Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[superjm]

If Onin wins the tournament from Losers against THIS bracket then I don’t know how anyone can claim that it’s just the character carrying him.

 

[NairWizard]

Oh, the best NA Steve lost to two other characters who also barely have to prepare for specific matchups? It's almost like the whole Steve "problem" is just matchup knowledge and preparation instead of Steve being the best character.

 

[superjm]

Besides that scare against Peanut Leo has kind of been buzzsawing through bracket with his Aegis, making them look just as broken as we thought they were.

 

[NairWizard]

Besides that scare against Peanut Leo has kind of been buzzsawing through bracket with his Aegis, making them look just as broken as we thought they were.

Really? I'm getting the opposite impression. His Aegis is looking really weak at times compared to how we'd expect the Joker or Byleth to do in similar matchups.

The scores are 3-0 and 3-1 but the games look so... not dominant. Even ledgetrapping, where Leo excels, is just Pyra repeatedly reading rolls and getting grabs, which isn't nearly as impressive as the Byleth slingshot b-airs or up-b setups and the Joker gunplay, or even Sparg0's d-air/up-tilt reads on the same character.

I like watching Leo because there is a certain luster to his gameplay that just mesmerizes you when you watch. You keep thinking, "Is that really possible to do so consistently?" He stretches the limits of Ultimate again and again.

But his Aegis only seems to have this every other set, or even every other tournament.

 

[superjm]

Really? I'm getting the opposite impression. His Aegis is looking really weak at times compared to how we'd expect the Joker or Byleth to do in similar matchups.

The scores are 3-0 and 3-1 but the games look so... not dominant. Even ledgetrapping, where Leo excels, is just Pyra repeatedly reading rolls and getting grabs, which isn't nearly as impressive as the Byleth slingshot b-airs or up-b setups and the Joker gunplay, or even Sparg0's d-air/up-tilt reads on the same character.

I like watching Leo because there is a certain luster to his gameplay that just mesmerizes you when you watch. You keep thinking, "Is that really possible to do so consistently?" He stretches the limits of Ultimate again and again.

But his Aegis only seems to have this every other set, or even every other tournament.

My point is that even with a clearly sub-optimal Aegis and without true mastery of the character he's still more or less cleaving through the bracket because the characters are just that good.

EDIT - Case in point, that first game against Zomba.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Leo just kind of does Leo things sometimes. There is a reason why he is known for the clutch factor.

He is definitely more of a Pyra than a Mythra, preferring the larger, more powerful reach once in advantage and neutral. The way he commands such a slow character like Pyra and make her look faster than she is, is very reminiscent of his Byleth.

I do find it hilarious that after this entire thread and Smash community fear mongered the entire week, we get a major event with two in top 3 and with only one of the three top USA Steves got into top 24.


Edit:
Anathema lost to Brr in pools, and has since then went on the loser's bracket run of the ages. He beat 10 players in a row, players that consist of Dark Wizzy, KirbyKid, Epic_Gabriel, ApolloKage, ATATA, Onin, and Sisqui.

Winner of this upcoming ROB mirror gets a Summit spot. This will be a spicy loser's finals despite it being a... well, ROB mirror.


Edit 2:
Nvm, this ROB mirror is way more interesting than I thought.


Edit 3:
Anathema's god run paided off. The madman won 11 matches to obtain the Summit spot.
At this point, grands doesn't really matter. The loser's finals match is what is really important.

 

[superjm]

I don't wanna see anyone try and tell me Aegis is overrated.

 

[Idon]

Yeah no, Leo is amazing.

But Aegis is also definitely more privileged than a 1%er lol.

 

[Cheryl~]

Leo's Aegis is definitely not as flashy as his Byleth or Joker, but he is still probably the best with that character (woopty-doo) even if many of the games he wins are off of Leo comebacks or just being very close in general. He makes Pyra Down Tilt look incredibly busted, lol. Also glad to see Anathema make a huge run, he's one of the few ROB players that actually super-optimizes their combos and it showed today.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

This might be a hot take but I feel like Sparg0's Aegis is overall still better then Leo's. Sparg0 has beaten players that Leo has beaten much harder such as Zomba, Kola and Zackray and his consistency was amazing with them. He also had overall slightly better recovery mixups and used moves like Pyra's up-tilt much more often to get kills where as Leo mostly prefers to use aerials and down tilt confirms.

I think they're the easy top 2 Aegis players though, for obvious reasons. Also two ROB's and one Aegis in top 3, seems like mostly standard Ultimate for the past year rn.

 

[NairWizard]

I've been posting a lot (more frequently than ever before for sure) in this thread the last week or so because of Steve but before I disappear for another few months or something I'll just claim my "I was here" ticket for the time that the hypest set in an entire top 64 was a Rob ditto.

 

[superjm]

I've been posting a lot (more frequently than ever before for sure) in this thread the last week or so because of Steve but before I disappear for another few months or something I'll just claim my "I was here" ticket for the time that the hypest set in an entire top 64 was a Rob ditto.

I dunno sisqui vs Jared is up there just for how purely chaotic it was.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I'm starting to think is a lot like and the true #1 is still .

 

[blackghost]

I'm starting to think is a lot like and the true #1 is still .

The mu in general gets a lot better when people stop getting hit by random dairs. Just removing that part of his kit with knowledge and positioning renders a lot of his threat moot. Traditionally being under a character in smash has been a good thing but Steve and smash 4 bayo turned that on its head making and exposing people for being on autopilot becuase they went for what works in the other 90 percent of the cast.

It's similar to the edge gaurding byleth problem we've seen in the past.

 

[superjm]

The mu in general gets a lot better when people stop getting hit by random dairs. Just removing that part of his kit with knowledge and positioning renders a lot of his threat moot. Traditionally being under a character in smash has been a good thing but Steve and smash 4 bayo turned that on its head making and exposing people for being on autopilot becuase they went for what works in the other 90 percent of the cast.

It's similar to the edge gaurding byleth problem we've seen in the past.

I think the lesson of "just let the busted top tier do their zero-risk option and get out of the way" is one that has a hard time sticking to some folk. Yeah, it sucks and feels bad when characters can just do their thing without reasonably being challenged for it (and if you CAN challenge it, congratulations, you have the seeds of a counterpick!) but being obstinate and trying to challenge it anyway is many times worse than simply eating the pressure, biding your time and waiting for an opening that you can exploit. Like, a Palu will get her nairplanes, Pyra will get her dairs in neutral, Mythra will get her dash attacks and spaced nairs, Steve will get his iron and his anvils in disadvantage, Roy will jab and down tilt whenever they want, ROB will put gyro in the most annoying spots and get away with pressuring your shield with constant nairs, and Byleth will recover from anywhere and punish you for trying to stop it.

Yeah this is reductive to an extent but I think the general idea is sound. Sometimes the winning move (or at least the "don't get bodied into oblivion" move) is not to play.

 

[Phosphophyllite]

It's a big part why the hatred for characters like runs so deep, they play entirely different games from the rest of the cast and whether you like it or not, you can't brute force your way through their game plans and you simply have to respect what they can do. If anything it's probably a big part of why people think beat , it's not as easy to mess with players who are already accustomed to playing Smash in an unorthadox way.

 

[Rizen]

What was this latest tournament called?

 

[B_Burg]

Since its come up now, I wanna take another moment to express my appreciation to the dev team for the work they did on .

To me, feels like a unique character who plays his own game but is well balanced and fits in well with the cast. Great job all around.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

What was this latest tournament called?

Rise 'N Grind

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

New OrionStats update

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[toonito]

i dont get why kazuya is still being lumped in with actual solo meta threats like steve and aegis

his biggest claim to fame is as a counterpick he has little success as a solo main

stop crying about kazuya smh

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

i dont get why kazuya is still being lumped in with actual solo meta threats like steve and aegis

his biggest claim to fame is as a counterpick he has little success as a solo main

stop crying about kazuya smh

I don't think Kazuya is a great character, probably just a lower high tier. But I do think he's not exactly designed well. I just don't think 0-to-death characters like Kazuya are all that healthy at all. Just gives me Wobbling vibes where even if the character isn't good, the fact that you can just randomly die if you make one mistake makes it very unfun and stressful to play against.

 

[blackghost]

I don't think Kazuya is a great character, probably just a lower high tier. But I do think he's not exactly designed well. I just don't think 0-to-death characters like Kazuya are all that healthy at all. Just gives me Wobbling vibes where even if the character isn't good, the fact that you can just randomly die if you make one mistake makes it very unfun and stressful to play against.

why are we acting like kazuya is the only character that does that? roy, setve, ryu, bayo, luigi, and even ROB can all instantly delete a stock for you messing up. we just call them good characters.
spot dodging EWGF is a huge step in handling Kazuya. theres less than 4 total kayzuya players capable of 0 to deathing people consistently. theres way more of other characters.
and i dont know where this idea of one mistake leading to death comes from. getting hit in smash is not the end you still have di mixups and vs kazuya in gneral chances to roll to safety. disadvantage play and di and sdi remain incredibly under developed. when i see poeple get hit with kazuya combos very few are even making the kazuya work to complete the combo you can see them in the player cam just give up. kazyua isnt seeing solo sucess at high level. ferps and one other remian his only main players. the title of best kazuya isnt really on anyones head at this point riddles loses faith in the character weekly.

 

[Phosphophyllite]

I do feel for players, learning to play the character with arguably the highest skill floor and still losing even when you're playing out of your mind, I can't even begin to use them lmao. Pour one out for the super heavies.

 

[Kokiden]

Realistically, Kazuya was unlikely to ever really kill the game. We don't have much reason to believe he's a top 5 character, after all. The signs aren't there in the same way they are for Steve.

With that being said, there's not enough evidence to warrant a global Steve ban right now. The signs are there, and there's reason for concern, but I don't believe the game will die if we wait another six months or so before we consider a ban. Things need to get worse before a ban would be realistic.

I do hope the Smash leadership has the courage to do what is right when the time comes, regardless of what it is (ban vs no ban). Some people will be anti-ban regardless of results. Some people will be pro-ban even if things don't get worse. We've seen two Smash games struggle because the community wasn't willing to implement a ban when it was necessary (they say hindsight is 20-20 though). I ended up taking a fairly neutral position in Smash 4, essentially boiling down to "we need more data to ban Bayonetta". In retrospect I think that Bayonetta should've been banned in Smash 4, but since Ultimate was on the horizon people opted to just wait for Ultimate and abandon Smash 4.

So we have two games where characters should have been banned, but weren't. It's tempting to say "Let's not risk it, let's nip this one in the bud and ban Steve". However, I think it is better to wait for a bit to make sure a ban would be justified and have decent community support. This is why I think we should wait until 2023 to decide, and if the Steve situation gets worse we could reconsider the decision at a later date. Melee's wobbling ban is proof that you can ban something that has been around for years, and it may suck for Ice Climber players but the Melee community decided that a wobbling ban was a good idea (though a wobbling ban is not the same thing as a character ban).

One argument I don't want to see is that it's unfair to Steve players spending spending time on the character. I also don't want to see people argue that there are too many Steve players to ban the character. People knew the risk when they picked up Steve, at least if they did it in recent times. If Steve needs to be banned, then that's unfortunate for Steve players, but at least they knew the risk. Perhaps the case could be made that we should just ban Steve now in order to prevent more people learning Steve in vain, but I think it's better if we wait for a bit in order to get more data. Perhaps a Steve ban won't be needed after all? Still, if it turns out that we should ban Steve, then it's unfortunate for Steve players but it should still be done.

I think the absolute best case scenario is a special patch just to nerf Steve. We got one in Smash 4 for Bayonetta even when it seemed like we wouldn't get more patches. This seems somewhat unlikely, though. The second best case scenario is that counter-play develops and that Steve won't be the next Smash 4 Bayonetta, though given Steve's flexibility and strength I worry that he's only going to get stronger and that counter-play won't be enough to keep him reasonably contained. The third best scenario is that the community manages to ban him without too much controversy... Forth best is probably a messy ban? And the worst case scenario is that he's not banned and he more or less ruins this game. Such a shame too, since it seemed like this Smash game would be the first Smash game in recent years without a clear #1 broken character.

In summary: Too early for a ban, but if it turns out that he is the new Smash 4 Bayonetta he should be banned in 2023. I hope it won't come to that though.

Really solid post.

Articulated things much better than I did. but yeah, something along these lines is what I agree with.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

I personally do not think Steve is an issue, but rather than jumping the gun and banning him outright, I think taking a hard look at the stage striking process or our stage list might be a better middle ground than dealing with people welching over Steve being too good.

For example, Dream Land over Battlefield would provide a great counterpick to Steve. The stage is functionally identical in pretty much every way to Battlefield, the only notable difference is that Steve would be getting dirt and wood much more often. Maybe taking a look at our stage list and testing some stages like Pictochat 2 or Dream Land would be a reasonable way to stop people from automatically making a knee jerk reaction instead of learning the matchup.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think having a good stage list is important but I don't think swapping Battlefield (which rarely pineapples) for Dream Land (which often pineapples) is worth it. You mine faster on dirt anyways so I don't know if it would be a big nerf?

I've seen some people argue for Custom Balance but that would open a can of worms, and it would also be impossible to practice online without Yuzu, and many (most?) players do most of their non-training mode practice online. Custom Balance is most likely not a viable option.

Something I've considered is the following: What if we ban Steve from crafting Diamond? He could still mine Diamond, but if he crafts it he'll either forfeit the game or a stock (forfeiting the game is cleaner but more harsh for the Steve). This removes Diamond from Steve, significantly nerfing him. It also gives Steve more incentive to mine less, and Steve mains would have more incentive to repair tools so they don't break. Steve mains can choose between mining more and getting Diamond and more iron and other resources at the cost of not being able to craft anymore, or they could stop mining before they get Diamond and thus being able to craft on the next stock. Steve can also opt to, say, mine on an anvil since it will have a different mining cycle. It would also give him less iron in general so he'd have to be more careful with Minecart and down-air.

This would nerf Steve, add more depth to the character, create more counter-play, and make him less campy. It would be a bit messy at times though, if a Steve player accidentally mines diamond they won't be able to craft anymore.

It's an interesting option, in my opinion. One that we could keep in mine if Steve turns out to be strong enough to warrant a ban. I'm not convinced it would be better than simply banning Steve but it would let people still play Steve, albeit a significantly nerfed Steve. Who knows, maybe he'd still be #1 even with the Diamond nerf?

I still believe that it's too early to do anything about Steve (aside from learning counter-play). It's not entirely clear that he's the #1 character (although I believe that he is), and more importantly, it's not clear that he's strong enough to warrant a ban or a community enforced nerf. I believe we should wait for more data before we decide, but a "Diamond ban" could be a better option than a Steve ban, assuming the data shows that we should do something about Steve.

 

[Arthur97]

That seems...unlikely to happen. Plus, it may be a bit much of a nerf. What happens if a tool breaks and they have a diamond? You just lose? It'd be like if you ran out of MP or a tome and you just lose the match.

 

[Frihetsanka]

That seems...unlikely to happen. Plus, it may be a bit much of a nerf. What happens if a tool breaks and they have a diamond? You just lose? It'd be like if you ran out of MP or a tome and you just lose the match.

Steve players can opt to not mine for diamond, that way they still get to craft after they die. And even if a tool is broken they can still play, worst case you'll have to fish for a side-B/down-air/up-smash/down-smash kill or something if all your tools are broken, hah.

It's a big nerf but at least he'd still be playable. I think Steve would likely still be at least high tier, maybe still top tier, even with this nerf. Hard to say for sure though, maybe he'd be a niche mid tier or low tier without diamond? Probably not though. But yeah, this would be an alternative to a straight up ban. Probably less of a nerf than custom balancing anyways.

It's a more complex ban than just banning Steve but it would keep Steve as a legal character and might be preferable to a full ban, if we ever come to a situation where a full ban is seriously considered. I'm putting it out there now but it's not something we'll have to discuss until we're closer to a Steve ban, assuming it'll come to that. More realistic than custom balancing and probably less of a nerf for Steve, anyways.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

That seems...unlikely to happen. Plus, it may be a bit much of a nerf. What happens if a tool breaks and they have a diamond? You just lose? It'd be like if you ran out of MP or a tome and you just lose the match.

Gotta agree, taking away such an important part of him is like banning Arsen or Command buffs, which are both much more impactful and more easily accessible. If diamond goes, then other much more powerful things must go as well.


Also, Steve without tools is a incomplete character. Banning him from crafting with diamond could legitimately make him a bottom 10 without tools imo

 

[The_Bookworm]

Steve players can opt to not mine for diamond, that way they still get to craft after they die. And even if a tool is broken they can still play, worst case you'll have to fish for a side-B/down-air/up-smash/down-smash kill or something if all your tools are broken, hah.

Except you can't really "opt to not mine for diamond". Diamond shows up at a set time while naturally mining.

If you "opt to not mine for diamond", that you be hard cap on how long you can mine for the entire game, heavily limiting the character far beyond simply not having diamond. Once you die, the diamond that is in your inventory will still remain, effectively walling Steve the ability to craft new tools for the entire game, since the game automatically picks the highest rank material available. Steve without tools means that you are essentially playing with only half of your moves and a crippled combo ability.

Having no tools also means that Steve players will be even less willing to interact with the opponent, as they are working with attacks that are Little Mac aerial tier weak, promoting the main issue with the character that sits poorly with audiences.

 

[Sucumbio]

I seem to recall a similar "nerf" being suggested for Hero when he won a major with an rng ohko or something. I've never been convinced that limiting a character by banning a specific move would even work. Unlike banning chain grabbing in Brawl, this is singling out one character's part of their kit it just doesn't make sense. Just don't get hit by diamond.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Gotta agree, taking away such an important part of him is like banning Arsen or Command buffs, which are both much more impactful and more easily accessible. If diamond goes, then other much more powerful things must go as well.


Also, Steve without tools is a incomplete character. Banning him from crafting with diamond could legitimately make him a bottom 10 without tools imo

Steve players would have the option to stop mining before they ever get Diamond, thus still having tools (Wood/Stone/Iron/Gold). It would be a less significant nerf than the 30% nerf some people suggest with Custom Balance. I imagine the play would be to craft lower tier weapons more often, repair them more often, and only mine until you get Gold. Steve players would likely have to be more careful with Iron. Even with these nerfs I don't think Steve would be low tier.

It's too early to implement a diamond ban anyways but I do think it would be preferable to Custom Balance and might be preferable to banning Steve (though just banning Steve would be simpler, but then Steve mains won't be able to play him at all, with this Steve mains would be able to play a weaker version of Steve).

If you "opt to not mine for diamond", that you be hard cap on how long you can mine for the entire game[...]

The cycle resets once you die, so what I imagine Steve mains would do is mine until they almost get diamond on the first stock, and then stop mining. Once they die they craft gold stock 2 (assuming they didn't use it for stock 1) and mine until they almost get diamond, and then they stop. It's a cap on mining but if they manage it well they can still craft and still mine for a while. They can also opt to mine past diamond but then they won't be able to craft anymore.

It's a nerf for sure but probably less significant than Custom Balance and definitely less significant than a ban. Also, he could mine on Anvil to get iron without really risking getting a diamond since it's a separate cycle.

I seem to recall a similar "nerf" being suggested for Hero when he won a major with an rng ohko or something. I've never been convinced that limiting a character by banning a specific move would even work. Unlike banning chain grabbing in Brawl, this is singling out one character's part of their kit it just doesn't make sense. Just don't get hit by diamond.

It has been done before, with the Wobbling ban in Melee, and Infinite Dimensional Cape in Brawl with Meta Knight. Anyways, this is an alternative to a full Steve ban. If the community deems a Steve ban necessary, then perhaps removing diamond from the equation would be enough to keep Steve tournament legal?

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Just don't get hit by diamond

Tbh the goal is to prevent him from ever getting diamond, which is possible if you keep Steve oppressed enough. Which is also a reason why banning diamond isn’t fair; it can be prevented

 

[Cutie Gwen]

It has been done before, with the Wobbling ban in Melee, and Infinite Dimensional Cape in Brawl with Meta Knight. Anyways, this is an alternative to a full Steve ban. If the community deems a Steve ban necessary, then perhaps removing diamond from the equation would be enough to keep Steve tournament legal?

Wobbling. An unintended technique that theoretically can cost you the entire game if you get hit by it once

Infinite Cape. An unintended technique that makes you unable to be hit, meaning you can get hit once at the beginning of a match and be forced to wait until the timer ends after the MK Capes out for the entire game.


Diamond. Not a glitch that can instantly cost the game.



How the hell are these even comparable lmao. Gonna copy paste this that I found

Worth noting that the rate at which you find gold and diamond also differs depending on which tool is being used to mine with as such:

• A pickaxe takes 14 mines to get gold and 22 to get diamond.
• A shovel takes 20 mines to get gold and 33 to get diamond.
• An axe takes 18 mines to get gold and 28 to get diamond.

Also for whatever reason, FD uses a shovel whereas BF uses a pickaxe.


This means Steve on Battlefield will likely never be able to win and not being allowed to craft anything. This is also significantly harder to keep track of than simply not activiting a glitch. It's so crippling you might as well say top tiers should only be able to use like 20 aerials for an entire game

 

[Slime Master]

It has been done before, with the Wobbling ban in Melee, and Infinite Dimensional Cape in Brawl with Meta Knight.

Most of what you've said is outside my lane, but I do want to address this point specifically. Those are both very different from what you're proposing for 2 big reasons IMO:
1. They're both obviously unintentional glitches, where diamonds are an obviously intentional mechanic.
2. They're both problems in-and-of-themselves. Sure, MK was also a problem, but IDC probably would've been banned even if he weren't. With Steve, it's generally argued that the problem is Steve, not diamonds.

Like what Linkmain said, banning diamonds introduces a new precedent, one that covers areas wobbling and infinite cape don't. For example, if I were to say we should ban EWGF right now, you would justifiably call me crazy. But if I did it in a post-diamond ban world? Well now there's another built in move that's banned. Sure, you would know that the problem was actually Steve and Kazuya doesn't seem to be a real problem, but if I was new to the scene and didn't experience the Steve debates? It'd be easy for me to see diamonds were banned and therefore diamonds were problematic. At this point the debate becomes if EWGF is as bad as diamonds, and if not, what makes a tool ban-worthy?

Kinda ninja'd on this but I think it's worth going over the precedence angle in detail so sorry if this seems dogpile-y.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Some showmatches happened at Ultimate Wanted 4 today (EU supermajor with top Japanese, Mexican and American talent) against 4 players. Thought they would be interesting and could give us an idea of how the tourney will go.
Takera 3-2 Nitox
Zackray 5-2 Glutonny
Skyjay 2-1 Nasinko
Sirove 3-2 Skyjay
I believe this is first time Zackray and Glutonny have fought post quarantine, and it was with their secondaries.
BTW here's the seeding.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Frihetsanka]

Kinda ninja'd on this but I think it's worth going over the precedence angle in detail so sorry if this seems dogpile-y.

From my perspective, I thought it would probably be better to ban a single move (well, diamond crafting) rather than the whole character. People in this thread and in Discord seem very reluctant to ban diamonds though. Seems to be a hard sell. I suppose we're back to "either we'll ban Steve or we'll keep him as he is". For now I don't think he should be banned, we'll see what happens next year.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

Speaking of indirect ways of nerfing Steve, it occurred to me that switching over to 2-stock games instead of 3-stock games might do the trick. The idea was that by making games shorter, Steve would be spending less time with diamond tools, and so would be on average a worse character. I'm not trying to argue that the change should be made, but I thought it was an interesting theory and decided to see if there was any merit to it.

After reviewing 15 of Onin's sets from GOML, SSC, and RnG, and acola's 7 Gimvitational sets, I found that the Onin won 41 of the 61 games played in those sets, but he was the first to take 2 stocks in only 39 of them. Acola won 21 out of 28 sets, but was first to take 2 stocks in only 20. If we were to judge them as 2-stock games, that means Onin's winrate goes down from 67.2% to 63.9%, acola's goes down from 75% to 71.4%, and their combined winrate goes down from 69.6% to 66.2%.

Now, I won't argue that this is conclusive. The sample size is small enough that the discrepancy might be within the margin of error; there were also games in which the steve was the first to take two stocks but ended up losing; the tendency to perform better in the latter half of a game might originate from the players and not the character they're using. More data points would be necessary to confirm the theory, but on first glance it does seem to hold merit.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Speaking of indirect ways of nerfing Steve, it occurred to me that switching over to 2-stock games instead of 3-stock games might do the trick. The idea was that by making games shorter, Steve would be spending less time with diamond tools, and so would be on average a worse character.

I was actually considering 1 stock games, but I think at that point we're better off just banning Steve instead of messing with all the games Steve is not in. I don't think people want to go back to 2 stock games just to slightly nerf Steve. I doubt it would even nerf him all that much.