumably lead to the camper's death due to the unpredictability of the gun's initial burst).
Corneria has questionable competitive merit due to fin camping's skewing of risk:reward ratios.
Flat Zone 2 is the first stage with walk-offs as its primary issue that I have covered here, so I will take this opportunity to give my opinion on walk-off camping.
With that out of the way, Flat Zone 2 was placed here purely because of the number of chain grabs that turn into instant-KOs due to the always present walk-off blast zones.
No explanation should be needed for why the instant KOs this stage offers in a large amount of match-ups lowers the skill ceiling necessary to play here, and gives it its rating as a stage with questionable competitive merit.
This stage falls in the exact same category as Flat Zone with no extra information worth noting: Questionable competitive merit.
Shadow Moses Island, again, falls victim to walk-off chain grabs. The walls effectively act as walk-offs in regards to chain grabs here as every platform has a wall next to it.
All in all, another stage with questionable competitive merit.
Skyworld gets a rating of 3 because of the soft circle around the top platform. The circle is small and temporary due to the destructibility of the platform, but still provides a strong tool for high mobility characters in several match-ups.
The ceilings on this stage increase the frequency of stage spikes, though not to the extent that stage spiking becomes a dominant, depth-destroying tactic. Some characters have difficulty recovering on Skyworld due to the destuctible ground - this does not impact the stage's competitive merit in any significant way.
More so than this, the stage is very unpopular, which causes it to be rated worse than it would otherwise be in this list.
All in all, the stage has questionable competitive merit mostly due to its popularity, but also in part because of its lowered skill ceiling in some match-ups.
Green Hill has the walk-off problem that is present on some of the other stages in this category, but to a much lesser extent. Chain-grabbing is less effective up slopes, and the chain-grab can be interrupted by destroying the ground or triggering the Check Point hazards.
This stage's major competitive problem are the aforementioned Check Point hazards. By hitting one and then camping inside it, players can remain largely invulnerable until the spawn point disappears. This gives high mobility characters an extra tool in several match-ups, similar to Skyworld.
Also similarly to Skyworld, this stage is reasonably unpopular, which impacts its competitive merit to the point of it being questionable.
1-1Note: Holding down X or Y when selecting the stage will select Mushroomy Kingdom 1-1 specifically, avoiding the random chance of getting 1-2.
1-1's only in-game problems are the walls and the walk-off. However, their influence is mitigated due to the layout of the stage.
King Dedede, the main offender for the 'questionably competitive' walk-off stages has a very difficult time catching up to characters with the lead on this stage due to his poor mobility, and he has greater difficulty camping to land his grabs due to the scrolling camera. Characters other than King Dedede are still boosted by the potential zero-to-deaths in several match-ups, however.
1-1 is questionably competitive in part due to the slightly lowered skill ceiling stemming from the potency of chain grabs and run away tactics, but primarily because of its poor popularity.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 4Distant Planet's walk-off is on a slope, which limits the utility of chain-grabs on it. The waterfall serves to interrupt slope/walk-off camping, but is not very frequent. The ledge underneath the main leaf is apparently a strong camping position, but it doesn't seem as strong in practice as many make it out to be, especially when this stage's items can be used reliably as an anti-camping tool.
Despite fostering two potential camping positions, the general layout of the stage as well as the items it spawns help to alleviate any potential problems. This stage loses points due to its low popularity (a problem which many other stages in this category suffer from), leaving it with questionable competitive merit.
:greengreens:
For starters, Greens is not a very popular stage due to the campy gameplay it promotes, the walls, the close blastzones and the random bombs. The influence the walls have is negligible because they can be destroyed (if a low block is destroyed, another will not replace until the blocks above it are also destroyed), and as I will explain below under "Onett"; King Dedede's wall infinites are vastly overrated.
The random falling bomb blocks, and random falling blocks in general being able to save or take lives at random (often without the players being able to react to their appearance at all) adds an undeniable level of chance to the result, but not to the extent of stages like Wario Ware.
The 'Constant Explosion' glitch on this stage is also not worth mentioning in my opinion. After it has occured, the game can still continue and neither player becomes more disadvantage than the other while it is occurring.
Green Greens's competitive merit is questionable due to its potential random influence over results.
Norfair's large size, multiple ledges and multiple platforms promote strong run-away tactics from high mobility characters. While the lava walls alleviate this to an extent, the amount of "low-skill-ceiling" match-ups present on this stage is still quite high.
This stage has more popularity than other stages with similar "problems" like Mushroomy Kingdom, giving it a higher rating. Still, the run-away tactics this stage promotes give it questionable competitive merit.
:onett:
Onett's walls and walk-offs have given it a reputation as an uncompetitive stage, I will first explain why I believe that the reputation that walls (and by extension; wall infinites) have is incredibly unwarranted, especially on Onett.
On top of all of the tools listed above, the frequent cars also give players an opportunity to approach a camping Dedede or chain-grabber. The cars also help alleviate the "problem" of camping the walk-offs with chain-grabbing characters, forcing the camping player to commit to an action (either shielding, dodging or avoiding the car) multiple times every minute.
Onett's popularity and somewhat shallow gameplay (in comparison to commonly accepted stages) and lowered skill ceiling in a variety of match-ups give it questionable competitive merit.
PictoChat is here for the same reason as Green Greens, the random influences the transformations can have on the game's result.
Contrary to (somewhat) popular belief: There is no discernible pattern to the order or timing of the Pictochat transformations. All that can be said is
a) A transformation will not repeat itself until the cycle is complete.
b) Transformations will not appear immediately after one another.
c) If its been a while since the last transformation, expect one soon.
Many of the transformations will completely change mental (momentum) and positional advantages - and it is unreasonable to expect players to account for the timing and result of the transformations as frequently as Picto asks them to.
Pictochat's constant randomness has demonstrably questionable competitive merit.
Pirate Ship's hazards are predictable and avoidable, similar to Halberd's. The claims that water camping as a character with spikes, a supposedly strong technique on this stage do not appear to hold much weight given that the water limits a players options, and that landing in water causes characters to suffer lag.
The most intelligent complaint against Pirate Ship is rudder camping, a technique I don't believe is as strong as many suggest for a few reasons:
- Diving under water incorrectly can lead to instant death for the camper.
- The rock and the cyclone both force the camper out of their position.
- The boat's rocking can KO an incorrectly positioned camper.
- It is possible to move away from the camper so as to put them far enough off-screen to suffer hoop damage, this will either force them out of their position (forcing them to perform the risky maneuver again as you approach) or get them to high enough percentage that when the stage itself forces them out, they can be KO'd simply.
Pirate Ship is a questionably competitive stage due to the prejudices players have against the bomb hazard, water camping and rudder camping.
:japes:
Jungle Japes' water has a similar effect to Big Blue's road, allowing a quick escape option for players attempting to run-away, as well as providing a camping position for characters with high horizontal mobility. The Klap Trap makes this already risky tactic even more dangerous to the point of it being a non-issue, in my opinion.
The Klap Trap itself is a non-random hazard and usually unintrusive hazard - it does not affect the stage's competitive merit.
Travelling underneath the stage's side platforms is a strong movement technique for several characters (such as Falco and Meta Knight) and gives them an advantage on this stage, but the technique is not completely full-proof as it can still be punished if predicted or the space around the sides of the central platform is controlled well enough.
Jungle Japes lowers the skill ceiling in certain match-ups by giving characters extra defensive options, and has questionable competitive merit because of that.
:mansion:
Luigi's Mansion's platforms form a circle similar to the one on Skyworld in that it can be destroyed to create openings to catch the player who is running away.
While the platforms serve as an extra tool for high mobility characters, lowering the skill ceiling in some of the match-ups that involve them in a similar way to Skyworld, Mansion gains a leg-up on it's cousin because of its popularity (or rather, Skyworld's lack thereof).
While the ceiling can lead to jab lock combos - the initial hit to set them up can be tech'd and the combos themselves can be easily SDI'd out of for the most part - preventing a hard punsh.
The soft circle's affect on some match-ups gives this stage questionable competitive merit.
Port Town's lack of edges on the main platform change risk:reward ratios heavily in some match-ups, leading to match-ups involving characters with poor recoveries having lower skill ceilings than on more competitive stages. The track bouncing players back up does help with the recoveries of poor characters to an extent, however.
The cars are a non-issue in the majority of match-ups, being very predictable in nature and usually very easy to avoid. The only transformation where the cars can have an impact on match-ups is the "ramp" transformation, as characters with poor vertical mobility may have trouble reaching the top platform safely.
The KO'ing ability of the cars and the difficulty some characters have when recovering on this stage have decreased its popularity. This, along with the way the ledgeless platforms decrease the skill ceiling of several match-ups, leading to this stage's questionable competitive merit.
:yim:
Yoshi's Island (Melee) has a sloped walk-off to one side, which can lead to the usual 0-death-grabs from characters like Dedede. However, it is safe to approach Dedede from the opposite direction without fear of death, and the slopes on each side limit the utility of his chain-grab.
King Dedede's strength on this stage, as well as the very close blastzones in every direction and lack of a relevant bottom blast-zone lower this stage's skill ceiling, giving it questionable competitive merit.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 5:brinstar:
Brinstar's rising acid, small size and non-solid main platform decrease the stage's skill ceiling in several match-ups. Despite this, the stage has been a commonly played on stage since the game's release and even prior to (in Melee). Despite the stage's skewing of match-ups, it does not foster degenerative (competitive depth reducing) tactics comparable to the stages I have placed above it, giving it a higher rating of 5 and status as a competitive stage.
Pokemon Stadium 2 has very few uncompetitive traits. All of the transformations (barring the neutral part of the stage and arguably the 'Ice' section) make gameplay shallower by strengthening camping, but the stage does not lower the skill ceilings of match-ups in any way other than that.
The main reason for its placing with Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise is its popularity, which is still quite low despite how well it supports competition. Despite this, Pokemon Stadium 2 is certainly a competitive stage.
:rainbowcruise:
Cruise is another stage that lowers the skill ceiling in some match-ups due to its large, movement-based gameplay making life easier for high mobility characters. Similarly to Brinstar, this stage's reputation from Melee has given it a chance that other stages haven't had, letting it into this category as a competitive stage.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 6Delfino fosters several depth-reducing traits such as the water-segments, walls and walk-offs (which encourage camping) and the non-solid main platform. The stage is still quite neutral in terms of match-ups and makes up in-part for the skill ceiling lowering traits I mentioned before by featuring a lot of variety via the stage tranformations. Delfino Plaza gets a rating as a competitive stage.
First and foremost, Frigate features randomness in how long the stage spends on each of its two sides, with each side favouring different characters and strategies. Aside from this flaw, the stage's skill ceiling is on the higher end of the scale and solidifies this stage's place as a competitive stage.
Halberd's abnormally low upper blastzone alters some match-ups slightly, but not to the point of affecting competitive depth. However, the stage's aerial portion allows for sharking and the lack of useful platforms on the stage's major grounded portion lower the stage's skill ceiling, while the random Claw has a slight chance of altering results. Despite these shortcomings, Halberd is still a competitive stage.
Final Destination's only flaw is its lack of platforms, which lowers the skill ceiling by both simplifying match-ups with ground-based characters and simplifying gameplay in general by removing all of the depth of platform-play. As stated near the beginning of this thread, FD's unwarranted popularity does little to boost its rating, though it is definitely a competitive stage either way.
Castle Siege is not exactly unpopular, but is still rarely picked, this means that many players are unfamiliar with how to play on the stage and thus lower its skill ceiling by playing on it in a non-optimal way. On top of this, the second transformation promotes camping in many match-ups due to its size and walk-offs, leaving Siege as a competitive, but not flawless stage.
:yoshisb:
Yoshi's gives slight advantages to characters in several match-ups, but none that would affect the stage's skill ceiling. The support platform's ability to randomly save people can influence results, but is not comparable to the random hazards of stage's like Green Greens that can take away stocks (as the support platform still leaves the player it affects in a disadvantageous position, while random KOs have a permanent effect on the player they affect).
Yoshi's has a high skill ceiling and is clearly a competitive stage, but is brought down in points due to the influence the support platforms can have over a match.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 7Lylat, similar to Yoshi's, gives slight characters advantages, due to its design, but none that are strong enough to affect this stage's skill ceiling. Lylat's random transformations (which indicate the direction it will tilt) can interfere with results. These random incidents are more or less isolated and their influence on the game is avoidable if both players are playing properly, allowing it to still foster competition as a competitive stage.
s1:Pokemon Stadium has two (three in some match-ups, due to the Windmill) transformations which promote camping, which negatively alters the stage's skill ceiling. The vast amount of competitive depth the stage's diverse transformations offer are enough to label this stage as competitive, but not enough to place it in the next category.
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COMPETITIVE RATING: 8Battlefield and Smashville are both amazing stages for competition. Their simple design means that while the stages do not give players certain options that other stages do, the options they do give do not overpower one another or the depth of the match-up played on the stage.
Battlefield and Smashville are Brawl's crème de la crème, being the two most competitive stages in the game.
Note: Stages are not ranked within their individual 'tiers'.
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OTHER INFORMATION:Other Stage Stuff
When I went through all the stages above, some players'll notice that I missed out on a lot of details. This was very intentional, I did not cover any stage details which I did not feel were important in regards to their competitive status. For example, I didn't bother to cover things like why Distant Planet's items do not mean it should be banned instantly, or why Pokemon Stadium 2 does not favour any characters heavily, etc... For two reasons:
1. I expect and hope that my audience is smarter than that.
2. It was not related to my competitive criteria in any way, shape or form and would serve only to distract readers from this thread's main points.
If you have any stage-specific questions similar to the ones above, I'd be happy to answer them via private message.
Non-stage Rulings and Double Standards
The criteria that I used for ordering the stages above can (and should) also be used for any rule in the game. This includes Meta Knight's legality, as well as the status of tactics such as planking and infinite chain-grabs.
So how exactly do we decide what should and shouldn't be allowed in our game? Simply by comparing the rule we are suggesting with the game's present state and checking for the existence of double standards. Lets take a tactic like planking; first we look at how much competitive depth planking removes from the game, then we work out which discrete and enforceable rule we can add that fixes the problem with the least amount of depth sacrificed...
Finally we weigh in how much competitive depth we are attempting to add to the game and look at every possible thing we can do the game which would add an amount of depth equal to or greater than the amount we added with our planking rule (as doing otherwise would lead to a double standard situation).
This sequence of events can be applied to stages too. Banning the stages I listed as having a competitive rating of 0 is perfectly fine to do by itself, as there are no other things in the game which take away an equal or greater amount of depth. In other words, we can safely remove these stages from the game without anyone piping up and saying "But if we are going to do that, why don't we also do this".
To go off on a quick tangent here: this is why I support a Meta Knight ban. I believe that without a ledge-grab limit, Meta Knight's planking removes enough depth from the game that I can remove it without creating any double standards. The reason I do not support the implementation of a Meta Knight-specific ledge-grab limit is in its place is that it breaks precedence (we have never created rules to conserve depth in the past, we have eliminated the problem at its source, as evidenced by the way we ban stages instead of "fixing" them).
Because of the way my criteria affects Meta Knight's legality, this list assumes that he is banned.
Full List Stage Striking
FLSSing is really a misnomer, as striking from the entire stage list is strictly uncompetitive (due to the chance of both players striking to WarioWare Inc.)
Instead, I would suggest striking from a stage list of every stage barring the ones I listed as uncompetitive above.
Starters and Counterpicks
This list has NO CORRELATION with Starter/Counterpick stage lists. Those lists base stages not on how competitive stages are, but purely how neutral match-ups are on them.
The reason that counterpicks are distinguished from starter stages is to save time, the stages that are least likely to be picked (due to being stronger/weaker picks for characters overall) are separated to save time. It would make no sense to make this distinction for anything other than character advantages/disadvantages as other traits do not affect their likelihood to be picked (for example, some players list Pokemon Stadium 2 as a counterpick stage purely because of its "bizarre" mechanics, despite how even the stage is in many match-ups).
Also worth noting is that the starter list should not strive towards making every match-up even, but rather making every match-up closer to its median of bias, which can be found by striking from the entire legal stage list in a match-up, without player bias, and working out what the match-up is on the last remaining stage.
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CONCLUSIONI'd like to thank anyone who took the time to read this. As I'm sure you can imagine, it took a lot of time to think up and write out (over 6000 words!), so I hope it delivers!
I also hope that anyone reading this has learnt a little more about my approach to Brawl ruleset creation, an approach which I feel is the best for the community.
I am always keen to hear other people's opinions on the subject too, hell, my opinion has changed many times thanks to the influence of others to get where it has today as outlined in this thread, so don't be shy to tell me how and why you disagree!
If there are any mistakes or parts that people find confusing, just point 'em out and I'll be happy to try and fix them. This hasn't been proof-read at all as of yet, so there are likely lots of confusing parts
Thats all for now, seeya!
