We're running EXPERIMENTAL rules tomorrow!

[Jaxel]

So tomorrow at The Break Weekly #290, we will be running EXPERIMENTAL rules for Smash Wii U. It is my belief, and many among us, that the current rules for the game are extremely archaic. The rules for the game came to be from different games, and don't necessarily mesh with the new game.

As any Smash player will tell you, each game is different. Yet the rules are constantly put in to try to make the new games more like the old games, instead of trying to let the game be itself. Changing the game to be more like Melee, isn't going to convince Melee players to play it. The rules set up this situation where you are trying to FORCE a specific meta on the game, rather than allow the meta of the game to grow organically.

So we're changing the rules. Something that we believe will make the game more competitive. Instead of forcing players to play a specific way, we are opening options; allowing players to play the game they want to play it. First thing first, we're going to throw out the rule book and start from standard fighting game rules:

• First stage is RANDOM SELECT
• The LOSER gets to choose: replay on the same stage, or choose a new RANDOM stage.
• WINNER CHARACTER LOCK

The first thing you will notice; nobody gets to choose stages. This is a competition; learning stages is part of the game. If you're a pro player, you need to learn how to adapt to all legal stages. If you can't; then I guess you're just not good enough. Don't say "he only beat me because of the stage"... no, he beat you because you arbitrarily decided not to learn a stage, therefore, he wins fairly. The second thing you will notice... WINNER CHARACTER LOCK. If you win, you don't get to change your character.

The next change would be... what is a "legal" stage. Well the first thing I asked was "why is this stage banned?". If no one could give me a LOGICAL reason why a stage was banned, we didn't ban it. Next, we set up some ground rules...

• Do we ban walk-offs?

Talking with False, he said the reason why walk-offs were bad, is because of chain throws. He also said, chain throws are no longer in the game, and there is no real reason to keep walk-offs banned except that people simply didn't want to play on them. Well thats not a logical reason... So walk-offs are LEGAL!

• Do we ban stage hazards?

Well if you think about it logically, there are already legal stages with stage hazards. Why are Halberd and Delfino Plaza legal, but Orbital Gate Assault isn't? Not a single person could give me a reason. But we still layed some ground rules down. Stage hazards are fine, as long as they are not insta-kills. As well, if the hazards are random, it would only be okay if they were "slow" stage hazards. A random stage hazard that is fast, and unavoidable would be banned.

Why do we like stage hazards? Because they create points of contention on the map. A player with more skill, can properly fight the opponent to use the stage to his advantage. So if you consider Norfair (which was a legal counterpick in Brawl); there is a MASSIVE stage hazard. It's not an insta-kill, and its slow enough that everybody can see it coming. In addition to this, when it's coming everyone can see it. It creates a point of contention in the protection chamber and FORCES the players to fight... the turtling stops.

Then, we also decided to stages that were too large, stages that were too small and stages that make it too easy to stall time. Once we take all these rules into account, we are left with a legal stage list:

• Battlefield
• Final Destination
• Mario Galaxy
• Mario Circuit
• Delfino Plaza
• Mario Circuit (Brawl)
• Kongo Jungle 64
• Skyloft
• Wuhu Island
• Norfair
• Halberd
• Lylat Cruise
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Coliseum
• Castle Siege
• Gamer
• Town and City
• Smashville
• Pilotwings
• Wii Fit Studio
• Duck Hunt
• Windy Hill Zone
• Super Mario Maker
• Suzaku Castle
• Midgard

And of course, there stages are banned:

• Jungle Hijinx - stalling
• Pyrosphere - ridley
• Mushroom Kingdom - nabbit
• Yoshi's Island - too small
• Great Cafe Offensive - too big
• Kalos Pokemon League - instakill
• Garden of Hope - too big
• Onett - too small
• Palutena's Temple - too big
• Skyworld - impossible recovery
• Bridge of Eldin - too big, stalls
• Orbital Gate Assault - too busy
• Wooly's World - stalling
• Gaur Plain - too big
• Temple - too big
• Port Town Aero Drive - instakill
• 75 m - instakill
• Luigi's Mansion - cave of life
• Flat Zone X - too small
• Wily Castle - yellow devil
• Boxing Ring - too big
• PAC-LAND - too small
• Big Battlefield - too big
• Wrecking Crew - random

If you disagree with these lists, give me a logical reason why. We are running completely on logic, not on "feelings". Logic will win the day. If you can give me a logical reason why, then we will reconsider the stage.

We'll be streaming the tournament live at 8 PM EST at http://twitch.tv/8wayrun

 

[MajinSweet]

So we're changing the rules. Something that we believe will make the game more competitive. Instead of forcing players to play a specific way, we are opening options; allowing players to play the game they want to play it. First thing first, we're going to throw out the rule book and start from standard fighting game rules:

• First stage is RANDOM SELECT
• The LOSER gets to choose: replay on the same stage, or choose a new RANDOM stage.
• WINNER CHARACTER LOCK

The first thing you will notice; nobody gets to choose stages. This is a competition; learning stages is part of the game. If you're a pro player, you need to learn how to adapt to all legal stages. If you can't; then I guess you're just not good enough. Don't say "he only beat me because of the stage"... no, he beat you because you arbitrarily decided not to learn a stage, therefore, he wins fairly. The second thing you will notice... WINNER CHARACTER LOCK. If you win, you don't get to change your character.

Shouldn't items be on by the default settings if we are going by this logic?

 

[Jaxel]

View attachment 33700

 

[Jaxel]

Shouldn't items be on by the default settings if we are going by this logic?

No, because items are random instakills.

 

[MajinSweet]

No, because items are random instakills.

Couldn't you just ban the more volatile items? The same way you did with the stages?

 

[Jaxel]

Couldn't you just ban the more volatile items? The same way you did with the stages?

The idea is to get rid of some of the more micromanagy elements of the rules; that would make it more micro-managy.

 

[MajinSweet]

Alright, but you said that you wanted to start with a standard fighting game rule set philosophy. If you're not doing that, that's fine. But even then, you are in fact having a list of stage bans like past smash games. So the rules still need to be micro managed either way.

 

[Jaxel]

Alright, but you said that you wanted to start with a standard fighting game rule set philosophy. If you're not doing that, that's fine. But even then, you are in fact having a list of stage bans like past smash games. So the rules still need to be micro managed either way.

No other fighting game allows modifiers either. No items, no gems, no custom characters, nothing. Its still standard.

 

[MajinSweet]

Items are more akin to stage hazards than "modifiers". It seems like an arbitrary distinction. And again, items are on by default. It's not like a create a fighter thing, or unlocking various gems through single player mode.

 

[Shadowfury333]

Onett is too small? I agree with Flat Zone X and PAC-Land (though that is a terrible stage in general), but I've not seen Onett as a particularly small stage myself.

 

[[Deuce]]

Might as well have items turned on at this point.

This is a competition; learning items is part of the game. If you're a pro player, you need to learn how to adapt to all items. If you can't; then I guess you're just not good enough. Don't say "he only beat me because of the items"... no, he beat you because you arbitrarily decided not to learn how to use items, therefore, he wins fairly.

Enjoy your 5 man tourneys

 

[Plain Yogurt]

An interesting idea for an experiment. I've heard awful things about Pilotwings and Wooly World, camping-wise though, and I can see Boxing Ring, Bridge of Eldin, and Wrecking Crew going poorly as well. If anything it's more potential research footage for some of the more borderline stages. Good luck.

 

[Raijinken]

I love these rules, wish I was local enough to compete.

My feedback on the rules:

• Is the rotating spring on Windy Hill not considered instakill? I could be wrong, but I've also never noticed any consistent timing to the rotation.
• The cars in Port Town are capable of killing around 50% or so(the earliest killing hazard of these hazards), and in some transitions, are not choreographed visibly for players to react to.
• Similarly, the hazard in Gamer can kill certain characters around 70%, and the camera does not always cover the tells.
• Onett is actually bigger than several of the other legal stages. Conversely, Colosseum and Boxing Ring are very large, and Boxing Ring is more likely than most to enable stalling.
• Unless you're talking about the carry-off platforms or water slide in Kalos League, none of the other hazards are instakills. In the case of the platforms, Town And City has the same issue.
• Some of the explosions in Orbital cover the majority of the playable area.

That's it for stages. Also, since I either missed it or it isn't here, what are the stock and time rules here, and how is sudden death handled?

I plan to watch whenever I get the chance. Hope the rules work out, I'd love to see some more open rulesets.

 

[Jaxel]

Onett is too small? I agree with Flat Zone X and PAC-Land (though that is a terrible stage in general), but I've not seen Onett as a particularly small stage myself.

Its more that the small stage makes a lot of the stage hazards instant-kills.

Might as well have items turned on at this point.

This is a competition; learning items is part of the game. If you're a pro player, you need to learn how to adapt to all items. If you can't; then I guess you're just not good enough. Don't say "he only beat me because of the items"... no, he beat you because you arbitrarily decided not to learn how to use items, therefore, he wins fairly.

Enjoy your 5 man tourneys

Except thats not the same. Stages are generally static, they don't change. However items are not. Items are random and without counter play. If a stage hazard is spawning, both players can see it, and react to it accordingly. With items however; if an item spawns on top of the enemy, there is no way for you to stop them from picking it up. There is no counter play. Its the possible equivalent of a non-avoidable fast insta-kill stage hazard; which we mentioned we would ban.

Besides, your argument is like a crazy religious nut-job saying "Gays shouldn't be allowed to get married, because then people would be able to marry their pets too". Its a false equivalency.

We'll have a small turnout today anyways, because of the Holidays.

 

[Jaxel]

I love these rules, wish I was local enough to compete.

My feedback on the rules:

• Is the rotating spring on Windy Hill not considered instakill? I could be wrong, but I've also never noticed any consistent timing to the rotation.
• The cars in Port Town are capable of killing around 50% or so(the earliest killing hazard of these hazards), and in some transitions, are not choreographed visibly for players to react to.
• Similarly, the hazard in Gamer can kill certain characters around 70%, and the camera does not always cover the tells.
• Onett is actually bigger than several of the other legal stages. Conversely, Colosseum and Boxing Ring are very large, and Boxing Ring is more likely than most to enable stalling.
• Unless you're talking about the carry-off platforms or water slide in Kalos League, none of the other hazards are instakills. In the case of the platforms, Town And City has the same issue.
• Some of the explosions in Orbital cover the majority of the playable area.

That's it for stages. Also, since I either missed it or it isn't here, what are the stock and time rules here, and how is sudden death handled?

I plan to watch whenever I get the chance. Hope the rules work out, I'd love to see some more open rulesets.

I will bring up your points with the rest of the crew before the tournament.

 

[Piford]

Wuhu Island should be legal. The glitch on the stage is so hard to perform (you have like a second window, Ness must be facing left, must be in an exact spot) and character specific (only works with Ness against Wario and Villager). And even if you get everything perfect, it only works like 10% of the time.

 

[Pierce7d]

I respect trying, and I respect experimenting, so I won't discourage you, but I see a lot of logical flaws and can give a lot of objective reasons why your ruleset is bad. It'll have to wait until tomorrow though.

 

[Ultrachaos547]

I agree with everything on this list, and I think it's important that we experiment and try new things, as this is a new game we're dealing with. The only thing I can't get behind is inclusion of gamer, port town aero dive, and both mario circuits as legal stages. You can get KO'd at ridiculously low percentages on Gamer, and I think that in Aero Dive and the mario circuits, the car take up way to much space and come in way too fast. I also think Big Battlefield should be permitted. It' honestly isn't even that big.

 

[Jaxel]

I agree with everything on this list, and I think it's important that we experiment and try new things, as this is a new game we're dealing with. The only thing I can't get behind is inclusion of gamer, port town aero dive, and both mario circuits as legal stages. You can get KO'd at ridiculously low percentages on Gamer, and I think that in Aero Dive and the mario circuits, the car take up way to much space and come in way too fast. I also think Big Battlefield should be permitted. It' honestly isn't even that big.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9rIXmzo91E
Gamer starts at 8 minutes.

 

[Ultrachaos547]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9rIXmzo91E
Gamer starts at 8 minutes.

Um, alright? The Mom ended the match. How was that fair?

 

[Jaxel]

Okay, for this week, we've disabled Bridge of Eldin, Boxing Ring and Port Town Aero Drive. We've enabled Wuhu Island.

 

[TTYK]

So tomorrow at The Break Weekly #290, we will be running EXPERIMENTAL rules for Smash Wii U. It is my belief, and many among us, that the current rules for the game are extremely archaic. The rules for the game came to be from different games, and don't necessarily mesh with the new game.

As any Smash player will tell you, each game is different. Yet the rules are constantly put in to try to make the new games more like the old games, instead of trying to let the game be itself. Changing the game to be more like Melee, isn't going to convince Melee players to play it. The rules set up this situation where you are trying to FORCE a specific meta on the game, rather than allow the meta of the game to grow organically.

So we're changing the rules. Something that we believe will make the game more competitive. Instead of forcing players to play a specific way, we are opening options; allowing players to play the game they want to play it. First thing first, we're going to throw out the rule book and start from standard fighting game rules:

• First stage is RANDOM SELECT
• The LOSER gets to choose: replay on the same stage, or choose a new RANDOM stage.
• WINNER CHARACTER LOCK

The first thing you will notice; nobody gets to choose stages. This is a competition; learning stages is part of the game. If you're a pro player, you need to learn how to adapt to all legal stages. If you can't; then I guess you're just not good enough. Don't say "he only beat me because of the stage"... no, he beat you because you arbitrarily decided not to learn a stage, therefore, he wins fairly. The second thing you will notice... WINNER CHARACTER LOCK. If you win, you don't get to change your character.

The next change would be... what is a "legal" stage. Well the first thing I asked was "why is this stage banned?". If no one could give me a LOGICAL reason why a stage was banned, we didn't ban it. Next, we set up some ground rules...

• Do we ban walk-offs?

Talking with False, he said the reason why walk-offs were bad, is because of chain throws. He also said, chain throws are no longer in the game, and there is no real reason to keep walk-offs banned except that people simply didn't want to play on them. Well thats not a logical reason... So walk-offs are LEGAL!

• Do we ban stage hazards?

Well if you think about it logically, there are already legal stages with stage hazards. Why are Halberd and Delfino Plaza legal, but Orbital Gate Assault isn't? Not a single person could give me a reason. But we still layed some ground rules down. Stage hazards are fine, as long as they are not insta-kills. As well, if the hazards are random, it would only be okay if they were "slow" stage hazards. A random stage hazard that is fast, and unavoidable would be banned.

Why do we like stage hazards? Because they create points of contention on the map. A player with more skill, can properly fight the opponent to use the stage to his advantage. So if you consider Norfair (which was a legal counterpick in Brawl); there is a MASSIVE stage hazard. It's not an insta-kill, and its slow enough that everybody can see it coming. In addition to this, when it's coming everyone can see it. It creates a point of contention in the protection chamber and FORCES the players to fight... the turtling stops.

Then, we also decided to stages that were too large, stages that were too small and stages that make it too easy to stall time. Once we take all these rules into account, we are left with a legal stage list:

• Battlefield
• Final Destination
• Mario Galaxy
• Mushroom Kingdom
• Mario Circuit
• Delfino Plaza
• Mario Circuit (Brawl)
• Kongo Jungle 64
• Skyloft
• Woolly World
• Wuhu Island
• Halberd
• Orbital Gate Assault
• Lylat Cruise
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Coliseum
• Castle Siege
• Gamer
• Town and City
• Smashville
• Pilotwings
• Wii Fit Studio
• Duck Hunt
• Windy Hill Zone

And of course, there stages are banned:

• Jungle Hijinx - stalling
• Pyrosphere - ridley
• Luigi's Mansion - too small
• Yoshi's Island - too small
• Great Cafe Offensive - too big
• Kalos Pokemon League - instakill
• Garden of Hope - too big
• Onett - too small
• Palutena's Temple - too big
• Skyworld - impossible recovery
• Bridge of Eldin - too big, stalls
• Gaur Plain - too big
• Temple - too big
• Port Town Aero Drive - instakill
• 75 m - instakill
• Flat Zone X - too small
• Wily Castle - yellow devil
• Wrecking Crew - random falling stuff
• Boxing Ring - too big
• PAC-LAND - too small
• Big Battlefield - too big

If you disagree with these lists, give me a logical reason why. We are running completely on logic, not on "feelings". Logic will win the day. If you can give me a logical reason why, then we will reconsider the stage.

We'll be streaming the tournament live at 8 PM EST at http://twitch.tv/8wayrun

Maybe the reason why we might want to change characters is HELLO some characters are extremely hard to beat if you are winning. Winner Lock and no striking stages is pure nonsense. Good luck, I hope these decisions dont effect the number of smashers that attend your tourney in the future.

 

[webbedspace]

Two thoughts:

1) There's a much stronger argument why permanent walk-offs should be banned: a smasher with over 100% damage, facing an opponent with no projectiles, can run right next to the blast-line, then wait for them to approach, do a lucky grab, and toss them over for an insta-frag. This is a bad and luck-based strategy, but it has a non-zero chance of working, and I think we can all agree it can't afford to ever be permitted.

Now, if this sounds too heartbreaking, you could try implementing a convoluted special rule which prohibits walking into the offscreen magnifying glass and staying there for more than, say, 30 seconds, similar to past bans of planking. I'd be very interested to see if this can work out, although I doubt this community would ever want to universalise degenerative tactic bans like this except in dire circumstances.

2) The people in this thread who're just rubbishing the whole premise with cries of "might as well add items now!!" instead of providing reasoned replies like the above are really not helping discussion.

 

[Jaxel]

Webbed, doesn't standing in the magnifying glass add 1% of damage per second? Or is that not in this game anymore.

I remember that was one of the significant changes when we were doing Widescreen Melee; because the screen was wider, the magnifying glass area changed, and the 1% wasn't applied anymore.

 

[Jaxel]

We've banned Mushroom Kingdom... Nabbit sucks.

 

[Piford]

So I've been watching these streams and I love it, but I noticed something. The random select was intended to get players to learn all the legal stages, but I feel like it's working in the opposite way that it was supposed to. Because they don't want to go to the random stage, they just pick Smashville. So really, all your random picking is encouraging is gentlemening to Smashville. So I think you should make a starter and counterpick list using your stage list, but have 13 starter stages. So the other like 10 stages are your counterpick stages. I would guess that it might look something like this based off your list

Final Destination
Battlefield
Smashville
Town And City
Gamer
Wuhu Island
Delfino Plaza
Skyloft
Wii Fit Studio
Coliseum
Castle Siege
Halberd
Pokémon Stadium 2

Of course you can put whichever stagse you want, but that's what I'd suggest based off the list. Also I'd consider banning Pilotwings because it's very campy. You can camp under the wings of the yellow plane on the engine, and between the wings next to the cockpit on the red plane. Also I'd consider unbanning Luigi's Mansion as it's not really that small, same with Onett. Also Kalos Pokémon League doesn't really have an insta kill hazard, but it is pretty hazardous.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I have a question. What hazard on Kalos Pokemon League is considered an instakill?

EDIT: What if you just disallowed gentlemanning to a stage? Would be unpopular but it would work to prevent constant Smashville.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Let's see here...

How is Yoshi's Island "too small"? There's certainly plenty of space to tool around in, and the blastzones being small is mitigated quite well by the (IMO mild) cave of life effects.

If Gamer's hazards are considered legitimate, so too should the hazards on Port Town Aero Dive. They are all predictable, usually with a lot of warning (and on that one segment, if you're not dancing around near the top platform, you're probably gonna eat ****... and that's totally okay). That said, I don't think either is truly supportable, largely because some of the hazards on Gamer have very short startup. That match between False and Keitaro was awesome, though.

Also, with regard to walkoffs: I'm with the other guy. The biggest issue with walkoffs was never chaingrabs. It was camping near the bubble with bthrow. The issue here is that it increases risk/reward to a degenerate degree, lowering the skill ceiling considerably. It's risky for the player doing it as well, but that does little to mitigate how it trivializes gameplay in general. Exception being YI:M, because it's stupidly hard to grab people on the slant there.

I'm actually running something similar (albeit considerably less crass). I absolutely support experimenting with stages like this.

 

[smashbro29]

I'd say based on my experimental tournaments cut the walk offs.

I'm not a fan of the whole random choosing thing in theory but it could work out, however walk offs just mean 2 players hanging out at the edge waiting for back throw.

I've listed my issues with some of the stages here.

• Battlefield
• Final Destination
• Mario Galaxy - Walk offs cause nothing but waiting at the edge.
• Mario Circuit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=UUvoI9u6tOOmZWlG6qW7i2sg&v=-swKdo3QbDA
• Delfino Plaza
• Mario Circuit (Brawl) - Walk offs cause nothing but waiting at the edge.
• Kongo Jungle 64
• Skyloft
• Woolly World - Certain characters are heavily disadvantaged after the walk off disappears. Specifically Mac becomes damn near useless.
• Wuhu Island
• Halberd
• Orbital Gate Assault
• Lylat Cruise
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Coliseum - Walk offs cause nothing but waiting at the edge.
• Castle Siege
• Gamer - Characters with slower recovery will die trying to get back as in the tell and the punish will come before they even hit the ledge as seen in one of my online tournaments with Charizard. Not to meniton the punishment is also very strong rivaling your already banned Port Town.
• Town and City
• Smashville
• Pilotwings - Yellow plane has 2 small platforms on the underside that only a few characters can get to which means insane stalling.
• Wii Fit Studio - Walk offs cause nothing but waiting at the edge.
• Duck Hunt
• Windy Hill Zone - It is huge, a Sonic can out run most of the other characters without even running the risk of being hit.

 

[Jaxel]

Well after this week we have two more rule changes... First, we are banning Wooly's World; it leads to too much stalling.

Secondly, we are now allowing customs. While there is character lock, customs are NOT locked. So you can change customs between matches.

 

[C0rvus]

How are the customs going to work? Do you bring your own sets with 3DS, or do the setups have them all unlocked? Or are you using the sets from the Standard Custom Movesets Project threads?

 

[Jaxel]

How are the customs going to work? Do you bring your own sets with 3DS, or do the setups have them all unlocked? Or are you using the sets from the Standard Custom Movesets Project threads?

We're using the custom moveset project... however, if you want to bring your own customs, you are responsible for your own 3DS.

 

[warriorman222]

Wrecking Crew is not random falling stuff. Everything is predictable. Just look at the stage. Bam. Randomness=gone. You said random hazards have to be big and slow. Well, falling Barrels are small, and the equivalent of a Pitfall with infinite armor. It's not exactly slow, but it's so telegraphed it's not even funny It's hard to get hit by one on purpose, and never have I seen anyone, not even a CPU get stuck in a Barrel. Bombs are always there too.You can argue the above layouts are random, but they are not exactly big. And they're so slow, chances are they might now even reach you before the fight ends, since nobody is purposely blowing up bombs.


Thatw problem with Wrecking Crew, both in experimental and non-experimental lists, are alleviated since in a competition, whose gonna bother blowing up bombs? oh right, that ceiling. Well at least Hoo Hahs take forever to kill now, right? High ceiling and shortish blastlines are a unique combination that should be tried out. If Windy Camp Zone of all things is fine, just try Wrecking Crew. Every stage on your list is one I think should be legal normally, and I think the biggest problem with Wrecking Crew is that it's boring, and that nobody is experienced there. The Wrecking Crew medley might spice things up a bit(Golden Hammer :o) and make it more enjoyable.


So, apart from random falling stuff, any other reason to ban it?

 

[Jaxel]

Okay, upcoming rule changes... I'm thinking of legalizing Wrecking Crew and banning Orbital Gate Assault.

What do you guys think?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Why ban OGA?

 

[warriorman222]

I'd ban Pilotwings before OGA. unlike almost every other banned stage, it was actually tested. Also, you usually have 4x+1 stages, so i'd suggest adding 3 more stages:

Wrecking Crew: I stated why above.
Kalos: It doesn't instakill. It just... What???
Mansion: It's not too small, it ahs far more area to fight in than BF and SV and such. And an experimental rulese needs consistent caves of life to see the effects.

 

[Piford]

If any stage should be added, it should be Luigi's Mansion. It's not really that small at all. Pilotwings should probably also be banned because of overpowered camping issues.

 

[AjuicyPineapple]

Yeah, I just know I will be avoiding these tournaments

 

[Jaxel]

Yeah, I just know I will be avoiding these tournaments

Thats fine... Everyone hates the rules at first glance. But over time, a lot of people have grown to like them, and even understand why the rules were set up as so... And those who still refuse to accept them, usually just gentlemans to Smashville.

 

[Spark31]

Even though I have never been to a tourney in my life (My first one is planned to be in two weeks) I can see the appeal of this set of rules. However, I can see why people would also dislike it. There is a level of randomness added to the game by the vary nature of selecting random stages (even with a banlist, the selection is quite large). Randomness, also by it's very nature, can determine a match significantly. One of the biggest flaws I can see with this is that, even though stages are random, each stage still may give some players/characters random advantages. For example, imagine if it was a Bo3 tournament and the match was between a good link and an equally good Sheik and the set was tied at 1 and 1. Now, the stage selector randomly chooses a stage that benefits sheik more than link substantially (I can't think of a stage off the top of my head, due to my lack of experience). This allows Sheik to easily defeat the Link. However, if the random stage selector chose a different stage, the match would have been more equal. This is the biggest flaw of this system. However, that being said, character lock has no big issues, along with customs being unlocked and the loser choosing whether or not to stay on the stage. Even though the RNG does create risk reward later on in the set, it still is essentially a random element that could decide a match (similar to a peach pulling out a mr. saturn or bob-omb mid tourney, or probably more akin to a luigi winning due to a stray luigi rocket getting that 1/10 chance). Just wanted to add to the discussion with some constructive criticism. :D