Why is Metal Cavern banned in Tournaments?

[Foo]

wtf kind of reasoning is that anyway?

1st of all in ABSOLUTELY NO ****ING WAY is that analogous to having such a ridiculously high platform.

2nd of all what's the difference between being on 1 side of the slant and being on a platform on another stage such as BF or even DL? MC gives you the potential to hit them with ANY ground move that you have as long as you are close enough. being on a platform FORCES you to use an aerial (or waveland >whatever) to hit them.

what a joke of an argument Foo

I said almost analogous. As in almost comparable, not almost equivalent. Also, norfair and draculas nearly have platforms that high at times without having closer platforms to jump from.

Also, platforms are very different than curves because you can attack people from below and being below someone in smash is generally advantageous. You can hit anyone with anymove if you are close enough, but that's the problem. If you have a spacing tool that isn't a sweep, you can no longer space with it. Also, it goes both ways, and that's part of what makes it bad. High ground or low ground may be prefered, and some characters don't care at all about the slope. Some projectile characters are absurdly OP with the slope, and some can no longer use projectiles because of it.

When your opponent is on a platform above you, you can almost always safely pressure them with a shffled aerial. Unless you have a really bad air game and they can shield drop consistently (I've never seen this happen), you can safely pressure them. Unless a player has the ability to platform camp (or something similar) being on a platform generally means you are at disadvantage. On slopes, it's the best of both worlds and it completely depends on matchup. Some matchups the slopes don't matter, some matchups being on the either side of a slope is detrimental for one side. I don't see many situations where being on the high ground is inherently advantageous because the low ground makes you equally harder to hit, and there's no movement penalty or anything of the sort for going up hill.

If I'm playing ZSS, and I'm at the top or bottom of the hill on that map, my offensive options are more than halved. No projectile, spaced bair isn't safe because it's longer to L-cancel, dsmash won't hit, ftilt won't hit, etc. I haven't played as other characters on metal caverns, but I'm sure it's a similar situation with some other characters.

How about, instead of rudely calling my argument a joke, you could up with some of your own.

 

[MegaMissingno]

You know what this stage really needs?

Spoiler

an alternate version where the switches are pressed and you can see the blocks. This would take advantage of the alternate stage loader that's built into that stage.

Blocks?

 

[GFooChombey]

Blocks?

See that green switch? When you step on it in Mario 64, the green blocks that were previously intangible fill in.

Spoiler

 

[Slaudial]

No idea, really. Garbage like Skyloft and Skyworld are allowed but Metal Cavern is too much? Whatever.

 

[RIDLEY is too SMALL]

For me personally, I never use Metal Cavern in any of my stagelists because I would never include it over Green Hill Zone, Warioware, Yoshi's Story, or Fountain. There are just a multitude of small-sized stages in PM that are better than Metal Cavern.

 

[FrozenHobo]

When it was initially being added to the roster the boundaries were not entirely set. I haven't played it recently but I know its first iterations had the boundaries uncomfortably close, then later unreasonably far. Its a smaller stage that, while having an interesting layout, becomes redundant with so many other viable stages as well as the strange-feeling boundaries.

I'm not sure of the current iteration, but the most likely reason that you aren't seeing more of it is the already sizable legal stage list. The actual layout doesn't offer enough to beat out any of the other stages currently in circulation, though I do still feel its a solid CP.

edit: looking back over some of these posts it seems that the platform height is also a point of contention. I remember early test versions maintained the height of the platform equal to that of BF so most characters could combo through it (i.e. marth would tipper through it, CF could sh->knee, fox/falco could do their thing, shiek). Does the new version have a higher platform?


In retrospect I don't even remember if the lower platform made into the test builds...

 

[MagnesD3]

This thread is terrible. Let's look at all these compelling arguments in favor of making metal caverns a viable map.









Such well thought out and well articulated points, completely refuting all of the points that real people totally made. >.>

I HATE this stage. Not because it's new, not because it's different. First and foremost, it's because of the curves. There is way too much curving on this stage, and it breaks certain characters in a bad way. Zero Suit, for instance, misses tons of grounded moves simply because of the curve, which is why I perma banned skyloft for the brief period that it was legal. Curves aren't INHERENTLY bad, but too much curve really makes a map terrible imo. Next, is the ledges. One of the is extremely forgiving, and the other is almost as bad as lylat and is hella buggy with tethers.

The overall setup of small stage, one platform big blastzones is cool and interesting (we don't really have stages that favor fatties atm), but having such a clunky stage layout is what makes me hate it. There's a reason people always prefer flat stages, they are basically inherently better than ones with curves with the slight exception being yoshi's island because it actually creates some cool interactions that aren't just infuriating. If the stage was made flatter, I would be cool with it, but having a stage curve that's the same height as some characters is just criminal.

Its different and its not broken and appeals to certain characters. Its perfect for a counterpick to throw people off who dont like it or havent practiced on it. Say I know you dont like the stage it would be a perfect stage for me to pick against you and a perfect one for you to ban.

 

[Foo]

Its different and its not broken and appeals to certain characters. Its perfect for a counterpick to throw people off who dont like it or havent practiced on it. Say I know you dont like the stage it would be a perfect stage for me to pick against you and a perfect one for you to ban.

Why is it not broken? I've heard it stated several times that it's not, but never why it's not. I'd really like to hear the reasoning behind that opinion.

Also, people not liking a stage doesn't justify it as a counterpick, nor does it have anything to do with with why I think MC should stay banned. I also don't like dreamland (screen shaking), FOD/norfair (moving platforms), or distant planet (the leaves), but I don't think they should be banned and I think they are good stages. I dislike MC because I think it's a bad mad, I don't think it's a bad map because I dislike it. Not to mention, if it were a legal counterpick, people would quickly learn to play on it, so that wouldn't really be relevant.

 

[Ripple]

once again, go back to what I said on the last page. you don't ban a stage and then demand people to show you why its not broken. you play on a stage until proof is shown that it should be banned.

there is no proof anywhere that the slant is dumb enough, toxic enough in MUs, or even the ledges being different that the stage warrants a ban

 

[WIZRD.Pro]

once again, go back to what I said on the last page. you don't ban a stage and then demand people to show you why its not broken. you play on a stage until proof is shown that it should be banned.

there is no proof anywhere that the slant is dumb enough, toxic enough in MUs, or even the ledges being different that the stage warrants a ban

I can't say I don't agree, while I can complain all I want about how it wrecks my flow, neither side will have any form of a viable argument until this stage starts getting more play time in tournaments. I have my preferences, you have your preferences and sadly that's all they are. In order to know if we should ban this stage, we first need to KNOW why, not THINK, but instead have tangible proof based off of tourney records, and that means we need to first unban it.

...The logic is strong in this one

 

[Saikyoshi]

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't it added in the first place for the purpose of being legal? Isn't that what all of the redesigned stages' goals are? Banning Metal Cavern, Skyloft, etc. kind of defeats the point of having them in the first place.

 

[WIZRD.Pro]

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't it added in the first place for the purpose of being legal? Isn't that what all of the redesigned stages' goals are? Banning Metal Cavern, Skyloft, etc. kind of defeats the point of having them in the first place.

Unless they are found to be far too polarising...

 

[Saikyoshi]

Unless they are found to be far too polarising...

My point still stands. If a stage fails to be competitively viable even after changing it, why change it at all? We might as well have kept the stages they overwrote for all the difference changing it made.

Really, no matter how you lookat it, banning a hazardless stage with only one platform looks really, really silly to the average player. I know there are reasons for it, but most people will think, "Are they so addicted to banning stages that they're even banning the boring ones now?"

Don't get me wrong, I like Metal Cavern... or at least, I did before that eyesore of a redesign... I'm just talking PR here.

 

[Ripple]

they didn't change MC, they upgraded the graphics.

 

[Saikyoshi]

they didn't change MC, they upgraded the graphics.

I meant we might as well still have Mushroomy Kingdom. Apparently it's at the same level of competitive viability.

 

[Foo]

You know, PM isn't made exclusively for tournament play. They want there to be a wide variety of stages for casual players as well. They want casual players to be able to play on the most balanced stages, the most absurdly unbalanced stages and everything inbetween. Metal Cavers is one of those inbetween stages. They also gave hyrule 64 an update, but I would bet dollars to gold bars that they don't intend for that to be in tournaments.

There are plently of stages that are already really good for competitve (more than any other smash, depending on ruleset), so there's no real reason to add ****ty ones just because they are "hazardless." I mean, while we are making meaningless generalizations, hyrule temple is hazardless and has four platforms, just like wario ware! It's absurd to ban it!

Skyloft and Metal Cavern are banned because they are bad competitive stages. I know there are some who disagree that they are bad, but they are banned because they are mostly considered worse than other 12 accepted stages.

Also, when you say "Banning Metal Cavern, Skyloft, etc. kind of defeats the point of having them in the first place." it's for non-tournament play. You know, the vast majority of project M games played.

I meant we might as well still have Mushroomy Kingdom. Apparently it's at the same level of competitive viability.

Also, not sure exactly what you mean by this post, but that stage (probably) isn't in the game because they don't think it's a very fun stage. While there are tons of stages PM could have, there's a limit to how many we can choose that's (probably) impossible to get around. Also, metal caverns is LEAGUES better than that stage for competitive. Metal Cavern is a few tweaks from being viable, imo.

@ Ripple You are technically right that we cannot fully judge a map until we have tourney results, but I don't see tier list speculation and matchup threads riddled with cited tourney games. We can still discuss it on theoretical basis, readers just have to keep in mind that's what it is.

 

[Saikyoshi]

You know, PM isn't made exclusively for tournament play. They want there to be a wide variety of stages for casual players as well. They want casual players to be able to play on the most balanced stages, the most absurdly unbalanced stages and everything inbetween. Metal Cavers is one of those inbetween stages. They also gave hyrule 64 an update, but I would bet dollars to gold bars that they don't intend for that to be in tournaments.

There are plently of stages that are already really good for competitve (more than any other smash, depending on ruleset), so there's no real reason to add ****ty ones just because they are "hazardless." I mean, while we are making meaningless generalizations, hyrule temple is hazardless and has four platforms, just like wario ware! It's absurd to ban it!

Skyloft and Metal Cavern are banned because they are bad competitive stages. I know there are some who disagree that they are bad, but they are banned because they are mostly considered worse than other 12 accepted stages.

Also, when you say "Banning Metal Cavern, Skyloft, etc. kind of defeats the point of having them in the first place." it's for non-tournament play. You know, the vast majority of project M games played.



Also, not sure exactly what you mean by this post, but that stage (probably) isn't in the game because they don't think it's a very fun stage. While there are tons of stages PM could have, there's a limit to how many we can choose that's (probably) impossible to get around. Also, metal caverns is LEAGUES better than that stage for competitive. Metal Cavern is a few tweaks from being viable, imo.

@ Ripple You are technically right that we cannot fully judge a map until we have tourney results, but I don't see tier list speculation and matchup threads riddled with cited tourney games. We can still discuss it on theoretical basis, readers just have to keep in mind that's what it is.

I just don't get the mentality of having to compromise here. If they wanted MC to be one of the casual stages, why didn't they keep the absurdly huge blast zones that defined it in 64 (and 3.1)? It really seems to me like they were trying to make it viable and failed.

My complaints about this also apply to stages that were only half-remade. Hyrule Castle minus the tornado is hardly Hyrule Castle. Peach's Castle seems like it's trying to be competitively viable, but still making it obvious why it will never happen. And I don't even touch Saffron City, or as I like to call it, Ghost Town. If it's impossible to fully remake, why even pretend to and just give us an empty shell? I mean, look at Dream Land, one of the most common tourney stages and even that was remade correctly, functional Whispy Woods and all.

tl;dr: If you're trying to make a competitive stage, don't half-ass it to where it gets banned anyway. If you're trying to make a casual stage, don't half-ass it to where it loses the reasons we liked it for casual play in the first place.

 

[Foo]

That defined it in 64? It wasn't even a playable stage outside of hacks and vs metal mario in SP. I'd imagine that the mindset was "the blast zones are too big, and it is making the map bad." You can have a bad map that's competively viable, and a good map that's not. You can attempt to improve a map without the express intent being to make it competitively viable. PM wants to have all types of maps, from competitively viable, to outright ridiculous and everything inbetween. That means having maps that aren't quite competitively viable as well.

I mean, they tweaked some items, but that obviously doesn't mean they wanted to make them competitively viable. Also, there are lots of stages that were changed much more than MC, but obviously aren't meant for competitve: Infinite Glacier, Castle Siege, Frigate Orpheon, etc. etc.

As for the rest of your complaints, this thread is not really the place to discuss that.

 

[Saikyoshi]

That defined it in 64? It wasn't even a playable stage outside of hacks and vs metal mario in SP. I'd imagine that the mindset was "the blast zones are too big, and it is making the map bad." You can have a bad map that's competively viable, and a good map that's not. You can attempt to improve a map without the express intent being to make it competitively viable. PM wants to have all types of maps, from competitively viable, to outright ridiculous and everything inbetween. That means having maps that aren't quite competitively viable as well.

I mean, they tweaked some items, but that obviously doesn't mean they wanted to make them competitively viable. Also, there are lots of stages that were changed much more than MC, but obviously aren't meant for competitve: Infinite Glacier, Castle Siege, Frigate Orpheon, etc. etc.

As for the rest of your complaints, this thread is not really the place to discuss that.

I just know I liked seeing Metal Mario drop like a rock when I finally got him of the ledge. I guess my opinion got in the way in that aspect.

And isn't Castle Siege one of the legal stages? The change to it was removing the main factor that people argued towards its banning. And I thought Infinite Glacier was supposed to be a competitivized version of Summit the first time I saw it. When I saw it in action, that's when it started to confuse me.

 

[GFooChombey]

tl;dr: If you're trying to make a competitive stage, don't half-*** it to where it gets banned anyway. If you're trying to make a casual stage, don't half-*** it to where it loses the reasons we liked it for casual play in the first place.

You're overreacting a bit there. The PMDT just took a stage from 64 and ported it. There's no other thought behind it.

 

[Saikyoshi]

You're overreacting a bit there. The PMDT just took a stage from 64 and ported it. There's no other thought behind it.

Yeah, I am overreacting now that I had time to think about it. My frustrations got a tad mixed up.

 

[N00B64]

People can't handle the curve and being asymmetric which creates a highground without the low punishments that a platform provides.

I'd love this stage just for wolf and teleport characters, but people are too busy focusing on bowser and marth to pay attention to the Ups it has for players that utilize a more oddball playstyle.

Only problem I have with it is the underside.

 

[JOE!]

This is why I'm making that stage guide lol

 

[trash?]

every time someone complains "why isn't [x] a legal stage????" I can almost always answer it the exact same way, and this one is no different:

a large stage list hurts a metagame more than it helps. this is because, due to huge variance, some characters get buffs by virtue of having more stages to work with; the best example was bowser, who actually got successful use in late 2013 from smarter players who knew that, even once you ban several of the small stages, he still had many more to work with. thus, logical conclusions proceed that five starters that create as even of a matchup as possible (obviously impossible with just one stage, which is why there's five, see), followed by a handful of counterpicks, are the best way to go. in recent tournaments, this tends to make the stage list have no more than ten stages.

take a look at the first page of PM's stages, and you will notice a large number of stages perfectly suitable for competitive play. likewise, you'll also notice this number is a lot larger than ten. naturally, you're cutting out a lot of these stages, which means stages that people would love to play on need to get cut, preferably keeping the most universally enjoyed. metal cavern is very much playable, yes, but there's many other small stages to choose from, and those small stages don't have the slight polarizing effects of being able to easily bypass most horizontal projectiles by simply existing on one side of the stage. the problem is, again, slight, but it's enough to not be the go-to small stage in the face of something like WarioWare, which deals far less problems for the meta.

 

[Rizner]

I think it should be legal - the slants affecting some characters more than others should make it a counter pick. People have bans for a reason - some stages are just bad for characters. I think we could use more small stages in general on stage lists, and having a stage which promotes more thought on overall stage positioning would be good.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

This is why I'm making that stage guide lol

Make the FE stage not transform
If it didn't transform, could you see it being legal?

 

[trash?]

if it didn't transform, we could see it be skyloft

 

[JOE!]

Make the FE stage not transform
If it didn't transform, could you see it being legal?

The castle part or the "hey look, Hell!" part?

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

The castle part or the "hey look, Hell!" part?

Castle

 

[MegaMissingno]

Castle Siege used to skip the second form with the walkoffs, only alternating between the first and third forms. I thought that was fine, I think the only real issue was people wanting a smaller stagelist, but whatever the reason PMDT decided to revert it and leave it as a casual page 2 stage only.

 

[Stryker]

do your scene a favor and legalize it, keep track of any players that ban the stage, record any matches that actually go there. and THEN try to prove that it should be banned. do that for a month

Hey there. Just wanted to mention that I TO for a community of about 20-30 and I have lylat and skyloft banned and Metal Cavern Legal.

Theory: As others have mentioned, I like the small stage + lots of room. It sets it apart from alot of other stage, but I find the curves actually set it apart even more. Did you just lose to a character that has a lot of low piercing moves? (As I think foo put it) Bring em here. Are there other options that players have to CP based on flatness/curviness of the stage?

Actuality: People appreciate the skyloft + lylat bans, but no one bothers with Metal Cavern.

So, for all the theory crafting... yeah...

 

[weegee the green wonder]

@ Foo I personally like metal cavern but i agree that the slope is a little...awful now don't get me wrong I love curved stages but it's to much there and I'm sorry some members don't have the respect or decency to read your posts