Character Competitive Impressions

[thehard]

I'd like for pro-customs advocates to stop being painted as these demonic, simple-minded entities now. I'll make fun of you if you complain about Trip Sapling, sure, but if you ask for advice? I'm more than willing to share countertactics and hit the lab and theorycraft and what not. Only because I know it's not a real problem. I want to spread knowledge!

I don't see any unanimous "let's get rid of Counter Timber" sentiments; I have seen commentators explain very clearly on stream its weaknesses and counterplay, and I've seen players who played with and against it say "it's not that bad, here's why...". Food for thought.

 

[Shaya]

At what point would change be more common? Or another question, when would we be willing to say this conclusion for sure after what amount of time?

I would expect the defaults to still be a thing for now, but how changes happen later is something I'm not sure when it would happen.

No one is ever that patient, right?
I think there are three (well 2 + Mii sizes) notable things I've seen which are hard to mechanically compare with any other thing in the game with. Beatable definitely, but being a better player helps and we already mostly agree that player skill still comes out on top over at least the medium term. So while it is potentially naive to think perception won't change, I don't see how they're handled changing -much- but rather who remains not caring about the impact on the meta it may have).

The way you word this is weird. But people are making judgements and generally sticking to them. Nothing but developer intervention really seems to change any of the conclusions (Logistics, people's natural responses [over time it's likely to galvanize towards the status quo], it being a different game [like we see doubles], how-in-game options work).

 

[PUK]

I met different kind of people in tournament. I talking about the mass, not top player.
I met someone who was playing bowser and ike and lose against a custom villager and a then a shiek. He was mad against custom in general, even if the villager played legit actually.
But when i told him about custom option that could have given him some better results he was like: didn't know that, that's really good, maybe i should see...
A loooot of players know about kong cyclone and others crap, because it's mediatised from day 1, but don't know about the leftovers. It's sad to see bowser juggle like a soccer balloon he could avoid it with a single custom move.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Yes, we've admitted defeat time and time again that Brawl has significant issues that required our intervention. Further intervention may have saved it, or just reveal even more of it's inherent issues. Oh MK!? Ban stages. Oh MK? Add an LGL. Oh MK and won't someone please think of the planking ROBs, G&Ws and Pits because it isn't "unbeatable"? Ban MK.. Oh god Ice Climbers oh god oh god oh god!? Unban MK. Can we ban ICs instead? HELL NO! *game dies*

Customs are "adding problems to the game" vs "developers removing many problems of the vanilla game" argument.
To me having an LGL over just admitting some of villager's specials are anti-competitive irks me.

I'm probably still pro-selective customs than anti-customs. But pride and outdated balance conceptualization of the only group "pro-customs" are a sinking ship and there aren't enough thumbs to plug the holes.

Well, what do you think we should do? How should we deal with people who say "that's broken, that's anticompetitive, that needs to be banned" before it even wins a single tournament? What are people like me supposed to think? "Oh, no, don't worry, you don't have to get good, you don't have to learn counterplay, you don't have to learn how to fight this, we'll just ban it!" I mean, the Villager example is perfect - how many people have actually tried that **** since KTAR, where it lost badly to:
a) a Bowser Jr. who obviously had never encountered it before
b) someone just picking a day one pikachu and pressing B a lot
c) Mii Brawler
Nobody! Because it doesn't work! Because if you know the ludicrously simple counterplay to it, almost every character just beats it for free! I'm with AA on this one - what are we supposed to do? Here's a serious improvement to the game essentially destroyed by people ******** and moaning about it, and refusing to adapt.

Last friday, I showed everyone who stuck around after the Munich weekly how to avoid dying to Kong Cyclone. Here's how you do it, by the way: after you get sucked off the ground, press L.

...No really, that's it. You can almost always airdodge the strong hit. I'm kind of lost, honestly, as to why this is such a big deal that everyone and their dog is complaining about it, and why people are still getting hit by it.

 

[Cassio]

The problem with the "git good" argument regarding balance is that people care more about the games balance at mid-high level rather then top. Compare Melee and Brawl for that, MK at TOP level had pretty inconsistent results that weren't much worse then other competitive games. But he dominated mid-high level and was prone to Cinderella stories, and this was (incorrectly) attributed to the same degree of dominance at top level. In Melee fox has similar results at the top, but people are generally willing to give that a pass because below top level you can give fox a hard time.

Whether that's logical or not that's just the way it is, and customs advocates should be rightly worried of the perception of fairness/balance at mid- high level. At the very least though it can be said to potentially make the game unfun for mid-high level play which constitutes a ton of players, so changing that perception if possible is key.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

The problem with the "git good" argument regarding balance is that people care more about the games balance at mid-high level rather then top. Compare Melee and Brawl for that, MK at TOP level had pretty inconsistent results that weren't much worse then other competitive games. But he dominated mid-high level and was prone to Cinderella stories, and this was (incorrectly) attributed to the same degree of dominance at top level. In Melee fox has similar results at the top, but people are generally willing to give that a pass because below top level you can give fox a hard time.

Whether that's logical or not that's just the way it is, and customs advocates should be rightly worried of the perception of fairness/balance at mid- high level. At the very least though it can be said to potentially make the game unfun for mid-high level play which constitutes a ton of players, so changing that perception if possible is key.

But it's not even about balance at the top. It's at balance above the ground floor. Beating a ledgecamping villager is trivial. Anyone who has trouble with that hasn't spent any time trying to figure out the metagame. Not dying to Kong Cyclone is not hard either - I tried it at the weekly last friday and my opponent kept on just airdodging out. We don't have any DKs where I live. This stuff isn't people being unable to evolve past the stage where MK is really good; this is people being unwilling to learn that you can stuff Sonic's Spindash, and then ******** and moaning when they run into my buddy who does nothing but spindash and spinshot in the bracket!

Customs Proponents: "Check this out, it's really cool"
Customs Opponents: "X is totally broken oh my god!"
Customs Proponents: "...But it's never won a tournament."
Customs Opponents: "Don't care still broken"
Customs Proponents: "But it shouldn't even work in theory, and a bunch of people beat it."
Customs Opponents: "Hey guys, did you hear? X is totally broken, we need to ban customs!"
Customs Proponents: "... Okay, so we spent a little time in the lab; here's how you beat this, it's super easy. Please stop spreading bull**** about customs now?"
Customs Opponents: "X is totally broken oh my god!"
Customs Proponents: "But... we just showed you how to beat it. It's totally easy."
Customs Opponents: "LALALALALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU X IS TOTALLY BROKEN LALALALALALALALALALA"

I mean, seriously, what are we supposed to do? These people don't give a **** about learning the really trivial counters to strategies like this, and instead will ***** and moan like the scrubs they are and demand that all challenging elements of the game be removed so that they don't have to adapt. There is nothing else to do. When people say "X is broken" long after you've shown that it isn't in the lab, the only answer left, the only answer that you can offer, the only answer that these people are worth, is "get good, scrub". What else is there? And why should that not be enough after the counter is publicly known?

 

[FimPhym]

When zero toyed with the idea of a diddy ban, I think basically everyone pushed back against it. No matter how strong an aggressive character is, it was easy to defend diddy for the right reasons. Game is young, find counter play, whatever. When defensive play is good, I notice people are a lot faster to call it out and ask for rule changes. I just get automatically suspicious of rules that are anti defensive play since even a lot of very competitive players balk at a strong defense.

Back in my melee days before corneria got banned, I would camp around the fin as pikachu using thunder jolts and thunder. Most players who would normally beat me would beat me there, also. But some people just hit a brick wall, played dumb, didn't think about how to counter play. They wouldn't shake my hand afterwards, some people just sd'd to get it over with. This is why I'm wary of claims against defense, because I know even a beatable campy game will make some people want to kill off the play style. Play styles you don't like deserve to exist, though.

Now I am not good enough and don't have the experience to say anything about smash 4 or villager. Some say he's too dumb in some match ups, others say deal w/ it. Okay cool I'm sure that will all shake out in one way or another over time with tournament play. I don't have an opinion on the power level of custom villager. What I do wanna say is how janky and crappy LGL is as rule though, even outside of how much it looks like a house rule about not throwing too many sonic booms.

Okay so first of all it doesn't even stop time outs or villager ledge camping if a game has been just naturally slow and defensive, as villager games do. Then there's a minute left and villager decides to ledge camp. So in this case, the LGL is trying to prevent a tactic, but instead only says "don't do it all game!". If it's geuinely unfair for the first 4 minutes of the match I'm sure it is unfair for the last minute also.

It leads to bizarre game states and rewards weird skills. Perhaps villager and I spend a lot of time off stage with an extended edge guarding/recovery session, I've certainly had that happen as dedede without customs on since I love to play the off stage game. In this situation an important skill to have is "count how often villager grabs the edge, and try to have him grab it 25 times before you do". So say villager does grab the edge up to the limit in a game. Even if I was doing fine before hand, my incentive is to now run out the clock. So in this way, LGL could lead to time outs in a match that wasn't going to time before. That's messed up.

And then how staggeringly arbitrary it is. In my previous example I counted out 25 ledge grabs from villager, and then timed him out. Surprise! The count says he only grabbed 24 times. 24 is okay. 25 is not. So I lose that one. This sounds like a situation I don't want built into the rule set of any tournament.

So yeah, by all means, if villager turns out too strong with no counter play or wipes out all but a few characters or something then making a rule for that is good. That rule should probably be "this move is banned" or some other hard and fast rule. This LGL stuff is for the birds.

I'll just keep hoping this is like my corneria camping, though, and good players find a way.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I'll just keep hoping this is like my corneria camping, though, and good players find a way.

They already have and I cannot stress this enough. The strategy has been run through the shredder, brought behind the woodshed, put out to pasture, insert metaphor here. It should be all but dead. It does not work against virtually anyone in the cast, and the counterplay is almost trivially easy. And yet people continue to *****.

 

[Gunla]

Nothing but developer intervention really seems to change any of the conclusions (Logistics, people's natural responses [over time it's likely to galvanize towards the status quo], it being a different game [like we see doubles], how-in-game options work).

I wanted to take this specific portion out.

A mentality this meta has over previous ones is that developer intervention is the definite word. People percieve that, because customs are not always tweaked across the board that they are broken and broken all the way, and will never be balanced heavily. Will they become broken? Right now, I think there's one or two customs that people should learn how to counter or get around, not really. Heck, the fact that things like the Amplified Pikmin are removed should be a notice that things that are rather abnormal are being looked at, customs or not.

I'm rather neutral on customs myself, but I will say that I'd rather see players inform themselves of specific threats custom wise, why they're effective, and what to do to shut it down, so that they're not hitting a brick wall.

 

[Shaya]

Last friday, I showed everyone who stuck around after the Munich weekly how to avoid dying to Kong Cyclone. Here's how you do it, by the way: after you get sucked off the ground, press L.

...No really, that's it. You can almost always airdodge the strong hit. I'm kind of lost, honestly, as to why this is such a big deal that everyone and their dog is complaining about it, and why people are still getting hit by it.

Let me just talk about our shared love first~
But yes, that is somewhat known. Doesn't work if you get hit by the first hit from what I've seen though, and I'm not sure how the two out of the four hitboxes that actually produce hitstun work (where they move to/etc). I'm honestly rarely getting hit by the final hit of it, but that doesn't change the incredible lack of ability to punish it most characters have (and awkward positioning the wind throws you in).

And I still don't care about villager planking, personally. Why does counter tree mean planking? Heck any means of ensuring safety on the ledge would require close proximity with a trip sapling.

"that's broken, that's anticompetitive, that needs to be banned" before it even wins a single tournament?
Dedede's down throw didn't win tournaments and if it did it was only early when people still played more than 1/4th of the cast left due to the meta impacts of dedede's down throw.

This is the line I'm dealing with here, getting people past the idea that accepting the entirety of the game until issues kill it decisively shouldn't happen for two games in a row. But the reality is, pro-customs aren't going to ever advocate banning any custom as that is self-defeating in the current climate (god politics is awesome, at least in theory), yet more people leaning anti-customs right now would support customs if that were the case; hence they're going to rally behind anti-customs due to lack of adaption.

But heck, my main point to the post you quoted was "issues, solution, new issue, another solution, more issues".
We're going to have two balance patches come prior to Evo and our custom sets (and the understanding of the customs meta) will be four months behind what would be a game less than 8 months old. Our solution with presets that works for every local or fair sized tournament has complications we don't see being addressed (twitter campaign withstanding, it really is Wizard's fault) for a major tournament like this. They also won't represent any potential balance changes that would come in for customs (if cyclone had no super armor and now couldn't auto cancel would anyone use it? etc).
As I said, it's another issue that comes purely with customs. And it sucks that the weight of customs falls on Evo when it's not going to be accurate like we'd hope, and I already know that argument will be used by pro-customs after the event in dire straights.

The question I ask what people like you are supposed to think is how do you expect to overcome the perception that will sway people when everything "coming out" is successfully being painted negative for the game and that there are little positive spins available for them? Telling people to adapt isn't working, the structural weaknesses are there and are only being highlighted over time by various anecdotes, as unfair and biased as they are, it's only the 10% swing in the grand scheme of it.

 

[Luco]

Yes it does matter because that means these guys will gain more rage by nulifiying Mewtwos main kill options, his down smash comes out slow and can be shielded on reaction, up smash doesnt suck grounded opponents in unless they're right beneath him. Mewtwo will have to rely heavily on edgeguards or shadow ball.

Mewtwo cant afford to let his opponents get into rage, I think kirby beats him especially when he copies mewtwos shadow ball giving kirby another kill option and a tool to force mewtwo to play differently.Mewtwo isnt all that fast and kirby's frame data allows him to dominate mewtwo up close. Kirby actually deals more damage out of throws thanks to his better pummels and buffed down throw.

I'm not totally sold that Mewtwo should be letting Kirby get in all that much in the first place. It's not like there's a major disparity in mobility specs skewed in Kirby's favour, and Mewtwo has a tail longer than Marth's sword ever hoped to be (woof ), plus a projectile that can easily be used pretty safely (ergo, use it in the air). Mewtwo also has setups that Kirby isn't going to be avoiding by merely crouching. I don't think the MU would be nearly that crippling.

And I still feel as though the attribute benefits him more in general than Jiggly's attributes that happen to hit crouching enemies. But that's just me.

 

[Nobie]

Here's a fun what-if:

Mewtwo currently doesn't have customs, so there isn't any need to give it 8 custom movesets for EVO. However, what if the Lucas patch introduces custom moves for Mewtwo? The logic behind not allowing Lucas was that he'd be released with too little lead time into EVO. Would this apply to Mewtwo's customs as well, or is the fact that the base character is the same enough to give these hypothetical new moves a chance?

 

[meleebrawler]

I'm not totally sold that Mewtwo should be letting Kirby get in all that much in the first place. It's not like there's a major disparity in mobility specs skewed in Kirby's favour, and Mewtwo has a tail longer than Marth's sword ever hoped to be (woof ), plus a projectile that can easily be used pretty safely (ergo, use it in the air). Mewtwo also has setups that Kirby isn't going to be avoiding by merely crouching. I don't think the MU would be nearly that crippling.

And I still feel as though the attribute benefits him more in general than Jiggly's attributes that happen to hit crouching enemies. But that's just me.

Mewtwo fair is basically a Jiggly bair, just slightly weaker and faster.

Also if Kirby ever copies Shadow Ball, remember: Mewtwo has a reflector and Kirby doesn't.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Dedede's down throw didn't win tournaments and if it did it was only early when people still played more than 1/4th of the cast left due to the meta impacts of dedede's down throw.

Alone, no he really didn't because some really bad match-ups.

But he was used to help win in Brawl back in the day sometimes as a pocket counterpick.

nit picky but w/e.

This is the line I'm dealing with here, getting people past the idea that accepting the entirety of the game until issues kill it decisively shouldn't happen for two games in a row. But the reality is, pro-customs aren't going to ever advocate banning any custom as that is self-defeating in the current climate (god politics is awesome, at least in theory), yet more people leaning anti-customs right now would support customs if that were the case; hence they're going to rally behind anti-customs due to lack of adaption.

But heck, my main point to the post you quoted was "issues, solution, new issue, another solution, more issues".
We're going to have two balance patches come prior to Evo and our custom sets (and the understanding of the customs meta) will be four months behind what would be a game less than 8 months old. Our solution with presets that works for every local or fair sized tournament has complications we don't see being addressed (twitter campaign withstanding, it really is Wizard's fault) for a major tournament like this. They also won't represent any potential balance changes that would come in for customs (if cyclone had no super armor and now couldn't auto cancel would anyone use it? etc).
As I said, it's another issue that comes purely with customs. And it sucks that the weight of customs falls on Evo when it's not going to be accurate like we'd hope, and I already know that argument will be used by pro-customs after the event in dire straights.

The question I ask what people like you are supposed to think is how do you expect to overcome the perception that will sway people when everything "coming out" is successfully being painted negative for the game and that there are little positive spins available for them? Telling people to adapt isn't working, the structural weaknesses are there and are only being highlighted over time by various anecdotes, as unfair and biased as they are, it's only the 10% swing in the grand scheme of it.

The issue though with the positive negative arguments is something needs to show itself to be a clear problem, like an objectively broken clear problem.

Metaknight in terms of money when Rajam recorded it and in terms of how the community wanted to handle it. Metaknight hit that kind of clear top status that people felt cheated that even at a top level he was that dominant.

This partly hits why I wanted to make customs legal at APEX in the first place so people would at least just get to work on trying to break them instead of people play politics again just like Brawl with push and pull on the customs issues.

If we want to discuss banning customs, we would first need clear objective data like Pika/Game and Watch was in the beginning til they patched that out of Smash 4.

I get what you are saying here but we still need more to offer for that kind of position to be more supported for being open to banning some customs.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

"that's broken, that's anticompetitive, that needs to be banned" before it even wins a single tournament?
Dedede's down throw didn't win tournaments and if it did it was only early when people still played more than 1/4th of the cast left due to the meta impacts of dedede's down throw.

This is the line I'm dealing with here, getting people past the idea that accepting the entirety of the game until issues kill it decisively shouldn't happen for two games in a row.

Well great, then let's hear your answer to Ampharos's challenge:

I'm sure many are still not persuaded. Let me double down. I'm 100% convinced customs are not a balance problem and that no specific custom warrants a ban. I want to hear the other side get specific here. Name specific customs that are broken. Name specific match-ups you believe those customs render unwinnable that are otherwise winnable with customs banned. If you think a specific custom is merely a matter of gameplay degeneracy as opposed to match-up breaking, explain in fine detail how that's the case and specifically why no one can do anything about it. I don't mean to just make a burden for "your side"; I just want a series of falsifiable claims that hinge on objective game mechanics since claims like "some customs cause problems" are just impossible to argue against by their very nature. I can promise my efforts and I'm sure many other pro-custom players will also lend their help in showing specifically how any specific case isn't a problem. If we can answer every specific case, there should be no problem. So, let's have at it?

You keep coming to this King Dedede analogy... But in that case, we could look at the matchups and say, "See, here Dedede completely invalidates DK. Here Dedede makes life impossible for Bowser. Here Dedede ruins Luigi's chances. Here Dedede makes Charizard invalid." (Oh, and by the way, which characters did Dedede counter harder than Metaknight? Anyone other than five that got infinited?) What customs are doing that in what matchups? I'm really getting frustrated here. Is it your point that people see it like that? Well great, tell them to put up or shut up! Do you see it like that? Put up or shut up. Because, and this is the important part, those people have no clue what the hell they're on about.

But the reality is, pro-customs aren't going to ever advocate banning any custom as that is self-defeating in the current climate

Bull****. We'll start advocating banning them as soon as we see any that are actually a problem. But what do we get?

Kong Cyclone is broken? No, it isn't. Every single high tier, most mid tiers, and quite a substantial number of low tiers beat that ****, and if you look at who's doing well with it, it's dedicated DK mains who happen to be really good - people like DKWill and Average Joe. Oh, and they're not winning, but I guess that doesn't matter, because Kong Cyclone shuts down... Uh... Who does it counter again? How does the DDD analogy work here, exactly? I have no idea.
Villager Ledge Stalling is broken? No, it isn't. Anyone doing that at this point in the game is a bad player who will lose the moment they find someone who knows the (trivially easy) counterplay.
MLG Ball? Lost to default Vanish+Bucket. Yeah, it's broken, but not as broken as default Shiek+G&W - ban that, then we'll start talking about getting rid of that aura sphere custom.
Jumbo Hoops? Really?

yet more people leaning anti-customs right now would support customs if that were the case; hence they're going to rally behind anti-customs due to lack of adaption.

Because they're scrubs. Straight-up, Sirlin-definition scrubs. That we are somehow expected to cater to. Why.

The question I ask what people like you are supposed to think is how do you expect to overcome the perception that will sway people when everything "coming out" is successfully being painted negative for the game and that there are little positive spins available for them? Telling people to adapt isn't working,

Well, what else is there? To quote myself:

Customs Proponents: "Check this out, it's really cool"
Customs Opponents: "X is totally broken oh my god!"
Customs Proponents: "...But it's never won a tournament."
Customs Opponents: "Don't care still broken"
Customs Proponents: "But it shouldn't even work in theory, and a bunch of people beat it."
Customs Opponents: "Hey guys, did you hear? X is totally broken, we need to ban customs!"
Customs Proponents: "... Okay, so we spent a little time in the lab; here's how you beat this, it's super easy. Please stop spreading bull**** about customs now?"
Customs Opponents: "X is totally broken oh my god!"
Customs Proponents: "But... we just showed you how to beat it. It's totally easy."
Customs Opponents: "LALALALALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU X IS TOTALLY BROKEN LALALALALALALALALALA"

I'm just kinda lost here, I guess.

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

Here's a fun what-if:

Mewtwo currently doesn't have customs, so there isn't any need to give it 8 custom movesets for EVO. However, what if the Lucas patch introduces custom moves for Mewtwo? The logic behind not allowing Lucas was that he'd be released with too little lead time into EVO. Would this apply to Mewtwo's customs as well, or is the fact that the base character is the same enough to give these hypothetical new moves a chance?

That or Mewtwo's customs will be available when he is downloadable for the public.

 

[HeroMystic]

I'd like for pro-customs advocates to stop being painted as these demonic, simple-minded entities now. I'll make fun of you if you complain about Trip Sapling, sure, but if you ask for advice? I'm more than willing to share countertactics and hit the lab and theorycraft and what not. Only because I know it's not a real problem. I want to spread knowledge!

No one has been saying this. You're taking things too personally, and honestly this is part of the problem.

My specific issue is that, outside of @Amazing Ampharos (whom I thank for making the effort to actually producing an argument), no one including yourself has been willing to accept that in the customs meta, there are tactics and strategies that are abusive in the tournament scene, and dealing with these players who are willing to abuse them just aren't fun. Funny how Smash Attack had this very player reach 4th place by abusing Villager camping and Kong Cyclone. Even further, LGL are being proposed now. The LGL rule isn't saying "Villager camping is unbeatable". The LGL rule is saying "Villager camping is stupid and we want it to die".

And the unfortunate reaction from me to all of this is this wouldn't happen in the default meta.

I want to, once again, make my stance clear and say I'm 100% neutral between customs or none (though I do prefer the convenience of the default meta especially when it comes to introducing new players), and all I care for is objective data and criteria as to why customs should continue being a thing. The only thing swaying me to the anti-customs bench is the attitudes of pro-customs and the negligence of combating issues that have risen from exploring the customs meta and prefers to complain about the complainers instead.

The fact that there is "Pro-Customs" and "Anti-Customs" is 100% stupid by the way. This isn't politics, and it shouldn't ever have to be. This is why it frustrating that people will go far as to say people wanted to play with customs "because it looks fun" instead of some actual objective argument, because this is exactly how **** like this happens. The development and health of the game should have always been our number one priority.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

No one has been saying this. You're taking things too personally, and honestly this is part of the problem.

My specific issue is that, outside of @Amazing Ampharos (whom I thank for making the effort to actually producing an argument), no one including yourself has been willing to accept that in the customs meta, there are tactics and strategies that are abusive in the tournament scene, and dealing with these players who are willing to abuse them just aren't fun. Funny how Smash Attack had this very player reach 4th place by abusing Villager camping and Kong Cyclone. Even further, LGL are being proposed now. The LGL rule isn't saying "Villager camping is unbeatable". The LGL rule is saying "Villager camping is stupid and we want it to die".

And the unfortunate reaction from me to all of this is this wouldn't happen in the default meta.

I want to, once again, make my stance clear and say I'm 100% neutral between customs or none (though I do prefer the convenience of the default meta especially when it comes to introducing new players), and all I care for is objective data and criteria as to why customs should continue being a thing. The only thing swaying me to the anti-customs bench is the attitudes of pro-customs and the negligence of combating issues that have risen from exploring the customs meta and prefers to complain about the complainers instead.

The fact that there is "Pro-Customs" and "Anti-Customs" is 100% stupid by the way. This isn't politics, and it shouldn't ever have to be. This is why it frustrating that people will go far as to say people wanted to play with customs "because it looks fun" instead of some actual objective argument, because this is exactly how **** like this happens. The development and health of the game should have always been our number one priority.

Unfortunately smash has a lot of politics in it with legality and rulesets.

We learned that full well with APEX pretty much being the sole reason why MK wasn't fully banned despite the overwhelming majority wanting him banned.

 

[Zorai]

The problem with the "git good" argument regarding balance is that people care more about the games balance at mid-high level rather then top. Compare Melee and Brawl for that, MK at TOP level had pretty inconsistent results that weren't much worse then other competitive games. But he dominated mid-high level and was prone to Cinderella stories, and this was (incorrectly) attributed to the same degree of dominance at top level. In Melee fox has similar results at the top, but people are generally willing to give that a pass because below top level you can give fox a hard time.

Whether that's logical or not that's just the way it is, and customs advocates should be rightly worried of the perception of fairness/balance at mid- high level. At the very least though it can be said to potentially make the game unfun for mid-high level play which constitutes a ton of players, so changing that perception if possible is key.

That's only because top level players didn't use "****ty" characters in Brawl..

Of course players who are CONSIDERED mid-high level will be more visibly upset at the game's lack of balance, if that happened to be the case, simply because they are not in the same competitive ballpark of using only A tier and above. You are correct in saying that game balance will always be more relevant to the low tier hero who attends tournaments.

Aside from that I fully agree that the general consensus on customs being legal needs to change. Let's be honest here, we only have them on for two reasons: EVO, and the influx of newer players in favor of customs.

 

[webbedspace]

Funny how Smash Attack had this very player reach 4th place by abusing Villager camping and Kong Cyclone.

ADHD and Average Joe are the same guy all of a sudden?

Honestly I'd be a little insulted if I were Joe or DKWill, people who have successively reached finals with default DK, to be accused of "abusing" Kong Cyclone to achieve... exactly the same level of success?

 

[Luigi player]

Eh, it was bound to happen. The laws of the universe conspire to ensure that Z finishes 9th.

Anyway, Rain won Umebura, so if neither Nairo nor MVD wins Sandstorm, rumors of 's demise will have been exaggerated.

Earth beat Rains Diddy GFs game 1 with Pit, Rain won the remaining 2 matches with Sheik.

But it looks like it's still far from a demise for Diddy.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

ADHD and Average Joe are the same guy all of a sudden?

Honestly I'd be a little insulted if I were Joe or DKWill, people who have successively reached finals with default DK, to be accused of "abusing" Kong Cyclone to achieve... exactly the same level of success?

Yeah, seriously. We're not talking about random schlubs picking up an easy strategy and Cycloning their way to victory. We have people who try this; they get their asses kicked. We're talking about top-level DKs who were significant tournament threats back when their character was still ass.

 

[DunnoBro]

I want to say this completely destroys any integrity of the customs metagame because this essentially admits there was never any objective reasoning for them in the first place. I also want to say I know this isn't true, as competitive tourney goers have proposed the idea that customs is more balanced than default, and I'll even post links to prove it.

It only does if you somehow come to the conclusion subjectivity is the only alternative to pushing to balance the game specifically.

Customs were pushed due to the options they give, those options as a whole couldn't have been categorically declared more or less balanced than default though. (At least not with any kind of certainty)

 

[Ulevo]

Again, I largely think the customs discussion going on right now is meaningless until the Lucas patch hits. That being said, I feel a distinction needs to be made between custom Villager and custom moves as a whole.

I feel the reason people largely frown on the custom meta is because while there are a few moves that revolve around simplistic, powerful strategies like Kong Cyclone that perceptively remove depth from the game, Villager is essentially the end product of what people do not want to see; a degenerative strategy that is difficult to deal with, displeasing to counter, a time waster for TO's, and not entertaining to watch. It's the elephant in the room as far as I'm concerned, hence the LGL being proposed. The reason for this is because it essentially spits in the face of what we like to see within the context of competitive Smash.

Is it impossible to beat? Not really, no. @Amazing Ampharos has proven otherwise. But neither is blastzone camping. If thoroughly researched, I'm quite sure tactical strategies could be developed around how to effectively deal with blast zone camping. Does this mean that players are going to want to allow permanent walk off stages that permit this type of play? Absolutely not.

To put it another way, using Jigglypuff to float underneath stages to time out a player would likely have me disqualified at a tournament under the stalling clause, but given the ledge mechanics and the nature of the strategy, is it any safer than stalling with custom Villager? I highly doubt so, especially without ledge invincibility. Custom Villager poses danger and risk to the approaching player at least. That does not mean that we need to have a big political debate on whether or not this should become a legal thing, and I think most would agree.

The concern people need to realize is not that these strategies are unbeatable, but that they very displeasing to everyone who has to deal with them, competitively or otherwise. While adapting is a valid call and should be encouraged, this does not mean peoples concern over how the game will be perceived and enjoyed won't be harmed in the process. There's a fine line here when it comes to policy making. I don't think the players calling for bans or rules against custom Villager are necessarily correct, but their concern is not misplaced.

 

[Chauzu]

Ok, just wanted to give my view on customs on vs. off. I am a casual myself but I basically read and watch all I can about Smash 4 so yeah, you can call me a "fan" or w/e.

Ever since before Smash 4, customs was the one thing about the game that got me the most hyped, and I saw it as the biggest addition. So customs being legal for EVO - thanks to the job of AA and all the other guys - made me very happy, and I am very happy about more tournies and players using customs now because of that. My only complaint is the continuing domination of the vanilla meta in the result lists, espescially in cases where you can bring a single extra custom for a straight upgrade, like with Sheik's gravity grenade. But that's ok! The whole point of the custom meta is that vanilla is ok.

I am still hyped, but I am a bit disappointed about the mentality against customs some people have. A lot of people are calling for them to get banned, they are stupid, jank or whatever but I just can't feel like that. I've seen all the stuff that has been discussed here, like Villager camping and dongcyclone. I've also seen strategies involving spamming these specials turn out to be completely ineffective when they go up against a competent player. Like I've seen matches where Avarage Joe could hit his up-b like 20 times in a single match and quite frankly, I would also spam it in those cases, just as I would continue punishing any for glory scrub (like myself lol).

I just feel a bit sad not more are talking about the hype that comes from customs, and I usually never hear a negative words about these chars. Like Palutena, Ike, Kirby, Ganondorf, Marth, Mii's... Heck, the whole twitch chat was going so hype over Airvault's Marth doing Sandstorm and the custom up special was such an integral part of his game and got so many kills, but I've still to hear a single bad thing about it. Even Mii Brawler's up special, that ko's ridicilously early, mostly got hype to my surprise, which makes me think people are fine with customs as long as they are "hype". However you define that. Something that isn't "cheap" or "defensive" I guess?

Personally, I hope more people start using customs in custom on tournies. Espescially if they feel it could make their character better. Because really, as an outsider, to accept the banning of some (God forbid all!) customs I will need to see solid arguments for them, and for me and a lot of other "twitch scrubs that likes to watch customs" this is using customs to win. And win. And win. Until then I always love to read discussions about customs from other perspectives, like accessability and such. But banning any individual custom just requires evidence for me.

Also, as a last note, some people are asking why we should even have customs, and as I mentioned earlier, for ME that is what Smash 4 is all about. Kind of like how Smash Balls were the big thing in Brawl but were implemented with no idea of balance or competetiveness in mind, which I am sure disappointed more people than me. You can still question how well Nintendo implemented customs; I still feel like they made it way too complicated and time/money consuming but thanks to AA and the gang we got a working structure at least (I wouldn't support customs without it). But the big thing, as AA said in an earlier post... In custom off your custom on character is banned. In custom on your custom off character isn't banned. Customs happened now, and I hope that if they ever go away, they go away for legit reasons and not because a random TO for Apex decides they will be off for 2016 without explaining why.

 

[Teshie U]

Earth beat Rains Diddy GFs game 1 with Pit, Rain won the remaining 2 matches with Sheik.

But it looks like it's still far from a demise for Diddy.

What I saw alot of this weekend was Diddy mains being defeated and/or switching off of Diddy to handle matchups.


Villager ledge stalling is objectively and logically a bad idea. It only works when people tend to lose their patience and do dumb things. Almost any character can do this. Camp poorly and just be as annoying as possible until your opponent gets mad despite having the lead.

This is the same thing Sonic or Toon Link did in brawl, just ignore the fact that they are losing and hope for the best.

 

[HeroMystic]

ADHD and Average Joe are the same guy all of a sudden?

Honestly I'd be a little insulted if I were Joe or DKWill, people who have successively reached finals with default DK, to be accused of "abusing" Kong Cyclone to achieve... exactly the same level of success?

CaptainAwesum. Not Joe or DKWill.

 

[GeneralLedge]

I have a theory that Smash, regardless of version, has become strictly a spectator sport. ie, a majority of the thick of complaints aren't coming from players, but of salty viewers angry that they lost a metaphorical bet because the dynamic of the game changed unexpectedly, aka Customs.

Theory proof: a player of any game wouldn't be defeated by a dynamic change, but would instead try to overcome it. Proof lv2: Has anyone who ever got to an ice level in, say, a Mario game given up because the slip physics are 100% impossible to get a grasp of? Or did the player adapt and overcome it?

That's what I see when I see people complaining about customs, lately. I don't see players, I see whiners who want to win based on previous understanding instead of learning new things. I think I said this on Reddit a month or two ago.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Villager is essentially the end product of what people do not want to see; a degenerative strategy that is difficult to deal with, displeasing to counter, a time waster for TO's, and not entertaining to watch. It's the elephant in the room as far as I'm concerned, hence the LGL being proposed. The reason for this is because it essentially spits in the face of what we like to see within the context of competitive Smash.

But it's not difficult to deal with. In fact, it's trivial for most of the cast. Even easier if you're running a character like Bowser Jr., Greninja, or Sonic who can just blow that **** up for free; even if you're not, though, it's pretty straightforward to beat. Not only that, but "boring to watch" does not describe the audience reactions at KTAR12 whatsoever. The counter is counterintuitive, but not difficult, to the point where it's simply a non-viable strategy. It's like being mad because a Chun-Li is spamming Lightning Legs at you - it's not just not good at a high level, it downright sucks once you learn to punish it correctly.

Is it impossible to beat? Not really, no. @Amazing Ampharos has proven otherwise. But neither is blastzone camping. If thoroughly researched, I'm quite sure tactical strategies could be developed around how to effectively deal with blast zone camping. Does this mean that players are going to want to allow permanent walk off stages that permit this type of play? Absolutely not.

But this comparison is so blatantly flawed that I don't even know where to begin. Blastzone camping works; this does not. Blastzone camping reduces the game to a tiny handful of decisions with obscene risk/reward; this does not. Blastzone camping reduces the game's depth significantly; this does not. No matter how many times I hear it, it never stops not being true. These comparisons don't work, because you're comparing something we know is broken, something we know is degenerate, something we know has significant problems... To something that isn't and doesn't.

To put it another way, using Jigglypuff to float underneath stages to time out a player would likely have me disqualified at a tournament under the stalling clause, but given the ledge mechanics and the nature of the strategy, is it any safer than stalling with custom Villager? I highly doubt so, especially without ledge invincibility. Custom Villager poses danger and risk to the approaching player at least. That does not mean that we need to have a big political debate on whether or not this should become a legal thing, and I think most would agree.

Now there's a more apt comparison - Jiggs running away under the stage. You know what makes it so apt? It's easy as all hell to counter, and if you can't deal with it, you're bad at the game. The only rational response to "that should be banned" is "learn to play, noob".

The concern people need to realize is not that these strategies are unbeatable, but that they very displeasing to everyone who has to deal with them, competitively or otherwise.

And once people realize that it loses to dsmash, we'll stop seeing it. Seriously, this is like ******** about a sonic stalling under the stage with homing attack in Brawl. The moment we start countering it, it stops working and we'll stop seeing it.

 

[Antonykun]

First of all: Hi guys welcome to the Competitive Customs Discussion Thread a subset of Smash Politics

Second of all let me tell you a few things about Villager,

Villager is a character with very limited ways of dealing with many opponents approach. Ideally Villager wants to Slingshot before the opponent attacks but this is impossible to do 100% of the time so the opponent gets in and or snuffs the slingshot. As such Villager is often forced to move backwards eventually Villager is at the corner and given that Villager has a fast reliable recovery it makes sense why Villager would try to ledge camp until she sees an opportunity to come back to the stage.

On the LGL no way in hell am I going to be counting 25 ledge grabs so I better pray my opponent doesn't time me out if I accidentally reach over 25 ledge grabs (I doubt i will reach that much but w/e)

Also did you know Pushy Lloyd beats both of MM's pellets and Metal Blade? it really makes the MU more bearable

 

[Shaya]

Well great, then let's hear your answer to Ampharos's challenge:

I don't make any claims for broken. The only argument I would make is strategically or mechanically different to the rest of the game. How one perceives that would be up to the beholder. Anyone with wit can word a conundrum that cannot be beaten when you hold all the cards on subjective terming. This is coming from the guy who honestly uses the word objectively just to spite me I'm pretty sure, he knows what he's doing.

You keep coming to this King Dedede analogy... But in that case, we could look at the matchups and say, "See, here Dedede completely invalidates DK. Here Dedede makes life impossible for Bowser. Here Dedede ruins Luigi's chances. Here Dedede makes Charizard invalid." (Oh, and by the way, which characters did Dedede counter harder than Metaknight? Anyone other than five that got infinited?) What customs are doing that in what matchups? I'm really getting frustrated here. Is it your point that people see it like that? Well great, tell them to put up or shut up! Do you see it like that? Put up or shut up. Because, and this is the important part, those people have no clue what the hell they're on about.

No I make the comparison on why people would choose a game which doesn't produce those issues in their mind. Your stance is old and one I mimicked over 4 years ago but is insidious in my mind and I'm at least glad my mentor or others I respect aren't like this. "oh by the which characters did dedede counter harder than meta knight" shows me how far away you lack understanding of what I'm saying (and why I'm glad the opportunity came up for you to actually justify why you thought it was an unfair analogy to make). You can continue to play smash bros in a way you perceive as "the largest list of things which are competitive" while the majority of places won't agree. Now on the point of looking at things in a vacuum (the reason why AA's conundrum is lacking) is it all relates to the entirety of the character; Diddy's down throw and what came out of it was nothing better than Luigi's, yet who was the one we all wanted nerfed and "felt" was broken? Luigi hasn't been touched, are we crying and praying for Luigi nerfs and seeing many showing disdain for the game because of it? (It's Fox's Jab and Falcon entirely, Sakurai please)

We'll start advocating banning them as soon as we see any that are actually a problem. But what do we get?

Kong Cyclone is broken? No, it isn't. Every single high tier, most mid tiers, and quite a substantial number of low tiers beat that ****, and if you look at who's doing well with it, it's dedicated DK mains who happen to be really good - people like DKWill and Average Joe. Oh, and they're not winning, but I guess that doesn't matter, because Kong Cyclone shuts down... Uh... Who does it counter again? How does the DDD analogy work here, exactly? I have no idea.
Villager Ledge Stalling is broken? No, it isn't. Anyone doing that at this point in the game is a bad player who will lose the moment they find someone who knows the (trivially easy) counterplay.
MLG Ball? Lost to default Vanish+Bucket. Yeah, it's broken, but not as broken as default Shiek+G&W - ban that, then we'll start talking about getting rid of that aura sphere custom.
Jumbo Hoops? Really?

For what it's worth I totally invented default Sheik+G&W in the land of the Fire Nation; Houston, Texas, February 3rd, 2015.
Nothing is broken because it's within the confines of a tangible engine and can be beaten because every attribute has a direct weakness explicitly (thank god for no intangible multi directional moving auto cancelling command grabs). There may be nothing as broken as Dedede down throw in this game, but I wouldn't call it broken in Brawl either. Just something that people have a good enough justification to have distaste for. People with distaste of these things, if they persist as problems (P.S. this is an ongoing implication of all of my arguments) will result in a similar situation to what I don't want to see again, and people have pretty good reason to fear it. I wouldn't be branding that "fear" if it wasn't felt, I wouldn't need to if I didn't find the only perspective you see posted here is one only a minority of the main competitive scene adheres to without any reflection whatsoever on why that is the case (beyond "they're scrubs" and ADAPT).

Because they're scrubs. Straight-up, Sirlin-definition scrubs. That we are somehow expected to cater to. Why.
Well, what else is there? To quote myself:
I'm just kinda lost here, I guess.

Sirlin has updated his position over the years. Maybe you should catch up too. "Playing to win" isn't the basis of all encompassing logic in competitive games, his definition of scrub is a result of that; all other factors you seem to refuse to even acknowledge. But who are you actually catering to? Furthermore what gives you (or your positions) the right to decide what's the default game to actually attain the mantle of us "catering to scrubs" by either banning customs or choosing to not have customs legal? You nor anyone has any way to actually justify the reason we use customs at all objectively, so everything from there is a human perception argument in which you don't have anything solid enough to claim righteousness. If you look at vanilla/customs on equal footing and as two separate functional "games", you may actually get somewhere with arguing pro-customs to people who are undecided or anti-customs, and I probably would be doing just that were it not for perceptions like yours

 

[meleebrawler]

Is Morri-Dooming banned in UMVC3?

 

[DunnoBro]

Are mii brawlers aerials capable of killing? Outside of piston punch/hurricane kick, his killing ability seems really atrocious.

On the LGL no way in hell am I going to be counting 25 ledge grabs so I better pray my opponent doesn't time me out if I accidentally reach over 25 ledge grabs (I doubt i will reach that much but w/e)

The game counts for you. You can check after the match.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Is Morri-Dooming banned in UMVC3?

No, but a time-out in UMvC3 lasts roughly three minutes, iirc, and it rarely comes to that, since MorriDoom does loads of chip damage. Smash takes forever in comparison.

Not saying it would be banned in UMvC3 if it constantly made the game go to time, but it's a point to consider.

 

[meleebrawler]

Are mii brawlers aerials capable of killing? Outside of piston punch/hurricane kick, his killing ability seems really atrocious.



The game counts for you. You can check after the match.

But the player still has to count themselves if they don't wanna lose.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

But the player still has to count themselves if they don't wanna lose.

Or they could just fight.

 

[Antonykun]

Are mii brawlers aerials capable of killing? Outside of piston punch/hurricane kick, his killing ability seems really atrocious.



The game counts for you. You can check after the match.

My issue is in battle. Again I doubt I'll reach AND time out/get timed out but I'm worried that It might happen and I didn't notice because I had no way of counting at the time

Or they could just fight.

That is Villager would like to do but this is a character that is easily forced offstage by most if not all top tiers

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I don't make any claims for broken. The only argument I would make is strategically or mechanically different to the rest of the game. How one perceives that would be up to the beholder. Anyone with wit can word a conundrum that cannot be beaten when you hold all the cards on subjective terming. This is coming from the guy who honestly uses the word objectively just to spite me I'm pretty sure, he knows what he's doing

And yet oddly enough, comparing the two of you, you're the one engaged in sophistry here. Objective or not, you're the one who keeps making these asinine comparisons, so what are you talking about.

No I make the comparison on why people would choose a game which doesn't produce those issues in their mind. Your stance is old and one I mimicked over 4 years ago but is insidious in my mind and I'm at least glad my mentor or others I respect aren't like this. "oh by the which characters did dedede counter harder than meta knight" shows me how far away you lack understanding of what I'm saying (and why I'm glad the opportunity came up for you to actually justify why you thought it was an unfair analogy to make). You can continue to play smash bros in a way you perceive as "the largest list of things which are competitive" while the majority of places won't agree. Now on the point of looking at things in a vacuum (the reason why AA's conundrum is lacking) is it all relates to the entirety of the character; Diddy's down throw and what came out of it was nothing better than Luigi's, yet who was the one we all wanted nerfed and "felt" was broken? Luigi hasn't been touched, are we crying and praying for Luigi nerfs and seeing many showing disdain for the game because of it? (It's Fox's Jab and Falcon entirely, Sakurai please)

Well great, then the solution is really really "tell them they're scrubs and ignore them". Because they are. Because, newsflash, anyone who thinks like that is a ****ty scrub who has no business having any input whatsoever on what the ruleset should be.

Nothing is broken because it's within the confines of a tangible engine and can be beaten because every attribute has a direct weakness explicitly (thank god for no intangible multi directional moving auto cancelling command grabs).

...C'mon, man. You know exactly what we're talking about when we say "broken".

There may be nothing as broken as Dedede down throw in this game, but I wouldn't call it broken in Brawl either. Just something that people have a good enough justification to have distaste for. People with distaste of these things, if they persist as problems (P.S. this is an ongoing implication of all of my arguments) will result in a similar situation to what I don't want to see again, and people have pretty good reason to fear it.

And the correct solution to this is to give in, say, "Yeah, you don't have to deal with that, it's okay, you're fine not learning how to play the game, oh, do you want a binkie for your grand finals set?"

What shocks me is that you're going along with it. Oh, the game might die? Sure. If it does, then the playerbase killed it by being massive scrubs. What happens when the **** hits the fan about Shiek? Ban her too? ZSS? Ban! Hell, we had enough people clamoring for a Diddy ban pre-nerf... How 'bout Pikachu, who apparently has no bad matchups anymore? Or Rosalina, who also apparently has no bad matchups depending on who you ask? Let's just ban ****ing everything because scrubs ***** about it!

Sirlin has updated his position over the years. Maybe you should catch up too. It's still really great stuff, there are just more factors to consider these days, "playing to win" isn't the basis of all encompassing logic in competitive games, his definition of scrub is a result of that; the stuff you and others like you refuse to even acknowledge. But who are you actually catering to?

The people who want to play the damn game. I don't give a rats ass about people who just prefer customs be not on. I disagree, but you know what? That's fine. That's their right, and it really is sort of like having items on vs. items off - one is probably the better meta, but we still have to choose one way or another. What bugs me is this ****ty attitude that so many people have. As I keep saying, "X is broken" "here's how you beat X" "X is broken" "yeah you're right let's ban X" is not a conversation we should ever be having in a competitive scene. Ever. If Sirlin updated his position, I'm not sure why; I don't think he's right if he thinks that banning things that are not broken (and indeed, are barely even competitive) based on the perception of a handful of people who are objectively bad at the game is a good idea. Morridoom is infinitely more bull**** than anything this game has produced. Zero May Cry is infinitely more bull**** than anything this game has produced. And yet, somehow, Marvel is still kicking with no bans whatsoever. Go figure.

 

[Cassio]

Yeah nothing can be completely determined until the next patch, but regardless we're all gonna want to talk about potential scenarios, lol.

But it's not even about balance at the top. It's at balance above the ground floor. Beating a ledgecamping villager is trivial.

Its obviously a decent strategy outside bottom level in the current meta or it wouldnt exist beyond that.

Tangential, but Denti cites the issue with customs from a player perspective with this comment

The key part being this I believe:

"Basically competitive smash vs custom Villager is a 6 min one or two games Rock Paper Scissors which not only gives inaccurate loses and wins on both ends but is also toxic for competitive play because it ends in time out."

Im not anti-customs but if this is how the strategy plays out the logic is sound and semi-damning.

 

[Ulevo]

Yeah nothing can be completely determined until the next patch, but regardless we're all gonna want to talk about potential scenarios, lol.

Its obviously a decent strategy outside bottom level or it wouldnt exist beyond that.

Tangential, but Denti cites the issue with customs from a player perspective with this comment

The key part being this I believe:

Im not anti-customs but if this is how the strategy plays out the logic is sound and semi-damning.

Like I said, it's not about whether or not the strategy is overpowered or unbeatable. I hate aligning myself with Smogon politics, but abilities like Moody were banned for the very reason Denti outlines here. Toxic, inconsistent gameplay requiring minimal skill and a linear strategy. I would argue custom Villarger is less likely to produce inconsistent results, but the issue still exists.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that things do not always have to be broken in order for them to require a policy, it's just a good idea to usually lean in that direction of policy making because otherwise it creates a precedent where banning for trivial things becomes okay when it really should not be.

And @ Budget Player Cadet_ , blast zone camping doesn't work. Not consistently. While there will be characters better or worse at it, it is a very high risk, very high reward strategy that puts the user and approacher at risk. A character could dominate the blast zone for an entire stock only to be randomly forward thrown twice by their opponent and lose the match which would inherently cause tournament upsets in the bracket.

Edit: Actually, my roommate employs this strategy on me frequently. After our 1st game, he will often counterpick me to Castle Siege as Captain Falcon. Not because it is necessarily good for him or bad for me, but because he knows that if can manage a dash grab forward throw in to the blast zone on the 2nd transformation he can upset me and take me to a game three. This strategy does not work consistently for him because I'm overall better, but it has worked and that's why he continues to attempt it.