I don't understand why the sheer presence of a broken tactic in one character must be banned. I mean, progressively, smash has gone through several stages in its general (I hate using this word) metagame as each overpowering tactic was found. Sheik used to be top tier with her chain throw and whatnot in older tier lists, but then we discovered the power of the waveshine and how overwhelming a technical Fox could be. As such, we've had several people change their mains to a space animal, learn a space animal, etc. Would it be so much to say that: "ICs are broken now, just like Fox go learn how to play them." People didn't mind making the transition to Fox, why should ICs (or a character that counters ICs - more on that below) be any different? Is it that we're lazy and have grown attached to the tier list or it the principle of the infinite? The moral belief that no combo should be guaranteed. After all... it's very often posted that there are no "true combos" in smash and that improvisation is key. So is it that wobbling breaks that no-true-combo mindset that makes it dirty? Or it is the fact that it's "cheap"?
Overwhelmingly, it's the former. From what I gather, it's the presence of an unbeatable combo that makes it horrible. And to some degree, I agree with this; I'm a little torn on the issue. Yes, the ICs have an unbeatable combo at their disposal that is completely indestructable when pulled off correctly. Short of pausing the game to throw off rhythm, which isn't allowed, there's nothing you can really do about a wobble within the game's limitations.
However, what I would like to know, most importantly of all, is whether or not the wobble actually goes as far as to hurt the smash metagame in general. Let me elaborate.
The overwhelming damage of Sheik's chain grab alone is more than enough to make 90% of all low tiers useless. It has been said that if Sheik was removed from the game that nearly all low tiers would be more viable because that's one less matchup. So in that sense, Sheik is actually very constricting as a character because a properly executed chain throw is, for all intents and purposes, a 90-135 damage grab on quite a bit of the cast. It's not a 0-death like wobbling, but then consider her other options and her solid edgeguarding. It's more like a 0-90% or so with an edgeguard opportunity.
Sheik is not banned, however, despite her harm to the viability of quite a bit of the cast, because despite all this (on top of being the closest thing we have to a Marth counter) she is not dubbed broken. Because she only does even versus the top tiers on the whole.
The Ice Climbers are apparently different. On the whole, they only do slightly less than even versus the top tier. Less than even? How so? Fox and ICs are even, Falco vs ICs are even in some players' books and minor advantage in others but as a whole the matchup is by and large considered even (most) or ever so slightly imbalanced (some). Versus Sheik they are the only true Sheik counter in the game with a decent advantage and versus Peach/Marth (and the mid tier Samus) they do poorly.
Or do they?
A great deal of why the Ice Climbers' Wobbling is hated is my belief that it hasn't been allowed to be fully integrated. When I say that, we haven't taken a look at the matchups that ICs are traditionally poor and taken into consideration what wobbling changes. There's still, I feel, a great preconceived notion that Samus and (moreso) Peach should eviscerate Ice Climbers but with the wobble available do they? Have we looked at these matchups from that persepective. Let's analyze Marth. If he F-smashes too close, the ICs grab him and he dies with no effective rebuttal. He simply dies. The matchup begins to look less disadvantageous (although still difficult). But what about Peach and Samus? More importantly, is it even possible to analyze these without overestimating or even underestimating the wobble?
I think it's that we actually don't know how powerful the wobble truly is that prevents us from making an educated decision on the matter. How often have we been told, those of us that wobble, that without using it we would've surely lost against Marth, Peach, whoever. I think that's part of the problem. These generally accepted counters, like all the characters in the game, fall to this tactic. It's effectively a 0-death and one of the few true ones in the game that isn't ridiculously situational. So how much do Peach and Marth and the others really counter a good wobbling Ice Climber? How even are these matches in actuality? How often have we said, "I used to be destroyed by Peach's d-smash and turnips but now I've started wobbling and it's a lot easier." The number is staggering.
Sadly, I don't think it's just the Ice Climbers that's missing out on this. It's everyone. Wobbling probably was the only way the tier lists were every going to be rewritten and now it's vanishing in professional circles. It's not anyone's fault, as many of us know that ICs were quite good before the wobble (what other mid tier boasts a good matchup on Sheik and goes even at worst versus the spacies?), but having said that... it's still sad to see the only way the tiers were ever going to change, possibly the last real chance for a big shift in the overall makeup of players, just dying out with no real chance.
But alas. There's no point denying it, like Wobbles said, it's going to be gone soon. It won't affect me too personally, since I never bothered to learn wobble until about two months ago (I wanted to be able to pivot desynch because it was more useful for my style) but it's saddening to see something that useful, that potentially changing going out.
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