The one saving grace is that the ban would be predominantly caused by what amounts to an unintended interaction. If they do any more maitenence on the game, there is a non zero chance they just patch it. It would not really be direct character balance, more so a bug fix. If we get a patch for say, Sora Amiibo compatibility, they could patch it then.
At the rate things are going, a Steve ban at least in NA seems extremely likely. Tristate is a notably conservative region and they have banned steve. California and Texas also are taking steps towards a steve ban. If things continue at the rate they are going, I think a Steve ban will probably be widespread across NA by July. Should Steve be banned? I think it is hard to say. Before this tech, I would have adamantly said no to any action. Right now though, this tech is going to let a top 5 character at worst warp the meta even more. Banning the tech is not enforceable, since it is way too subtle compared to say, IDC or the Freeze glitch. Is the tech enough to push Steve over the edge? Maybe? Invalidating a lot of multi hit combos would make the meta super centralized around Steve. Right now, Ultimate has a very diverse meta. A large chunk of the roster can feasibly make top 8 at a major or supermajor. If one of the most common characters just invalidates a huge chunk of that meta, that diversity will evaporate overnight. On paper, that is unfortunate but fine. Not every character can be viable at the end of the day. But do we want to have a meta where some combination of top tiers choke out 85% of the roster and homogenize bracket and streams? Personally, I think both for the competitors and the spectators action would be beneficial if it gets that bad. While top players at first suggested banning Steve as a joke, at this point many seem to support the idea in earnest.
I also think an elephant in the room for Steve bans is that Smash is going to be having a rough year anyway. The deaths of SWT and Panda Cup mean sponsors are less likely to want to invest in Smash. eSports as a whole is downsizing with the eSports bubble bursting. Beyond the Summit is gone. VGBC's future is uncertain. Smash is in a tough spot, and this tech came at the worst possible time. Steve was already a controversial character to many, and now he has a super dumb tech that would arguably centralize the meta around him even more. For a lot of TOs, there is a clear logic to banning him. Enforcing a tech ban is hard. Do you want your local to lose steam due to player burnout of the Steve era? Do you want your streams to lose tons of viewership when Steve appears? These concerns should not be in ban discussions, but I feel that in the back of many TOs heads, these pragmatic reasons for a Steve ban would weigh on them just as much as the implications of a Steve ban.
The other elephant in the room is the fates of Brawl and Smash 4. Late game Brawl and Smash 4 were miserable due to a lack of action. Meta Knight and ICs made competitive brawl a headache if you played any character that was not them. The combo of Bayonetta and Cloud choked the Smash 4 meta when it was in a pretty solid spot before Bayo dropped. Bayo bans and Meta Knight bans were both debated, but no action was taken. In both cases, the games suffered tremendously. Many of the TOs that will be debating a Steve ban were TOing during these eras. Do they want to risk this happening again when there are some warning signs on the wall already? I mentioned above how the nightmare scenario of two to four characters choking a meta, making it so no one wants to play anymore. But what if 33% of the playerbase now plays bayonetta? What if the best region in NA decides to keep Meta Knight unbanned because over half of their best players play Meta Knight? If TOs want to act on Steve, it will be soon. Ideally, we would wait for more data. But given the track record, I think the fear of that worst case scenario might cause some TOs to jump the gun.
I think, whether for the right reasons of not, Steve bans will be coming this year. If anything, the Collision ban is going to speed things up sooner. Having a large TO series ban Steve makes it a lot easier for other TOs to follow suit. I do not know if a Steve ban will happen worldwide, but I could see a decent amount of the globe ban him. It will be sad to see Steve go, considering how huge his reveal was for a lot of people. I loved watching younger players pick up a character they love. I just wish that he did not arguably break the game.
My preferred outcome is just Nintendo patches this out. Without this, I do not think Steve is the existential threat to the game that others do. But with it, I do think that the case to ban Steve is much stronger.
