Can someone explain counterpicking in a tournament to me?

[K 2]

Hi everyone, can someone explain what stage counterpicking and character counterpicking to me? I've heard it in context to tournaments, but I'm not sure what exactly they are.

Thanks in advance

 

[Corigames]

How I always did it in Melee:

Both people and come to an agreement on who chooses a character first. Then the other person picks. (P1 will be the one that picked first and P2 will be the second)

Then P2 strikes a stage from the random select followed by P1 doing the same. They then play on the randomly selected map.

That map and any other map can't be played on for the rest of the set. The stages stricken from the random are then open to play for the next game.

The loser of that game then chooses what stage they will be playing on for the next round. The winner then chooses their character. Lastly, the loser can choose a different character. Then they play the next round.

Repeat until the set is over.

If you want to know how to counterpick, then it requires you to know character match-ups. If you know you do bad against Marth, then, if you lose to one, you need to pick a level that gives you an advantage over him and/or play a character that does better against him.

 

[Winston]

How I always did it in Melee:

Both people and come to an agreement on who chooses a character first. Then the other person picks. (P1 will be the one that picked first and P2 will be the second)

Then P2 strikes a stage from the random select followed by P1 doing the same. They then play on the randomly selected map.

That map and any other map can't be played on for the rest of the set. The stages stricken from the random are then open to play for the next game.

The loser of that game then chooses what stage they will be playing on for the next round. The winner then chooses their character. Lastly, the loser can choose a different character. Then they play the next round.

Repeat until the set is over.

Two things I'd like to add:

Theoretically, the first game should be a double blind (as in, both players pick at the same time without knowledge of what the other player picked). Usually it doesn't matter so you just do it how coreygames described, but you do have the right to insist on double blind.

Also, almost every tournament implements "Dave's Stupid Rule", which states that you cannot counterpick a stage that you've won on earlier in the set.

 

[K 2]

ok thanks a lot. That really cleared things up for me!