Corneria, Mute City, and Pokefloats

[Rykard]

Hey everyone. So i noticed that there was an absence of stage discussion going on on the melee forums, so i figured i would bring up the sort of abolishment of Corneria, Mute City, and Pokefloats from competitive play for open discussion. I'm not sure when this was decided, but these three stages have always been viable counterpicks to me and for some reason vanished off of the competitive scene.

Right now, there are 5 neutrals and 4 counterpick stages which yields a total of 9 competitive stages. What i am curious to know are reasons why these three stages have essentially be removed.

The only real reasons i can think of for corneria is that it favors fox's upsmash, but the low ceiling allows puff to die at easier percents and since many people consider her broken for whatever reason, this would be a good counter. Of course, then puff can ban it, but that allows you to pick stadium without any worry since that is generally a spacie stage with a low ceiling

As for Mute city, it heavily favors puff and peach and discourages those with bad landing lag on their up-b because of no ledges. However, this stage wasn't even considered for anything until Armada counter picked everyone on this stage at Genesis. Why was it considered to be unusable for tournament play after this?

Lastly, I don't even know why pokefloats has vanished because it was hardly ever played on as a counterpick. The only person that ever heavily used this stage was Isai and he demonstrated why it was a good counterpick by abusing his knowledge of the stage and predicting how his opponents were going to move around on it. The only this really bad about this stage is that some characters can fall through the Seal.

My point in all this is just the stage on the counterpick is supposed to counter your opponent and give you an advantage in the next match. With the absence of these stages, it gives people less options to have an upper hand in the next match, especially characters that can really abuse some of these stages to their advantage.

Feel free to let me know what you think cause i'm hoping this creates some discussion

 

[Violence]

You can also fall through Corneria too.

There's also Link/ Y Link's infinite camp there.

 

[Rappster]

You can also fall through Corneria too.

There's also Link/ Y Link's infinite camp there.

can i get a video of that pls?
never heard of it before.

 

[Cadency]

corneria and mute are just ********

floats is all right, but i think it should be banned anyway just because of the falling through the pokemon thing. it can happen on stadium but it's never happened to me there except like twice in my life lol.

anywayz, i like the current stage list. its like, more fair in my opinion. with stages like corneria and mute w/ fox or peach/puff you have like, a huge advantage. i don't think that's right. it makes it so whoever wins the neutral match is likely to win the set, which is how it should be according to most people, but i think you should still have a chance on your opponent's counterpick.

with how it is currently, you can get like slight advantages (there are some exceptions, like peach dk64 tomfoolery or fox puff on stadium, but even then it's not as bad as corneria). a counterpick shouldn't be an auto win, just a way to swing the match in your favor a little in my opinion

hope this made sense, lol

 

[Nø Ca$h]

ness can also camp on the laser of corneria and get healed from it.

the fin makes stage control gay because alot of characters have their range in front/above them. so being on the fin while someone is to the left is basically cutting off all of your character's options.

omg mute city is the peach and puff playground. its incredibly hard to kill them and its near impossible to recover with any other character on that stage. if you want a good CP with peach and puff just go DK64..

poke floats lolololol

 

[ConnorTheKid]

loooool I dare you to take a Fox to KJ64 with Peach and try not to get camped.

 

[Cadency]

yeah kj64 is only good for characters who don't have a fast way of getting to the top platform or characters with really bad recoveries imo

right now peach's cps are like, dreamland, fod, brinstar, kj64, battlefield if you really like it

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Well, i used to be on the side of the CPs. In many ways I still don't see an actual reason why they are banned. They don't make the game competitively unfair, they simply unbalance the tier list drastically. But since they unbalance the tier list so bad, the real question becomes not "why are they banned" but "what purpose do they have in the game at all"

 

[Brookman]

I think, sveet, the first question you failed to address is "how much does an individual stage affect a certain match up"

- for example, the long forgotten Onett. This stage literally broke fox, wouldn't you say?? almost a guarenteed win if the opponent didn't switch to fox themselves.

Simultaneously, isn't that the point of counter picking a stage??

Onett means there are nooo gimps on fox and it gives him easy infinites (that are disrupted - or supported - by the stage hazard (cars)

On this note, why shouldn't this be the case, where you are allowed to CP a stage which gives you such an advantage over your opponents character that they themselves are forced to switch just because of your stage selection

~my head hurts, good night~

 

[ArstNeio]

I think it's a philosophical thing. Melee players are content in saying "I don't care about actual fairness, I just want a flat stage to be able to combo and that's more enjoyable to me and I don't care about anything else".

I personally believe that a 29 stage strike (assuming you know both chars being played) results in the most fair stage for each matchup out of all of the 29 stages; however, the result of this 29 stage strike is almost never a neutral. What does this mean? Well, to me, it means we probably have a deep misconception of what is or is not a neutral stage, and there's really nothing you can do because so many popular figures in the community are against the development of the stage as a metagame.

It's simply a matter of perspective. ICs get their best stage (FD) on as a starter; Fox gets his best stages absolutely banned. For me, that's not fair. For most of the rest of the community, though, what determines a good stage is not what is balanced in terms of the game holistically but rather based on arbitrary qualities like "doesn't move" or "has edges to grab onto". Just because a stage moves doesn't mean it's unfair, but most people in our community are willing to condemn it for just that.

I personally think stages are the final frontier of the metagame. They're the one thing that we haven't even come close to fully exploring yet, because for some reason, using things like ATs to boost one's game is totally okay, but not exploring how different aspects of different, oft-not used stages is totally taboo.

Obviously you can't really do this in tournament because of time constraints, but I suggest you all play some friendlies where you strike from the full list of 29 stages, and see how things go. As long as no one's trying to sabotage it ("LOL I JUST GONNA BAN ALL THE NEUTRALS FIRST FOR THE LUL") and both players proceed deliberately and remove the stages they think hurt them the most one at a time (i.e. as long as both players act like it's a for serious match) I think it's a pretty interesting experience that perhaps we should try to integrate more into our current game.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

I'll time you out as f***ing pichu if you dare let me F*** taking risks i want to win without being better than my foe for once. I swear if poke floats because legit i'll try to get it banned again. People will get tried of falling through the stage. I swear it's happened to me so many tiomes i'll stab you about it. hey sveet how about brinstar dpeth hhhuuuuuuuuhhh???


there are more reasons to ban PFs than brinstar depth all though stages have more reasons to be banned than brinstar depths.

 

[N64]

Specifically to the OP, the cliffnotes of why each stage was banned is as follows:

1. Corneria promotes fin camping. Arwings and their lasers are random and stupid.

2. Mute City changed the game too much. Having a stage that periodically becomes a only small flat platform wth no edges moves the game in a direction most people aren't wholely comfortable with. Greatly punishes those with recoveries based on ledges almost that no other stage does. Also car combos / combo breakers are dumb.

3. Pokefloats was a little camp-heavy. Also no ledges. Provided a bit too much of an advantage in some matchups. Falling through seel is a little silly.

The idea of CPing to a stage that benefits your character more than your opponent's is a sound one and it's the reason we allow people to cp at all. If these cps get to the extent of swaying a matchup so drastically in one character's favor though (in comparison to how the matchup plays out on most other stages) then issues start arising of the stagelist greatly affecting tournament outcomes in a negative way.

A common example was that many people felt Peach and Jiggs could essentially get an auto-win from at least one match in a set by just picking Mute or Brinstar. Even if they lost the set, having that one heavily advantageous matchup can change things. For instance, in pools the Peach player can potentially grab a few matches out of sets that he normally would have gotten 0-2'd (without Mute/Brinstar), and thus his end result is padded simply because he has a basic competance in the game, plays peach, and is able to pick one of those CPs.

Those are a few of the more influential arguments for the bans on those specific stages, but they can also be applied with varying importance on all banned stages.

 

[Rubyiris]

Corneria is ********.

Mute City is fine. Floats would be fine, but most people are bad and qq about Seel.

 

[Pi]

japes any one?

 

[choknater]

29 stage strike? that sounds amazing LOL! would take forever though

 

[JPOBS]

The banned stages like Corneria, Floats etc are just BAD versions of stages that are legal. the stage list already provides loads of variety for different things depending on the matchup.

counterpicking should not be so strong that you basically guarantee victory for yourself.

for example

fox can go Dreamland if he needs to camp, Stadium/yoshis if they needs a low ceiling, RC if he needs to take advantage of movement weaknesses. He doesnt need an ALL PURPOSE corneria pick wher ehe can get low kills, camp, AND take advantage of people inability to come over the freaking fin.

Puff/Peach can go Dreamland if they want survivability, Brinstar if they want to take advantage of the stages unique attributes, KG64 to take advantage of survivability and some chars inability to out-camp them (see pink shinobi vs rockcrock). They dont need a ALL PURPOSE mute city counterpick which gives them survivability and takes away 90% of the casts recovery.

My point is, the List we have already provides a lot of variety for effective counterpicking for various scenarios. We dont need to add end all, be all counterpicks like Mute city and corneria, which are essentially just all the good things about other stages balled into one, almighty, unwinnable package of ****.

Taking advantage of one (or two) strengths by counterpicking the right stage, but still giving your opponent a chance, is much more fair and promotes competitive play, than just picking your character's auto-win stage for the sake of "increasing the stage list"

 

[EPsilon933]

Counter pick stages are dumb. They have dumb gimmicks that make the game dumb.

Corneria has a fin that promotes camping

Kongo Jungle 64 promotes camping against characters that can't really move to quickly to the top platforms and back to the main floor

Rainbow Cruise is a moving playground to play tag on

Brinstar is broken because it's breakable. And lava

Pokemon Stdaium has rock/fire transformations that promote camping/stalling for up to 30 seconds

Mute City has cars, no ledges, and the stage changes too fast.


But this is just an imo. Look at when people play friendlies. Do people play with counter pick stages on during friendlies, aside from Pokemon Stadium? Do we really want to play on broken/dumb stages?

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

brinstar depths isn't all that bad. it's more legal than all 3 of those stages.

also it's pretty hard to camp it lasts maybe 20 secs on some parts.

 

[ETWIST51294]

**** brinstar depths

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

why may I ask?

 

[Cosmo!]

29 stage strike? that sounds amazing LOL! would take forever though

*strikes all the neutrals and CPs*

*picks fox*

 

[Pi]

Counter pick stages are dumb. They have dumb gimmicks that make the game dumb.

Corneria has a fin that promotes camping

Kongo Jungle 64 promotes camping against characters that can't really move to quickly to the top platforms and back to the main floor

Rainbow Cruise is a moving playground to play tag on

Brinstar is broken because it's breakable. And lava

Pokemon Stdaium has rock/fire transformations that promote camping/stalling for up to 30 seconds

Mute City has cars, no ledges, and the stage changes too fast.


But this is just an imo. Look at when people play friendlies. Do people play with counter pick stages on during friendlies, aside from Pokemon Stadium? Do we really want to play on broken/dumb stages?

neutrals are just as bad as CP's in some matchups

 

[Zone]

I like brinstAr depths I'm with you icg it's like mute city corneria combined. No ledges and low ceilings sometimes falling through is avoidable and not random

 

[Rubyiris]

i encourage people to take me to mute city, and then get *****.

 

[EPsilon933]

neutrals are just as bad as CP's in some matchups

Luckily it's only some. But I'm mainly referring to how counter pick stages affect gameplay, not matchups.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

I like brinstAr depths I'm with you icg it's like mute city corneria combined. No ledges and low ceilings sometimes falling through is avoidable and not random

Well it's a more rounded out verison of all of them. You don't fall through as much as PF and you can normally live even as falco. and a lot of time sTill land on a rock below it. however i think it should be banned in teams. for that and i'd think 2 marths would be ******** on that stage.

 

[G.L.]

i think they banned corn and mute so fox and puff dont just CP each other to death, like at pound 3 mango vs m2k. but i think Pokefloats should be legal but i can see why it isint. i wouldnt mind having corn be legal but idk about mute. it really does kill anyone with a laggy recovery

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

PFs makes you fall through the floor to much i've lost to many stocks there to smile about it. F***ing pokemon. brinstar depths is much more fair in every thinkable way.

 

[Wretched]

i think they banned corn and mute so fox and puff dont just CP each other to death, like at pound 3 mango vs m2k.

I just have to say- Rest on slippy bro.
Rest on slippy

You guys should know what I'm talking about. If you think about it, how can we complain about corneria hardcping jiggs if Mango did so well against M2K? It's not like they're bad players, they're really good players who showed how the matchup on corneria can occur at their level, the level that we're trying to regulate with stage bans in the first place.

 

[Merkuri]

The stages keep diminishing and diminishing because too many people in the melee community are *****es. More and more people are now saying that Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise should be banned as well. Corneria is rightfully ban but Mute City and Pokefloeats are not. I've never seen Foxes run around the stage lasering their opponent to death on Pokefloats at the top level. And the whole falling through the stage is the dumbest argument I ever heard, it's an equal to disadvantage to everyone. It's a specific spot, learn the stage so you don't fall through.

I'd like for Mute City to be legalized again, but I think it may a bit broken for Puff. She can just wait for her opponent to recover on to the stage and rest em. Also if fox waveshines you, then you can't grab the ledge it's something a lot of people overlook.

The only silver lining is that the mid-west don't act like sheep and they do often play with non standardized stage. There was a tournament in WC that had an extended double stage list but I'm confident that was just a one time thing.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

The stages keep diminishing and diminishing because too many people in the melee community are *****es. More and more people are now saying that Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise should be banned as well. Corneria is rightfully ban but Mute City and Pokefloeats are not. I've never seen Foxes run around the stage lasering their opponent to death on Pokefloats. And the whole falling through the stage is the dumbest argument I ever heard, it's an equal to disadvantage to everyone. It's a specific spot, learn the stage so you don't fall through.

I'd like for Mute City to be legalized again, but I think it may a bit broken for Puff. She can just wait for her opponent to recover on to the stage and rest em. Also if fox waveshines you, then you can't grab the ledge it's something a lot of people overlook.

The only silver lining is that the mid-west don't act like sheep and they do often play with non standardized stage. There was a tournament in WC that had an extended double stage list but I'm confident that was just a one time thing.

They aren't *******.
They are simply trying to make the game as fun as possible, all of the pro-ban arguments in this thread have been completely valid in my opinion.

Oh, and my country has those stages legal, so this isn't a matter of lack of experience or whatever.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

brinstar depth d*** you I say. no one ever listens seriously it's twice the scarer you'll ever be.

 

[EPsilon933]

The stages keep diminishing and diminishing because too many people in the melee community are *****es. More and more people are now saying that Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise should be banned as well. Corneria is rightfully ban but Mute City and Pokefloeats are not. I've never seen Foxes run around the stage lasering their opponent to death on Pokefloats. And the whole falling through the stage is the dumbest argument I ever heard, it's an equal to disadvantage to everyone. It's a specific spot, learn the stage so you don't fall through.

Diminishing the stage list to only FD, BF, YS, FoD, and DL is a good thing. We only get to play on the good stages and never have to tolerate the dumbness of any counterpick stages, including Pokemon Stadium.
quality stages > quantity stages

The only silver lining is that the mid-west don't act like sheep and they do often play with non standardized stage. There was a tournament in WC that had an extended double stage list but I'm confident that was just a one time thing.

Oh, yes, if Smashers could one day not be sheep and not have to follow any Smash back room, everything would be so much better.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

CP stages allow opportunities for creative play, but as far as the competitiveness of the set, CP stages make the outcome vary more and more.

Personally, I think the 6 original neutrals should be the only stages allowed, and each player gets 1 ban.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

I say smaller tournments should have funky rulesets. If they do very well they'll naturelly come into play at higher levels. MKII anyone?

 

[EPsilon933]

Personally, I think the 6 original neutrals should be the only stages allowed, and each player gets 1 ban.

That would leave 4 possible stages for the first game to be played on. How should the stage be fairly decided. Random? Stage striking? Random is of course random, and with stage strikes one of the two players gets to strike 2 stages. Unless someone can create a new idea for selecting the first stage.

I say smaller tournments should have funky rulesets. If they do very well they'll naturelly come into play at higher levels. MKII anyone?

Oh yes, I so approve. Someone should host a tournament with stages that are somewhere clearly, but barely, passed the of legal counter pick, like

Jungle Japes
Poke Floats
Green Greens
Mushroom Kingdom II
Onett

That would be so amazing. SOMEONE DO IT! Just for fun.

 

[Wretched]

@ICG: walkoff much? The possibilities for easy kills with walkoffs is just too much. Characters that can do forward moving chaingrabs (marth vs. peach) would have to DI towards marth and hope for a high enough percentage by the end of it to not get regrabbed.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

I want to do a quick write up on my veiw on stages.

1st off when I think of dumb stages i think of Master Hand why isn't really used as far as his metagame goes at the minute is buffering attacks, prediction, knowing his moveset very well, and stages. Stages is the only thing MH has solidly going for him. his attacks are basically like stick a hit box out for a few frames and then pull it out always the same place so all you have to do is not walk into it basically. Stages is all he solidly has on YS the cloud gives some of his attacks a chance to lock onto who he is fighting. and lightly pressure them.

no where to just stand out of his range and the shy guys can help him edge gaurd ness XD. but he can somewhat lock you down on YS. on Rainbow ride you have to move you lack inf. space and he can try to block your path with an attack. The stage pressures you basically. brinstar he isn't hurt by the lava when he attacks, he breaks the stage and and wait to trap you when the lava forces you up and can't go down really.

If you notice MH isn't really doing the work it's in ALL truth the stages pressureing or forcing you into his attacks due to lava, blastzone and etc. the stages are seriouslyfighting for you.

that;s my problem with some stages they fight for you, you fall through a hole and die tough s*** the stage is in the lead. can you avoid all of this? Some people say stage control i somewhat disargee. stages force you to play onsome parts like YS64 forces you to the clouds if you get hit it's not safe to not camp not the same as safe to camp. if you back someone to a corner on blast zone how well do you feel when they grab you and kill you? this isn't like edges where you can DI, tech, recover, 2nd jump, projectile and etc. this is you die. same for teching it forces you to tech one way else you'll die. the stage basically tech chases for them.

stages break many charcters it isn't like MH the trash tier it's like top only gets help. maybe if it's like that one stage for bowser or something but no it's top tiers only. the more stages you add in the farther it seprates top/high from the rest of the cast the game slowly becomes more and more broken. let's give pichu corn. he's decent there oh wait it pushes bowser, kirby, puff, peach, gannon and most of the cast down by a good amount. it isn't just one person being hurt or helped it's like everyone is totally thrown in both ways. peach on MC isn't really going to help anyone for any match-up other than like puff and samus.

if the stages hurt more than it helps it should must likly be banned. PF it helps very few. DL64 it's good for most of the cast in some way or another. fox loses some killing percents but better camping as mario lives longer and recovers much better it hurts him that way also. overall balance.


however some stages would be neat take brinstar depths wouldn't fosuc as much on camping as you'd think I mean as pichu i camp DL64 garder than you'd think I could.brinstar uses the stage at quick brusts. If i'm in control of the mapit isn't like in control of kongo jungle. there are counter tactics and nothing beats camping better than sitting there waiting for it to change to your favor and they can't camp and they picked the wrong side to fight on. wall jumps and grapples are also very cool way to move on this stage. it is more about stage tactics than most.

with more balance

 

[Merkuri]

They aren't *******.
They are simply trying to make the game as fun as possible, all of the pro-ban arguments in this thread have been completely valid in my opinion.

Oh, and my country has those stages legal, so this isn't a matter of lack of experience or whatever.

Almost any sensible person will tell you that they are not trying to make the game more fun, they are trying to make them more competitive. They're *****es because they complain about any advantage a stage allows and demand that it must be banned.

I haven't actually read the arguments in this thread, as I'm certain I've seen them all before and I'm pretty sure I've seen all of them refuted in spectacular fashion.

 

[LLDL]

You can fall through pokemon stadium too! LOL let's ban that. -_-