S_B
Too Drunk to Smash
People throw the word "ban" around ridiculously easily these days. Even top level players seem to be ready to cry for a ban at a moment's notice.
So in the interest of quieting the whole "BAN HYPE" crowd down a notch, let's examine WHEN and WHY something is banned from competitive play...
Banning 101
Q: What is a competitive "ban"?
A ban is simply when some aspect/feature of the game is prohibited from competitive play.
Q: Why would something be banned?
Any aspect of the game which is thought to not be conducive to determining the winner based primarily upon the skill of the players is considered bad for competitive play and will likely be banned.
Such things include items that will spawn randomly and decide the winner of the match by random chance or stages with hazards that add too much randomness to the game or stages that promote degenerate gameplay (such as camping near a walk off in the hopes of getting a grab for an easy kill).
Q: How often are things like characters banned?
Almost never. The last character that was banned from some tournaments was Metaknight in Brawl, but despite his amazing technical prowess, even he wasn't banned from many tournaments.
Q: When do we know a character should be banned?
A character should only be banned in any fighting game (not just SSB) after lengthy testing, labbing, trial and error and after that character has made it clear that they stand a ridiculously high chance of winning most tournaments.
Basically, a character is only ever banned when it's clear that they truly are far too technically powerful and the banning of said character would benefit the competitive game more than than it would to keep the character in tournaments.
Q: Are there any characters/customs that need banning in SSB4?
As of now, no.
Even the best characters in SSB4 don't have as much of a gap between them and the lower tiers as MK did with nearly everyone else in Brawl. Furthermore, none of the custom moves have produced a setup that reliably takes or even places well in tournaments.
Q: Why do we wait so long to decide that something should be banned?
We wait as long as we do because the metagame for any fighting game takes a LONG time to develop. There are so many factors that influence a tier list, and individual player skill is certainly one of them. It took a substantial amount of time before anyone realized Marth's true potential in Melee, for example.
Furthermore, throughout the development of a metagame, strategies change dramatically. Play-styles that people at first believed were impossible to beat are regularly countered as the meta develops and new, better play-styles rise to replace them.
In addition, with a roster as large as that of SSB4, it will take even longer until we've determined and tapped the true potential of every character in the game.
In conclusion...
"Ban" is a word thrown around far too easily. Given the years of development it takes for the average metagame to mature, the word "ban" itself should almost be considered taboo.
Thus far, there has been nothing seen in SSB4 that even begins to warrant a ban and, barring some more bizarre glitches being introduced with balance patches, it's extremely unlikely that there ever will be.
So in the interest of quieting the whole "BAN HYPE" crowd down a notch, let's examine WHEN and WHY something is banned from competitive play...
Banning 101
Q: What is a competitive "ban"?
A ban is simply when some aspect/feature of the game is prohibited from competitive play.
Q: Why would something be banned?
Any aspect of the game which is thought to not be conducive to determining the winner based primarily upon the skill of the players is considered bad for competitive play and will likely be banned.
Such things include items that will spawn randomly and decide the winner of the match by random chance or stages with hazards that add too much randomness to the game or stages that promote degenerate gameplay (such as camping near a walk off in the hopes of getting a grab for an easy kill).
Q: How often are things like characters banned?
Almost never. The last character that was banned from some tournaments was Metaknight in Brawl, but despite his amazing technical prowess, even he wasn't banned from many tournaments.
Q: When do we know a character should be banned?
A character should only be banned in any fighting game (not just SSB) after lengthy testing, labbing, trial and error and after that character has made it clear that they stand a ridiculously high chance of winning most tournaments.
Basically, a character is only ever banned when it's clear that they truly are far too technically powerful and the banning of said character would benefit the competitive game more than than it would to keep the character in tournaments.
Q: Are there any characters/customs that need banning in SSB4?
As of now, no.
Even the best characters in SSB4 don't have as much of a gap between them and the lower tiers as MK did with nearly everyone else in Brawl. Furthermore, none of the custom moves have produced a setup that reliably takes or even places well in tournaments.
Q: Why do we wait so long to decide that something should be banned?
We wait as long as we do because the metagame for any fighting game takes a LONG time to develop. There are so many factors that influence a tier list, and individual player skill is certainly one of them. It took a substantial amount of time before anyone realized Marth's true potential in Melee, for example.
Furthermore, throughout the development of a metagame, strategies change dramatically. Play-styles that people at first believed were impossible to beat are regularly countered as the meta develops and new, better play-styles rise to replace them.
In addition, with a roster as large as that of SSB4, it will take even longer until we've determined and tapped the true potential of every character in the game.
In conclusion...
"Ban" is a word thrown around far too easily. Given the years of development it takes for the average metagame to mature, the word "ban" itself should almost be considered taboo.
Thus far, there has been nothing seen in SSB4 that even begins to warrant a ban and, barring some more bizarre glitches being introduced with balance patches, it's extremely unlikely that there ever will be.
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