Ulevo
Smash Master
Now that EVO has finally concluded, tournament organizers are looking to the player base to see if changes should be made to the stage list. More specifically, if Lylat Cruise should remain legal, and if Battlefield and Dreamland 64 should stay as a combined stage ban. In this post I will propose a ruleset I have not seen mentioned before that will tackle both of these issues.
Judging by this latest poll on twitter, we can say that there is a consensus that Lylat should remain legal, with about 59% voting to keep it with the current ruleset intact or just by separating the triplats. There is a problem here though that the poll does not properly show, and that is that players may be wanting to keep Lylat within the stage list to ensure that we do not have to have Battlefield and Dreamland 64 in the same 5 stage strike for game 1. Lylat is currently the reason we are able to avoid this, and many would argue it is only legal due to necessity.
One look at #banlylat on twitter reveals plenty of evidence as to why this stage, on its own merit, should not be legal for competitive play. It simply has too many inconsistencies, bugs and hard to predict variables that can arbitrarily effect the outcome of a match.
If tournament organizers were to decide to ban Lylat Cruise, we then have another dilemma, and that is that Dreamland 64 and Battlefield would have to exist on the same stage strike selection for game 1. There are some players who feel that these stages should be treated as separate entities, but regardless of which camp you reside on, having Dreamland 64, Battlefield, and in some cases Town & City to select from game 1 is a problem in many match ups.
The only solutions to this seem to be to grin and bear with having Dreamland and Battlefield in the same starting list, or reduce our number to three starters, which has garnered criticism in the past for having too few of a selection and giving the player who strikes second too much of an advantage. So what do we do?
My proposed ruleset:
- Ban Lylat Cruise
- Town & City and Dreamland as Counterpick
- Smashville, Final Destination and Battlefield as Starter
- Player 1 & 2 decide which stage to play on game 1 by a modified version of rock, paper scissors.
Modified rock, paper scissors? What does that entail? It's simple.
Instead of using rock, paper and scissors, you use hand signs of one, two or three fingers. Each represent a stage: one being Smashville, two being Final Destination, three being Battlefield. If both players land on the same amount of fingers, let's say two, then both players agree to go to Final Destination. If both players land on different fingers, let's say one and two, then they agree to go to the stage not chosen: Battlefield.
This method has several advantages:
- It removes the advantage one player has in a strike order by making the choice essentially blind pick
- Ironically, no more RPS to decide striking order
- It's faster than traditional striking
- It's easy
- It avoids triplatform saturation for game 1
- It affords us the ability to not have to rely on Lylat Cruise to balance out the stage list
- We can still keep Battlefield and Dreamland 64 as a single ban, or choose to separate them or ban Dreamland 64 later
The one potential con I see with this method is that it relegates the stage list to three stages game 1. But after playing this game for over two years competitively, I do not see this as a problem. This is because of the inherent differences between Smashville, Final Destination and Battlefield. Each of these stages represent varying extremes, such as Final Destination being the longest legal stage in the game, with Smashville being the shortest, or Final Destination having the least platforms, with Battlefield having the most. This often lends players enough options to comfortably choose between the three for the first game. I have heard that this would imbalance the stage list and favour certain characters, such as Sheik, but ask yourself if this is worse than having Battlefield, Dreamland 64 and Town & City on the same list of five choices? And how many times do you see game 1 played on a stage other than these three? As long as players are able to agree to a stage that is fair and comprised of a middle ground between the advantages given to either character, then that stage list is functioning properly. I feel this is currently our best alternative going forward, provided we see no more stages released.
Judging by this latest poll on twitter, we can say that there is a consensus that Lylat should remain legal, with about 59% voting to keep it with the current ruleset intact or just by separating the triplats. There is a problem here though that the poll does not properly show, and that is that players may be wanting to keep Lylat within the stage list to ensure that we do not have to have Battlefield and Dreamland 64 in the same 5 stage strike for game 1. Lylat is currently the reason we are able to avoid this, and many would argue it is only legal due to necessity.
One look at #banlylat on twitter reveals plenty of evidence as to why this stage, on its own merit, should not be legal for competitive play. It simply has too many inconsistencies, bugs and hard to predict variables that can arbitrarily effect the outcome of a match.
If tournament organizers were to decide to ban Lylat Cruise, we then have another dilemma, and that is that Dreamland 64 and Battlefield would have to exist on the same stage strike selection for game 1. There are some players who feel that these stages should be treated as separate entities, but regardless of which camp you reside on, having Dreamland 64, Battlefield, and in some cases Town & City to select from game 1 is a problem in many match ups.
The only solutions to this seem to be to grin and bear with having Dreamland and Battlefield in the same starting list, or reduce our number to three starters, which has garnered criticism in the past for having too few of a selection and giving the player who strikes second too much of an advantage. So what do we do?
My proposed ruleset:
- Ban Lylat Cruise
- Town & City and Dreamland as Counterpick
- Smashville, Final Destination and Battlefield as Starter
- Player 1 & 2 decide which stage to play on game 1 by a modified version of rock, paper scissors.
Modified rock, paper scissors? What does that entail? It's simple.
Instead of using rock, paper and scissors, you use hand signs of one, two or three fingers. Each represent a stage: one being Smashville, two being Final Destination, three being Battlefield. If both players land on the same amount of fingers, let's say two, then both players agree to go to Final Destination. If both players land on different fingers, let's say one and two, then they agree to go to the stage not chosen: Battlefield.
This method has several advantages:
- It removes the advantage one player has in a strike order by making the choice essentially blind pick
- Ironically, no more RPS to decide striking order
- It's faster than traditional striking
- It's easy
- It avoids triplatform saturation for game 1
- It affords us the ability to not have to rely on Lylat Cruise to balance out the stage list
- We can still keep Battlefield and Dreamland 64 as a single ban, or choose to separate them or ban Dreamland 64 later
The one potential con I see with this method is that it relegates the stage list to three stages game 1. But after playing this game for over two years competitively, I do not see this as a problem. This is because of the inherent differences between Smashville, Final Destination and Battlefield. Each of these stages represent varying extremes, such as Final Destination being the longest legal stage in the game, with Smashville being the shortest, or Final Destination having the least platforms, with Battlefield having the most. This often lends players enough options to comfortably choose between the three for the first game. I have heard that this would imbalance the stage list and favour certain characters, such as Sheik, but ask yourself if this is worse than having Battlefield, Dreamland 64 and Town & City on the same list of five choices? And how many times do you see game 1 played on a stage other than these three? As long as players are able to agree to a stage that is fair and comprised of a middle ground between the advantages given to either character, then that stage list is functioning properly. I feel this is currently our best alternative going forward, provided we see no more stages released.
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