Discussion of Stage Legality in Smash Bros. Ultimate

[Munomario777]

I'm generally OK with SV and TC's music selection, there's a good handful of more upbeat songs on each so I can just set it to only play those and be done with it. I'm hoping to hear some more of those upbeat songs added to the AC stages, though. I really like what we hear in Villager's trailer:

 

[Jamison]

Spoiler: Informative Rivals stage info

As someone who played roa for a good while, stages definitely have an impact depending on MU, especially in a game as mechanically diverse as rivals. In rivals, a platform is not only a place for a character to stand on, but it's also a place for kragg to put his rock or cause earthquakes from, orcane to put his puddle, maypul to put her plant, sylvanos to place his flower or to spread grass, elliana to plant her mine, etalus to spread ice... etc etc etc. Off the top of my head another example is how my main, elliana, benefits a TON from high up platforms (especially those on air armada) since they let her use her bowser jr up b to escape pressure while still landing quickly. To say the least, stage choice affects a lot of characters in rivals.

The stages also absolutely have varying widths and blastzones. The game goes out of its way to tell you stage width and all blast zone data on the stage select screen for this reason. In terms of floor width, the widest stage is 832 units, while the smallest is 512 units. The lowest ceiling is 548, while the highest is 628.

And in terms of layout, rivals has more variety than any (official) smash game has had, despite being all of its stages built on a flat base.

I've played Rivals myself but only really early on in its existence, not a ton overall and especially not the DLC characters and maps. That is actually a greater difference in stage width than I expected. But when it comes to ceiling height it's not that huge of a difference. I know most smash stages also have a purely flat base stage but every single RoA stage is perfectly flat. That's one aspect I'd like to see more variety in with Ultimate, is base stage flatness. Lylat is an obvious one but many stages with any sort of slope often times the slope is too steep so it's that difficult slopes are okay but we can't have too much slope. I do think Castle Siege has that potential but Pokemon Stadium or Kalos offer similar aspects. Yoshi's Story (Melee) has the sloped edges but it could be like Dreamland where it's simply too similar to BF. Yoshi's Island (Brawl) has the sloped edges too. I kinda wish there were stages that varied in the middle. Yet another reason I was sad to see Sm4sh never experiment with custom stages but that's a moot point now.

 

[MaestroDavros]

After reading every page, I see valid points from many different posters. One of the biggest issues to tackle that I see is the fact that duplicates grow the stage pool while wasting bans or not giving as much value as unique stages. I want to talk about dupes here without talking about the best way to pick stages.

I saw groups mentioned in here so this isn't totally original, but more combining different ideas into one. Here's an example group layout, which might not be perfect but it's just to get the idea across. Hazards Off assumed.

Group A (FD epsilon)
FD, Wily, Random Omega(?)
Group B (Battlefield epsilon)
BF, Dreamland, Miiverse/any other tri-plat we end up with
Group C (Pokemon epsilon)
PS1, PS2, Kalos
Group D (Semisolids)
Halberd, Delfino, Prism Tower (?). This group is just another idea. It would be to control the number of semisolids, rather than purely dupes.

Every stage not in a group can be treated like a normal stage for stage selection (T&C, smashville, frigate, anything else).

I am assuming that the stages within a group are similar enough that it's not a major issue which one to pick (i.e. the tier list won't drastically change). I know there are differences, like pika can sometimes QAC on dreamland in smash4 but never on BF, blastzones are different, etc, but hear me out first.

Here are 3 ways to treat each group as "one" stage to make the process smoother. We can let individual TOs decide which option to use or come up with a standard for every tourney to use. It would be good if at least the list of groups becomes standard though.

OPTION 1: Include every stage as legal at the start of a match, but narrow them down quickly.

When picking stages, as soon as either player offers, picks, OR bans any one stage in a group, all the other stages in that group are banned immediately from that game. OR, they could be banned for that game as well as the rest of the set. OR, you can apply DSR so that the winner can't play on more than one stage in a group in a set. I'm not sure which is better, so I put that up for discussion/testing. This can apply to either the proposed veto methods or offer x choose y methods, doesn't matter. It's trickier to apply it to random stage select though. Stages not in groups are treated normally of course.

To me this makes sense. You'll see all these dupes in tourneys, but not all in the same set for MU fairness. You also won't have to waste picks/bans on similar stages. So the stage list will be large, but will be wittled down quickly and fairly.

OPTION 2: Rotate through stages in a group using seasons. All other stages in the groups are banned, but all stages not in groups are legal.

Example:
Season 1: FD, BF, PS1, Halberd are legal
Season 2: Wily, Dreamland, PS2, Delfino are legal
Season 3: Random Omega, Miiverse, Kalos, Prism Tower are legal
Season 4+: mix and match from there, but always make exactly one stage from each group legal

I think this could be exciting and would hopefully not mess up the balance too much. It does restrict the stage list but maintains some variety over time. It also alleviates some of the logistical/political nightmares about setting up seasons because most of the stage list would remain the same every season (the stages not in groups). Also because the differences between seasons wouldn't matter THAT much, it's not 100% required for every tourney to use the same set of stages in the groups. If some tourney decides to use one custom season forever, it wouldn't break the system.

OPTION 3: Ban all stages in a group but one

This is simply the option where you are picky about which stages are legal. Heck, all of group D might end up being banned for all I know. This obviously narrows the stage list and prevents most of these stages from seeing tourney play, which has its pros and cons.
___________________________________________
Does any of this sound good?

Like I've mentioned before assuming that they are all physically the same layout in Ultimate I personally would permanently group Omega's with FD & Battlefield form with Battlefield. In this scenario you if you wanted Battlefield you pick random Battlefield form; if you want FD you pick Omega form. Turn off the ones that have music copyright issues and grass grip (if there are any). Really in this iteration there should be no need to group FD & Omega's separately, since they're literally the same thing now according to what we've seen so far.

 

[lmntolp]

Like I've mentioned before assuming that they are all physically the same layout in Ultimate I personally would permanently group Omega's with FD & Battlefield form with Battlefield. In this scenario you if you wanted Battlefield you pick random Battlefield form; if you want FD you pick Omega form. Turn off the ones that have music copyright issues and grass grip (if there are any). Really in this iteration there should be no need to group FD & Omega's separately, since they're literally the same thing now according to what we've seen so far.

Eh, I wouldn't suggest random though. Then it would give grouped stages more variance than other stages for little reason. Still let people pick which version to use, but just prevent multiple copies from showing up in a pick/ban round or a set.

EDIT: I realized there's different instances of random here. I still think you should be allowed to pick between FD or random Omega, but just prevent both of those from showing up in the same pick/ban phase or possibly same set. Reason is you know regular FD can't have walls, but some omegas have walls for wall jumping.

 

[Thinkaman]

Before we get the number of stages down to a reasonable amount, we need to get the number of characters down to a reasonable amount.

This is an undue burden on competitors and makes it too hard to prepare and practice.

 

[ottobot]

Idk if anyone has noticed this yet... but it appears that hazardless town and city has stationary platforms:

Seems some classically legal stages will need to have hazards on in order to have their old behavior.

 

[NewGuy79]

Idk if anyone has noticed this yet... but it appears that hazardless town and city has stationary platforms:

Seems some classically legal stages will need to have hazards on in order to have their old behavior.

that's a pretty odd distinction on what considered a hazard, I would think the platforms moving into the blast zones would be considered more a hazard than the platforms simply moving up and down and to the sides.

makes me wonder if the hazards are determined game wide or if they were custom set for each stage.

 

[Munomario777]

Before we get the number of stages down to a reasonable amount, we need to get the number of characters down to a reasonable amount.

This is an undue burden on competitors and makes it too hard to prepare and practice.

Yeah, this game has WAY more characters than smash 4 – we gotta get that number back down to ssb4 levels again

that's a pretty odd distinction on what considered a hazard, I would think the platforms moving into the blast zones would be considered more a hazard than the platforms simply moving up and down and to the sides.

makes me wonder if the hazards are determined game wide or if they were custom set for each stage.

On a technical level, they were almost certainly programmed individually for each stage. On a design level, right now it's hard to say if there's any concrete, overlying philosophy to it.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Before we get the number of stages down to a reasonable amount, we need to get the number of characters down to a reasonable amount.

Question: Do you think they were wrong to limit Project M stages to 9 instead of 14-15 as well?

 

[Thinkaman]

Question: Do you think they were wrong to limit Project M stages to 9 instead of 14-15 as well?

Sort of.

I could see ~9 stages working well if they were very carefully curated. Like, designed from the ground up to be stages that were all flawless for any level of competition, while as a set comprehensively representing all facets of the game. I do like the number 9 specifically, because it chunks well and looks very nice in a grid; it's also enough stages to establish that diversity. (It also strikes well, if that is what you want to go with)

I think the 9 selected by PM were really sterile and limiting. I don't think they gained anything by imposing that limitation, but also doubt the ones cut would have revolutionized the game. They were correct in making sure FD was a CP though. (Frankly under our current system, it should have been CP in Melee, and maaaybe Brawl.)

If I was crafting, from a developer perspective, a 9 stage list to impose as fiat:

1. Battlefield
2. FD
3. Smashville

• These are sort of no-brainers.
• I do think Smashville is preferable to Town and City, though I'd make sure everyone (Mac) can FH onto the plat.
• Battlefield is also preferable to all tri-plat variants; at least, I think it is the ideal platform heights and gaps.
• I do not think a dual plat adds enough value to the game, if we only have 9 stages. It does not test any additional unique skills.

4. A Tilting Stage - Pilotwings Yellow Plane (slower tilts, no engines)

• Tilting stages are important because they offer multiple unique competitive goals.
• Goal 1 is testing players on variable SH time. In a game with aerial auto-cancels, this is a big deal!
• Goal 2 is testing variation on projectile interactions in the neutral.
• Goal 3 is inducing a left-right dominance bias. In Smash, you want to be below your opponent. In a tilted environment, you also want to be to a particular side, and that has very interesting neutral implications.
• I see this as preferable to Lylat's convex style and low platforms. I'd have the tilts start slow and subtle, and gradually become like the tilts we see in the current stage (still slow though).
• I'd toy with a temporary platform--a really slow-moving cloud that floats by, only passing at a snail's pace in one direction, in sync with the bigger tilt cycles. I suspect this would hurt more than it would help in a number of matchups.

5. Transforming Stage A - Castle Siege

• Transforming stages are important because they test a variety of behaviors and disrupt static neutrals that top-tier characters tend to love.
• They also let us test gameplay we can only get in a temporary capacity like walk-offs, high platforms, and intrusive hurtboxes. Castle Siege does all of the really well.

6. Transforming Stage B - Skyloft (Tower, Bridge, Statue, new tiny stop)

• Skyloft is the best traveling stage to use as a base for our Perfect Traveling Stage. It has better traveling layouts than Wuhu and better stops than Delfino.
• I'd make the stops consistent in hazardless mode though.
• The last stop ought to be a super small stage, a stage that would be too small to exist on its own. This important test is best suited for Skyloft, because it's otherwise a large, open stage that allows avoiding conflict more than most.
• On that note, I might trim down some of the traveling layouts, just to balance out the first 3 stops being large.
• If we did that I might also consider making the base traveling platform solid, but I don't think this is actually a problem in Smash 4. (This isn't Brawl MK sharking on Delfino.)

7. A Cave Stage: Luigi's Mansion

• Key change: attacking lower pillars transfers damage to upper pillars. (Also, no ghost platforms)
• Goal 1 is somehow testing "cave of life" combat. As long as it's quick and easy to destroy the cave against a stalling opponent, no problem.
• Goal 2 is diverse projectile biases. Sort of like how tilting stages force players to deal with a variety of angles, here players must deal with both pillar hurtboxes and a long, empty stage even bigger than FD.
• Vertical blast zone shouldn't be as high as Luigi's Mansion though.

8. A "King of the Hill" position-heavy stage with a persistent vertical hazard

• Something like Peach's Castle 64, but better. Ditch the platform extensions, maybe make it lower, make the hazard bigger and hit down. (Combo food)
• Goal 1 is an extra-important stage center. This stage is a test of how well you can hold ground. (I think PC64 does this better than any other Smash stage in history for most matchups.)
• Goal 2 is a vertical hazard to hit people up into. "Hitting people into a thing" is one of the most important skills in Smash.
• This stage can retain PC64's high blast zone, because the hazard (if tuned correctly) emphasizes

9. A multi-plat stage with a persistent horizontal hazard

• Probably something like The Greatest Stage of All Time, Norfair (All hazards replaced with more lava wall (wall, not background wave!)
• Wall should always be on the same side though, and only barely cover 2 platforms max.
• I might also make the center platform go all the way down, to prevent silliness and fit more wall jumping in.
• Goal 1 is multi-ledge decisions. "Which ledge do I go for?" is great gameplay; it makes on-stage edgeguarding worse and off-stage edgeguarding safer.
• Goal 2 is remixed landing options for disadvantage. Norfair is great in that recovering outward means recovering to a higher platform, accepting the risks associated with that. I think Norfair has some of the most interesting disadvantage states.
• Goal 3 is a horizontal hazard to hit people into. Note that this incentives grabs, which is why it is a best fit for a grab-resistant multi-plat stage. (Imagine FD with a lava wall. Terrible.)

I'd also like to fit in there, somewhere, some simple throwable objects. (Around the impact level of bananas; something that does mild damage and can be used as an approach. These are probably the best fit for Skyloft, as they can be tied to a stop (like the 2nd).

Long story short: I think you could condense all of Smash into 9 stages if you were really deliberate about it. But 9 or 90 mere configurations of platforms and blast zones is not a comprehensive representation of the game, and is shallow--not competitive.

 

[Galgatha]

With the large amount of possible legal stages thanks to the stage hazard switch....if this community goes back to the AT MOST 7 legal stage list with stage striking....I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be disappointed.

I honestly think that most people have become so picky with what they want to consider a legal stage or not for Ultimate, that they are starting to come up with rather ridiculous reasons. Is this me ranting a bit? Yes, it is.

But cmon, we finally get the chance to really bring some much needed uniqueness and variation to Competitive Smash, and people already want to make Frigate Orpheon illegal due to the small window of time where the moving platform goes down and creates a small wall on the stage >_< Seriously?

Now maybe we don't HAVE to go with the Random Stage selection + permanent bans that I have been suggesting in a few different places, but if we try to force Ultimate into the current ruleset that we have for Smash 4, we wont be doing the game justice.

I have seen lists of possible legal stages with hazards turned off ranging from 10 to over 25. There has to be a way for us to keep the legal stage count over 13 at least.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

The only reason why I am moderately liberal and not a staunch conservative on stages is because I think of the viewers. I think battlefield and omega does a lot in spicing up the music and scenery now that they're the same. 9-13 stages is probably the seeet point.

 

[Thinkaman]

The big issue is that all definitions are tautological, aka all definitions of what "true competitive" means are self-reinforcing.

Imagine it is widely understood that "true competitive" Smash players only play on FD. This means all the top characters and top players are those that thrive on FD. Being good at Smash means being good at FD, and being good at FD means you are good at Smash.

In comes a player/character who is less good on FD, but is an expert at platform play:

• He uses them to mix up his disadvantage.
• He uses them to push his advantage.
• He understands how they fit into the neutral of the matchup.
• He sets up resets and vertical KOs.
• He ledge drops effectively.

You know how the FD-only players would describe all of this?

• Jank.
• Jank.
• Jank.
• Jank.
• Jank.

Because this "isn't competitive Smash Bros."

See, we've already established that this guy isn't as good of a player on FD, because being a good player means being the best at FD. If he beats someone on a stage with platforms, you know, with his platform skills "jank", then that's just a bad player bettering a better player. Which PROVES how non-competitive platforms are, since the better player should win.

Fortunately, only faux-casuals deny the validity of platform skills; real tournament players have always played on more stages, and we have the legacy of Dream Land 64 + unbalanced FD matchups to thank for that. But these skills are constantly denied:

• Utilizing slopes.
• Being forced into an opponent's position.
• Capitalizing on a transition.
• Navigating advantage/disadvantage on a walk-off instead of off-stage.
• Capitalizing on hurtboxes in the neutral.
• Dealing with extra-high platforms.
• Pressuring your opponent into a hazard.

All of these valuable and interesting skills get classified as jank, like FD-only players ****ing on platforms.

Of course, there are some skills that exist in the game that we can't really include. For example, there are all sorts of interesting item skills in the game, but trying to include them invites unacceptable amounts of random outcomes. And some of the interesting stage skills have similar baggage, such that we have to be selective. (For example, walk-offs are a huge part of the game, but we can only include them in tournaments as part of transitioning stages, where they cannot be camped to stall.)

FD-only would obviously grant a large advantage to certain characters, but there's a broader trend. Conservative stage policy has historically favored static stages that overemphasis the static neutral. Which happens to be what the top characters, and the top players who play them, are best at. It's a political self-reinforcing inevitably.

This probably sounds depressing, and to some extent it should be. But I'd urge you to remember what a small component tournaments themselves are, even of competitive smash. I've played a lot of tournament sets, but I've played over 10 times as many competitive games outside of that. And in those matches, the vast majority of my enjoyment with Smash Bros, I can play whatever the hell I want. On my copy of Smash 4, there are 13 great stages and WFT + Palutena + Ganon are good characters because they have good special moves. No one can change that reality.

 

[DJ3DS]

The only reason why I am moderately liberal and not a staunch conservative on stages is because I think of the viewers. I think battlefield and omega does a lot in spicing up the music and scenery now that they're the same. 9-13 stages is probably the seeet point.

If you had a "Smashville" version of other stages you could probably get away with a very conservative stage list.

Problem is the current probable most popular stage is still fixed to Animal Crossing background and music. It's the same stuff we've been seeing and hearing for goodness knows how long and the Animal Crossing soundtrack was never that interesting to fight to for a lot of us in the first place.

 

[Galgatha]

Idk if anyone has noticed this yet... but it appears that hazardless town and city has stationary platforms:

Seems some classically legal stages will need to have hazards on in order to have their old behavior.

I'm not going to lie, I actually like the fact that the platforms stay put on T&C. Does the single platform on Smashville stay put with hazards off or does it still move?

 

[Jamison]

Instead of usual stage list for competitive discussion I'm going to try to address each stage on its competitive viability. As we still do not know all the stages, what some stages will be like (New Donk City) or what the extent of hazard toggle will do (we assume the lava on Brinstar will be gone but we don't know about the breaking parts of the stage) this is still speculative. I will do my best to put any bias aside and try to view the stages in the following manner: if this stage were added to Sm4sh with hazard toggle would it be tournament viable? I won't omit any stage for its similarities to other stages as well. I think that is the fairest way to go about and I will of course take everything we already know into account as best as I can.
I'm also considering the stages separately from their BF and Omega forms as the current assumption is all stages would be viable as replacements for FD and BF respectively under those circumstances.

Spoiler: Reasons we ban stages

Stages can be banned for several reasons, common reasons including but not limited to:

• Especially poor matchup balance by providing a rather extreme advantage for certain characters (such as allowing the character to utilise excessive, gamebreaking camping, or utilise infinite chain throws, as in the case of Fox in Temple for the former, or King Dedede in Shadow Moses Island for the latter).
• Powerful stage hazards that can easily KO players who are knocked into them, or force players to give up an advantage to avoid them. An extreme example of this is Gamer.
• Allowing players to abuse glitches in the game.
• Possessing one or more "caves of life," allowing characters to survive much longer than feasibly possible under usual circumstances, and creating a general over-centralisation on the ability to tech.
• Possessing permanent walk-off blast lines and walls; the former creates unreasonably powerful camping positions and allow for potential easy zero-deaths that wouldn't occur normally, as well as marginalizing or completely eliminating offstage play, while the latter also creates powerful camping positions and allow for zero-death or otherwise heavily damaging combos that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Walk-offs and walls that occur only temporarily on a stage are considered detrimental, but acceptable enough to usually not result in a stage's banning itself.
• Drastically altering gameplay and the strategies needed to win (such as Icicle Mountain and Mario Bros.).
• Possessing elements that causes the stage to be too strenuous on the system's CPU and thus being capable of reducing the game's frame rate mid-match (such as Fountain of Dreams in Doubles play)

I'll simply for the sake of lack of an argument assuming the Switch can handle any 4 players on screen on any stage and that lag will not be an issue. This also means I'm assuming these stages will be used for both singles and doubles.

CONFIRMED STAGES

Spoiler: ULTIMATE STAGES

Battlefield LEGAL
Final Destination LEGAL
Great Plateau Tower BANNED Cave of life even without hazards is an issue. It is however the only issue. If this were changed to a passable platform instead the stage would have a layout most similar to Yoshi's Island (Brawl) and would be viable.
Moray Towers BANNED The platform layout is very poor for projectiles. There are also walls/ceiling in several places in the stage that could be used as caves of life. The platform layout also is very conducive to sharking. Circle camping could also be an issue as someone could easily hop up the platforms to evade their opponent then drop down from either side to get towards the bottom of the stage (i.e. if Sonic chose to run away you'd never be able to catch him or corner him.)
New Donk City Not enough info is known.

Spoiler: 64 STAGES

Dream Land LEGAL
Hyrule Castle BANNED The platforms in the middle are small and staggered so it's very easy to camp up there. That alone has historically been a proven issue in competitive Smash 64. The area to the right of the stage has a cave of life with a small ceiling and multiple walls.
Saffron City BANNED The holes are small enough that characters like Ness/Lucas can't Up B out of them. The edges can be camped and are close to the horizontal blast zones. The area where the pokemon come out is also a wall that could be used defensively. Still some potential here as directional air dodges could alleviate some of the issues with the narrowness of the holes throughout the stage, considering there verticality means characters without wall jumping would be severely disadvantaged and susceptible to low % meteors/spikes as well.
Yoshi's Island LEGAL assuming the clouds were considered a hazard. It's a unique triplat where neither the base stage or platforms are completely flat. Also assuming every character could FH to the mid level plats.

Spoiler: MELEE STAGES

Big Blue BANNED Even if all the cars were removed along with the race track the starting position of the left blast zone is too close to the stage.
Brinstar LEGAL, assuming hazard toggle removed the breakable stage and the lava.
Corneria BANNED Even without arwings or the laser cannon the right side of the stage with the giant wall creates a campable cave of life. Also, the proximity of the top of the fin to the upper blast zone is very small.
Fourside BANNED It would still have the same issues as Princess Peach's Castle with circle camping or using the middle of the stage as a barrier. The holes could have some similar problems that Saffron City presents as well.
Great Bay BANNED Bottom parts of the stages
Green Greens QUESTIONABLE, even assuming the exploding blocks and apples are gone the low ceiling is a concern. The holes in the middle of the stage could present issues as well but I'll cautiously say this one could work.
Jungle Japes QUESTIONABLE, I'd be interested to see what potential swimming camping could have first. But if hazard toggle removed swimming hypothetically I think the stage could be acceptable.
Kongo Jungle BANNED The rock is too easy to camp on.
Mushroom Kingdom II BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Onett BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Pokémon Stadium LEGAL (the only issue was ever transformations which hazard toggle has been confirmed to remove)
Princess Peach's Castle BANNED The wall in the middle of the stage creates a wall of life and is very conducive to circle camping. (i.e. if I"m Pika and you're Ganon I'm going to spam neutral B over the middle of the stage so you have to approach me in air while I have the low ground, then I can just run to the other side.)
Temple BANNED Massive cave of life, stage is also too large.
Venom BANNED Cave of life created by the fin in the middle creating massive survivability.
Yoshi's Story LEGAL

Spoiler: BRAWL STAGES

75m BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Too much platform play for most of the stage makes it very uneven in many MU's.
Bridge of Eldin BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Also, the hole in the middle is too big to safely cross slowing gameplay and giving too much of an advantage to certain projectile users.
Castle Siege LEGAL, the only issue was every the 2nd transformation which hazard toggle has shown to remove both of the transformations.
Distant Planet BANNED Permanent walk-off. Also, as much variety as a slope may offer too steep of a slope creates with it a slew of problems. I believe that slope could be too steep.
Frigate Orpheon PROBABLE, stage flipping was the main concern. The way the stage moves does make a wall at one point but since it's not always present it likely wouldn't be a large enough issue to disqualify it.
Green Hill Zone BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Halberd DOUBTFUL, temporary walk-offs and low ceiling during transitions are both issues.
Luigi's Mansion BANNED Stage creates barriers against projectiles unbalancing the stage for several MU's too severely.
Lylat Cruise LEGAL
Mushroomy Kingdom BANNED Permanent walk-offs
New Pork City BANNED Too large
Norfair DOUBTFUL, grabbable platforms create issues with balance. Since characters can fall through them yet still recover to them it gives some characters a significant advantage. The platform layout has show to have its issues as well. Since there's no stage under large portions of the platforms it makes for unsafe approaches from below for several characters, limiting approach options.
Mario Circuit BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Pokémon Stadium 2 LEGAL
Port Town Aero Dive DOUBLTFUL, main platform doesn't have grabbable ledges. Some transitions have walk-offs. There's a wall during part of map rotation.
Shadow Moses Island BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Skyworld BANNED Platforms create a cave of life, then when broken create a lack of grabbable ledges. The moving platform at the bottom also presents camping issues.
Smashville LEGAL
Spear Pillar BANNED Bottom of the map creates a cave of life. I will say if the bottom area was removed and the pokemon didn't exist the top of the stage would be perfectly legal.
Summit BANNED There's a cave of life and walls in the middle of the stage. I'm not sure how the community overall feels about ice as a surface. So I would be interested how we would approach a stage that had a competitive layout but had ice.
WarioWare, Inc. LEGAL
Yoshi's Island LEGAL

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. 4 STAGES

Boxing Ring BANNED Permanent walk-off. The lighting fixture about the ring also presents camping issues.
Duck Hunt DOUBTFUL The tree still has the issues of prolonging games and being a strong location to camp. Even if characters like Mac and Ganon could reach without burning their Up B the tree would still be a strong camping point or easy ceiling KO for things like Charizard's up throw off the tree.
Gaur Plain BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Midgar PROBABLE, the lack of hazards would likely make it a BF echo.
Super Mario Maker BANNED Permanent walk-offs
Suzaku Castle BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Umbra Clock Tower QUESTIONABLE, this is a hard stage to gauge. Some of the platforms create questionable playing areas but they aren't permanent which mitigates the issues. I think is has the potential but it greatly would depend on what the community was willing to accept.
Wily Castle LEGAL, hazard toggle off has shown it to be an FD echo. Even if all hazard toggle did was remove yellow devil I could still see the platforms not being an issue.

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. FOR 3DS STAGES

Short disclaimer: I never played the 3DS version so I don't have any first hand experience on these stages so my opinions are from research and the short period of time where competitive sm4sh was 3ds only as the Wii U hadn't been released yet.
3D Land BANNED Permanent walk-offs for large portions of the stage rotation. Questionable platform/terrain layouts during other transitions.
Arena Ferox PROBABLE, only concern is the statues during one transformation.
Balloon Fight BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Find Mii LEGAL
Gerudo Valley BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Living Room BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Magicant DOUBTFUL, I see the bottom platform being a big issue.
Prism Tower LEGAL, walk-offs are only available during for a tiny duration. None of the transitions/transformations have a game breaing layout.
Reset Bomb Forest LEGAL
Spirit Train BANNED Constantly moving train creates a lot of issues.
Tomodachi Life BANNED Blast zones are close proximity to stage. Stage layout creates same issues as Luigi's Mansion or Wrecking Crew.
Tortimer Island BANNED Random stage layout when stage is selected. Stage has swim-offs. (It's confirmed that in Ultimate the water in this stage will be swimmable unlike the 3DS version where you would sink in the outside water.)
Unova Pokémon League LEGAL

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. FOR WII U STAGES

Coliseum BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Garden of Hope QUESTIONABLE Since they scales sink they might not be able to be completely abused for camping. Breakable parts may or may not be an issue. But the two main platforms seem fine.
Kalos Pokémon League LEGAL
Mario Circuit DOUBTFUL, too much duration for sections with walk-offs and certain transitions affect gameplay too much such as the racetrack ceiling that prevents vertical KO's.
Mario Galaxy BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Also, while the curve may seem unique projectiles are effected differently by this. Some projectiles curve to match the stage while others are blocked by the stage.
Mushroom Kingdom U LEGAL
Pac-Land BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Palutena's Temple BANNED Too large.
Pilotwings DOUBTFUL I think the biplane section promotes camping between the wings too much so neither player/team would approach. I believe this happens for too long of a duration. I do think that some parts of the stage could be unique and usable though. The tilting if it's too much could walls. At the very least it would make Amsah teching very easy or at the least would slow your trajectory as your character would have collision with the stage. It's very hard to not find issues with stages that tilt. Lylat's tilting in Sm4sh is enough to cause problems. But I think the tilting from say Castle Siege's final transformation or that one flat transformation in Mushroom Kingdom U would be minimal enough to use.
Skyloft PROBABLE, I don't see any issues with the main platform layouts but the temporary walk-offs if they still exist are concerning as are some of the transition layouts.
The Great Cave Offensive BANNED Too large.
Town and City LEGAL
Wii Fit Studio BANNED Permanent walk-offs
Wrecking Crew BANNED Stage has too many objects that create collision. Similar issues to Moray Towers/Luigi's Mansion
Wuhu Island PROBABLE, volcano transformation is a bit concerning but that's it.

When you look at all the stages it's a bit astounding how many of them have walk-offs. There are a lot of stages like Coliseum or Wii Fit Studio that could have a lot of unique potential if they just had ledges.

 

[Zerp]

Umbra Clock Tower QUESTIONABLE, this is a hard stage to gauge. Some of the platforms create questionable playing areas but they aren't permanent which mitigates the issues. I think is has the potential but it greatly would depend on what the community was willing to accept.

Great post, although I think Umbra should be bumped up to doubtful because there's another problem with it, the stage's main platform (not the background, the main platform itself) shakes violently in a way that causes motion sickness in a much wider group than it does for Final Destination and/or Lylat Cruise because the effect of the stage is far more intense than those two, for example I've never had a problem playing on those other two stages but Umbra unironically makes me nauseous whenever I try to give it another chance. Which basically means that if hazardless mode doesn't disable the shaking (we don't know yet if this is the case or not) it's got yet another problem to contend with, it doesn't automatically disqualify it from becoming legal but that does cut out a number of people who'd otherwise be okay with it (who knows how big or small that number is though).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Instead of usual stage list for competitive discussion I'm going to try to address each stage on its competitive viability. As we still do not know all the stages, what some stages will be like (New Donk City) or what the extent of hazard toggle will do (we assume the lava on Brinstar will be gone but we don't know about the breaking parts of the stage) this is still speculative. I will do my best to put any bias aside and try to view the stages in the following manner: if this stage were added to Sm4sh with hazard toggle would it be tournament viable? I won't omit any stage for its similarities to other stages as well. I think that is the fairest way to go about and I will of course take everything we already know into account as best as I can.
I'm also considering the stages separately from their BF and Omega forms as the current assumption is all stages would be viable as replacements for FD and BF respectively under those circumstances.

Spoiler: Reasons we ban stages

Stages can be banned for several reasons, common reasons including but not limited to:

• Especially poor matchup balance by providing a rather extreme advantage for certain characters (such as allowing the character to utilise excessive, gamebreaking camping, or utilise infinite chain throws, as in the case of Fox in Temple for the former, or King Dedede in Shadow Moses Island for the latter).
• Powerful stage hazards that can easily KO players who are knocked into them, or force players to give up an advantage to avoid them. An extreme example of this is Gamer.
• Allowing players to abuse glitches in the game.
• Possessing one or more "caves of life," allowing characters to survive much longer than feasibly possible under usual circumstances, and creating a general over-centralisation on the ability to tech.
• Possessing permanent walk-off blast lines and walls; the former creates unreasonably powerful camping positions and allow for potential easy zero-deaths that wouldn't occur normally, as well as marginalizing or completely eliminating offstage play, while the latter also creates powerful camping positions and allow for zero-death or otherwise heavily damaging combos that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Walk-offs and walls that occur only temporarily on a stage are considered detrimental, but acceptable enough to usually not result in a stage's banning itself.
• Drastically altering gameplay and the strategies needed to win (such as Icicle Mountain and Mario Bros.).
• Possessing elements that causes the stage to be too strenuous on the system's CPU and thus being capable of reducing the game's frame rate mid-match (such as Fountain of Dreams in Doubles play)

I'll simply for the sake of lack of an argument assuming the Switch can handle any 4 players on screen on any stage and that lag will not be an issue. This also means I'm assuming these stages will be used for both singles and doubles.

CONFIRMED STAGES

Spoiler: ULTIMATE STAGES

Battlefield LEGAL
Final Destination LEGAL
Great Plateau Tower BANNED Cave of life even without hazards is an issue. It is however the only issue. If this were changed to a passable platform instead the stage would have a layout most similar to Yoshi's Island (Brawl) and would be viable.
Moray Towers BANNED The platform layout is very poor for projectiles. There are also walls/ceiling in several places in the stage that could be used as caves of life. The platform layout also is very conducive to sharking. Circle camping could also be an issue as someone could easily hop up the platforms to evade their opponent then drop down from either side to get towards the bottom of the stage (i.e. if Sonic chose to run away you'd never be able to catch him or corner him.)
New Donk City Not enough info is known.

Spoiler: 64 STAGES

Dream Land LEGAL
Hyrule Castle BANNED The platforms in the middle are small and staggered so it's very easy to camp up there. That alone has historically been a proven issue in competitive Smash 64. The area to the right of the stage has a cave of life with a small ceiling and multiple walls.
Saffron City BANNED The holes are small enough that characters like Ness/Lucas can't Up B out of them. The edges can be camped and are close to the horizontal blast zones. The area where the pokemon come out is also a wall that could be used defensively. Still some potential here as directional air dodges could alleviate some of the issues with the narrowness of the holes throughout the stage, considering there verticality means characters without wall jumping would be severely disadvantaged and susceptible to low % meteors/spikes as well.
Yoshi's Island LEGAL assuming the clouds were considered a hazard. It's a unique triplat where neither the base stage or platforms are completely flat. Also assuming every character could FH to the mid level plats.

Spoiler: MELEE STAGES

Big Blue BANNED Even if all the cars were removed along with the race track the starting position of the left blast zone is too close to the stage.
Brinstar LEGAL, assuming hazard toggle removed the breakable stage and the lava.
Corneria BANNED Even without arwings or the laser cannon the right side of the stage with the giant wall creates a campable cave of life. Also, the proximity of the top of the fin to the upper blast zone is very small.
Fourside BANNED It would still have the same issues as Princess Peach's Castle with circle camping or using the middle of the stage as a barrier. The holes could have some similar problems that Saffron City presents as well.
Great Bay BANNED Bottom parts of the stages
Green Greens QUESTIONABLE, even assuming the exploding blocks and apples are gone the low ceiling is a concern. The holes in the middle of the stage could present issues as well but I'll cautiously say this one could work.
Jungle Japes QUESTIONABLE, I'd be interested to see what potential swimming camping could have first. But if hazard toggle removed swimming hypothetically I think the stage could be acceptable.
Kongo Jungle BANNED The rock is too easy to camp on.
Mushroom Kingdom II BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Onett BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Pokémon Stadium LEGAL (the only issue was ever transformations which hazard toggle has been confirmed to remove)
Princess Peach's Castle BANNED The wall in the middle of the stage creates a wall of life and is very conducive to circle camping. (i.e. if I"m Pika and you're Ganon I'm going to spam neutral B over the middle of the stage so you have to approach me in air while I have the low ground, then I can just run to the other side.)
Temple BANNED Massive cave of life, stage is also too large.
Venom BANNED Cave of life created by the fin in the middle creating massive survivability.
Yoshi's Story LEGAL

Spoiler: BRAWL STAGES

75m BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Too much platform play for most of the stage makes it very uneven in many MU's.
Bridge of Eldin BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Also, the hole in the middle is too big to safely cross slowing gameplay and giving too much of an advantage to certain projectile users.
Castle Siege LEGAL, the only issue was every the 2nd transformation which hazard toggle has shown to remove both of the transformations.
Distant Planet BANNED Permanent walk-off. Also, as much variety as a slope may offer too steep of a slope creates with it a slew of problems. I believe that slope could be too steep.
Frigate Orpheon PROBABLE, stage flipping was the main concern. The way the stage moves does make a wall at one point but since it's not always present it likely wouldn't be a large enough issue to disqualify it.
Green Hill Zone BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Halberd DOUBTFUL, temporary walk-offs and low ceiling during transitions are both issues.
Luigi's Mansion BANNED Stage creates barriers against projectiles unbalancing the stage for several MU's too severely.
Lylat Cruise LEGAL
Mushroomy Kingdom BANNED Permanent walk-offs
New Pork City BANNED Too large
Norfair DOUBTFUL, grabbable platforms create issues with balance. Since characters can fall through them yet still recover to them it gives some characters a significant advantage. The platform layout has show to have its issues as well. Since there's no stage under large portions of the platforms it makes for unsafe approaches from below for several characters, limiting approach options.
Mario Circuit BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Pokémon Stadium 2 LEGAL
Port Town Aero Dive DOUBLTFUL, main platform doesn't have grabbable ledges. Some transitions have walk-offs. There's a wall during part of map rotation.
Shadow Moses Island BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Skyworld BANNED Platforms create a cave of life, then when broken create a lack of grabbable ledges. The moving platform at the bottom also presents camping issues.
Smashville LEGAL
Spear Pillar BANNED Bottom of the map creates a cave of life. I will say if the bottom area was removed and the pokemon didn't exist the top of the stage would be perfectly legal.
Summit BANNED There's a cave of life and walls in the middle of the stage. I'm not sure how the community overall feels about ice as a surface. So I would be interested how we would approach a stage that had a competitive layout but had ice.
WarioWare, Inc. LEGAL
Yoshi's Island LEGAL

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. 4 STAGES

Boxing Ring BANNED Permanent walk-off. The lighting fixture about the ring also presents camping issues.
Duck Hunt DOUBTFUL The tree still has the issues of prolonging games and being a strong location to camp. Even if characters like Mac and Ganon could reach without burning their Up B the tree would still be a strong camping point or easy ceiling KO for things like Charizard's up throw off the tree.
Gaur Plain BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Midgar PROBABLE, the lack of hazards would likely make it a BF echo.
Super Mario Maker BANNED Permanent walk-offs
Suzaku Castle BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Umbra Clock Tower QUESTIONABLE, this is a hard stage to gauge. Some of the platforms create questionable playing areas but they aren't permanent which mitigates the issues. I think is has the potential but it greatly would depend on what the community was willing to accept.
Wily Castle LEGAL, hazard toggle off has shown it to be an FD echo. Even if all hazard toggle did was remove yellow devil I could still see the platforms not being an issue.

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. FOR 3DS STAGES

Short disclaimer: I never played the 3DS version so I don't have any first hand experience on these stages so my opinions are from research and the short period of time where competitive sm4sh was 3ds only as the Wii U hadn't been released yet.
3D Land BANNED Permanent walk-offs for large portions of the stage rotation. Questionable platform/terrain layouts during other transitions.
Arena Ferox PROBABLE, only concern is the statues during one transformation.
Balloon Fight BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Find Mii LEGAL
Gerudo Valley BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Living Room BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Magicant DOUBTFUL, I see the bottom platform being a big issue.
Prism Tower LEGAL, walk-offs are only available during for a tiny duration. None of the transitions/transformations have a game breaing layout.
Reset Bomb Forest LEGAL
Spirit Train BANNED Constantly moving train creates a lot of issues.
Tomodachi Life BANNED Blast zones are close proximity to stage. Stage layout creates same issues as Luigi's Mansion or Wrecking Crew.
Tortimer Island BANNED Random stage layout when stage is selected. Stage has swim-offs. (It's confirmed that in Ultimate the water in this stage will be swimmable unlike the 3DS version where you would sink in the outside water.)
Unova Pokémon League LEGAL

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. FOR WII U STAGES

Coliseum BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Garden of Hope QUESTIONABLE Since they scales sink they might not be able to be completely abused for camping. Breakable parts may or may not be an issue. But the two main platforms seem fine.
Kalos Pokémon League LEGAL
Mario Circuit DOUBTFUL, too much duration for sections with walk-offs and certain transitions affect gameplay too much such as the racetrack ceiling that prevents vertical KO's.
Mario Galaxy BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Also, while the curve may seem unique projectiles are effected differently by this. Some projectiles curve to match the stage while others are blocked by the stage.
Mushroom Kingdom U LEGAL
Pac-Land BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Palutena's Temple BANNED Too large.
Pilotwings DOUBTFUL I think the biplane section promotes camping between the wings too much so neither player/team would approach. I believe this happens for too long of a duration. I do think that some parts of the stage could be unique and usable though. The tilting if it's too much could walls. At the very least it would make Amsah teching very easy or at the least would slow your trajectory as your character would have collision with the stage. It's very hard to not find issues with stages that tilt. Lylat's tilting in Sm4sh is enough to cause problems. But I think the tilting from say Castle Siege's final transformation or that one flat transformation in Mushroom Kingdom U would be minimal enough to use.
Skyloft PROBABLE, I don't see any issues with the main platform layouts but the temporary walk-offs if they still exist are concerning as are some of the transition layouts.
The Great Cave Offensive BANNED Too large.
Town and City LEGAL
Wii Fit Studio BANNED Permanent walk-offs
Wrecking Crew BANNED Stage has too many objects that create collision. Similar issues to Moray Towers/Luigi's Mansion
Wuhu Island PROBABLE, volcano transformation is a bit concerning but that's it.

When you look at all the stages it's a bit astounding how many of them have walk-offs. There are a lot of stages like Coliseum or Wii Fit Studio that could have a lot of unique potential if they just had ledges.

I find myself agreeing with most of your assessments. Norfair, Spirit Train, Duck Hunt, and Mario Circuit (Wii U) are the main differences -- I'd be perfectly willing to give them another shot. Garden of Hope too, but only if the stick and pot are gone. Unfortunately, Great Plateau Tower and Skyworld show us that destructible terrain seems to be made permanent in hazards-off.

Fun stats:
20 Legal
3 Probable
4 Questionable
7 Doubtful

I honestly think these are some very impressive numbers.

 

[NewGuy79]

Snip

Thanks for the comprehensive analysis, not much to add except to point out some stuff about stages that travel through an environment.

we know that is a stage has "moving groud" (ground that would either act as a hurt box or would quickly pull you into one) is not deactivated when hazards are turned off. seen here in the first part of zero's commentary video, we can see that the hazards toggle deactivated the enemy trains as well as the spirt train splitting apart but it does not stop the implementation of moving ground.

With this in mind we can assume that if an element of a stage is physically built into its environment then it cannot be removed from the stage via hazard toggle, this means that Port Town Aero Dive, Mario Circuit and Skyloft will still probably have hurt boxes during their transformations as these stages often travel through the environment through phases.

 

[Untouch]

Wait, do we know transformation stages don't transform when hazards are off or is that a guess?
There are no transformations stages in the demo.

snip.

Spirit Train I cannot see being legal, even without the traintracks (they don't seem to be a huge issue), the train gets very close to the edge of the screen, characters with good throws seem like they'd excel.

 

[Next Door Dog]

Instead of usual stage list for competitive discussion I'm going to try to address each stage on its competitive viability. As we still do not know all the stages, what some stages will be like (New Donk City) or what the extent of hazard toggle will do (we assume the lava on Brinstar will be gone but we don't know about the breaking parts of the stage) this is still speculative. I will do my best to put any bias aside and try to view the stages in the following manner: if this stage were added to Sm4sh with hazard toggle would it be tournament viable? I won't omit any stage for its similarities to other stages as well. I think that is the fairest way to go about and I will of course take everything we already know into account as best as I can.
I'm also considering the stages separately from their BF and Omega forms as the current assumption is all stages would be viable as replacements for FD and BF respectively under those circumstances.

Spoiler: Reasons we ban stages

Stages can be banned for several reasons, common reasons including but not limited to:

• Especially poor matchup balance by providing a rather extreme advantage for certain characters (such as allowing the character to utilise excessive, gamebreaking camping, or utilise infinite chain throws, as in the case of Fox in Temple for the former, or King Dedede in Shadow Moses Island for the latter).
• Powerful stage hazards that can easily KO players who are knocked into them, or force players to give up an advantage to avoid them. An extreme example of this is Gamer.
• Allowing players to abuse glitches in the game.
• Possessing one or more "caves of life," allowing characters to survive much longer than feasibly possible under usual circumstances, and creating a general over-centralisation on the ability to tech.
• Possessing permanent walk-off blast lines and walls; the former creates unreasonably powerful camping positions and allow for potential easy zero-deaths that wouldn't occur normally, as well as marginalizing or completely eliminating offstage play, while the latter also creates powerful camping positions and allow for zero-death or otherwise heavily damaging combos that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Walk-offs and walls that occur only temporarily on a stage are considered detrimental, but acceptable enough to usually not result in a stage's banning itself.
• Drastically altering gameplay and the strategies needed to win (such as Icicle Mountain and Mario Bros.).
• Possessing elements that causes the stage to be too strenuous on the system's CPU and thus being capable of reducing the game's frame rate mid-match (such as Fountain of Dreams in Doubles play)

I'll simply for the sake of lack of an argument assuming the Switch can handle any 4 players on screen on any stage and that lag will not be an issue. This also means I'm assuming these stages will be used for both singles and doubles.

CONFIRMED STAGES

Spoiler: ULTIMATE STAGES

Battlefield LEGAL
Final Destination LEGAL
Great Plateau Tower BANNED Cave of life even without hazards is an issue. It is however the only issue. If this were changed to a passable platform instead the stage would have a layout most similar to Yoshi's Island (Brawl) and would be viable.
Moray Towers BANNED The platform layout is very poor for projectiles. There are also walls/ceiling in several places in the stage that could be used as caves of life. The platform layout also is very conducive to sharking. Circle camping could also be an issue as someone could easily hop up the platforms to evade their opponent then drop down from either side to get towards the bottom of the stage (i.e. if Sonic chose to run away you'd never be able to catch him or corner him.)
New Donk City Not enough info is known.

Spoiler: 64 STAGES

Dream Land LEGAL
Hyrule Castle BANNED The platforms in the middle are small and staggered so it's very easy to camp up there. That alone has historically been a proven issue in competitive Smash 64. The area to the right of the stage has a cave of life with a small ceiling and multiple walls.
Saffron City BANNED The holes are small enough that characters like Ness/Lucas can't Up B out of them. The edges can be camped and are close to the horizontal blast zones. The area where the pokemon come out is also a wall that could be used defensively. Still some potential here as directional air dodges could alleviate some of the issues with the narrowness of the holes throughout the stage, considering there verticality means characters without wall jumping would be severely disadvantaged and susceptible to low % meteors/spikes as well.
Yoshi's Island LEGAL assuming the clouds were considered a hazard. It's a unique triplat where neither the base stage or platforms are completely flat. Also assuming every character could FH to the mid level plats.

Spoiler: MELEE STAGES

Big Blue BANNED Even if all the cars were removed along with the race track the starting position of the left blast zone is too close to the stage.
Brinstar LEGAL, assuming hazard toggle removed the breakable stage and the lava.
Corneria BANNED Even without arwings or the laser cannon the right side of the stage with the giant wall creates a campable cave of life. Also, the proximity of the top of the fin to the upper blast zone is very small.
Fourside BANNED It would still have the same issues as Princess Peach's Castle with circle camping or using the middle of the stage as a barrier. The holes could have some similar problems that Saffron City presents as well.
Great Bay BANNED Bottom parts of the stages
Green Greens QUESTIONABLE, even assuming the exploding blocks and apples are gone the low ceiling is a concern. The holes in the middle of the stage could present issues as well but I'll cautiously say this one could work.
Jungle Japes QUESTIONABLE, I'd be interested to see what potential swimming camping could have first. But if hazard toggle removed swimming hypothetically I think the stage could be acceptable.
Kongo Jungle BANNED The rock is too easy to camp on.
Mushroom Kingdom II BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Onett BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Pokémon Stadium LEGAL (the only issue was ever transformations which hazard toggle has been confirmed to remove)
Princess Peach's Castle BANNED The wall in the middle of the stage creates a wall of life and is very conducive to circle camping. (i.e. if I"m Pika and you're Ganon I'm going to spam neutral B over the middle of the stage so you have to approach me in air while I have the low ground, then I can just run to the other side.)
Temple BANNED Massive cave of life, stage is also too large.
Venom BANNED Cave of life created by the fin in the middle creating massive survivability.
Yoshi's Story LEGAL

Spoiler: BRAWL STAGES

75m BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Too much platform play for most of the stage makes it very uneven in many MU's.
Bridge of Eldin BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Also, the hole in the middle is too big to safely cross slowing gameplay and giving too much of an advantage to certain projectile users.
Castle Siege LEGAL, the only issue was every the 2nd transformation which hazard toggle has shown to remove both of the transformations.
Distant Planet BANNED Permanent walk-off. Also, as much variety as a slope may offer too steep of a slope creates with it a slew of problems. I believe that slope could be too steep.
Frigate Orpheon PROBABLE, stage flipping was the main concern. The way the stage moves does make a wall at one point but since it's not always present it likely wouldn't be a large enough issue to disqualify it.
Green Hill Zone BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Halberd DOUBTFUL, temporary walk-offs and low ceiling during transitions are both issues.
Luigi's Mansion BANNED Stage creates barriers against projectiles unbalancing the stage for several MU's too severely.
Lylat Cruise LEGAL
Mushroomy Kingdom BANNED Permanent walk-offs
New Pork City BANNED Too large
Norfair DOUBTFUL, grabbable platforms create issues with balance. Since characters can fall through them yet still recover to them it gives some characters a significant advantage. The platform layout has show to have its issues as well. Since there's no stage under large portions of the platforms it makes for unsafe approaches from below for several characters, limiting approach options.
Mario Circuit BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Pokémon Stadium 2 LEGAL
Port Town Aero Dive DOUBLTFUL, main platform doesn't have grabbable ledges. Some transitions have walk-offs. There's a wall during part of map rotation.
Shadow Moses Island BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Skyworld BANNED Platforms create a cave of life, then when broken create a lack of grabbable ledges. The moving platform at the bottom also presents camping issues.
Smashville LEGAL
Spear Pillar BANNED Bottom of the map creates a cave of life. I will say if the bottom area was removed and the pokemon didn't exist the top of the stage would be perfectly legal.
Summit BANNED There's a cave of life and walls in the middle of the stage. I'm not sure how the community overall feels about ice as a surface. So I would be interested how we would approach a stage that had a competitive layout but had ice.
WarioWare, Inc. LEGAL
Yoshi's Island LEGAL

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. 4 STAGES

Boxing Ring BANNED Permanent walk-off. The lighting fixture about the ring also presents camping issues.
Duck Hunt DOUBTFUL The tree still has the issues of prolonging games and being a strong location to camp. Even if characters like Mac and Ganon could reach without burning their Up B the tree would still be a strong camping point or easy ceiling KO for things like Charizard's up throw off the tree.
Gaur Plain BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Midgar PROBABLE, the lack of hazards would likely make it a BF echo.
Super Mario Maker BANNED Permanent walk-offs
Suzaku Castle BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Umbra Clock Tower QUESTIONABLE, this is a hard stage to gauge. Some of the platforms create questionable playing areas but they aren't permanent which mitigates the issues. I think is has the potential but it greatly would depend on what the community was willing to accept.
Wily Castle LEGAL, hazard toggle off has shown it to be an FD echo. Even if all hazard toggle did was remove yellow devil I could still see the platforms not being an issue.

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. FOR 3DS STAGES

Short disclaimer: I never played the 3DS version so I don't have any first hand experience on these stages so my opinions are from research and the short period of time where competitive sm4sh was 3ds only as the Wii U hadn't been released yet.
3D Land BANNED Permanent walk-offs for large portions of the stage rotation. Questionable platform/terrain layouts during other transitions.
Arena Ferox PROBABLE, only concern is the statues during one transformation.
Balloon Fight BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Find Mii LEGAL
Gerudo Valley BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Living Room BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Magicant DOUBTFUL, I see the bottom platform being a big issue.
Prism Tower LEGAL, walk-offs are only available during for a tiny duration. None of the transitions/transformations have a game breaing layout.
Reset Bomb Forest LEGAL
Spirit Train BANNED Constantly moving train creates a lot of issues.
Tomodachi Life BANNED Blast zones are close proximity to stage. Stage layout creates same issues as Luigi's Mansion or Wrecking Crew.
Tortimer Island BANNED Random stage layout when stage is selected. Stage has swim-offs. (It's confirmed that in Ultimate the water in this stage will be swimmable unlike the 3DS version where you would sink in the outside water.)
Unova Pokémon League LEGAL

Spoiler: SMASH BROS. FOR WII U STAGES

Coliseum BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Garden of Hope QUESTIONABLE Since they scales sink they might not be able to be completely abused for camping. Breakable parts may or may not be an issue. But the two main platforms seem fine.
Kalos Pokémon League LEGAL
Mario Circuit DOUBTFUL, too much duration for sections with walk-offs and certain transitions affect gameplay too much such as the racetrack ceiling that prevents vertical KO's.
Mario Galaxy BANNED Permanent walk-offs. Also, while the curve may seem unique projectiles are effected differently by this. Some projectiles curve to match the stage while others are blocked by the stage.
Mushroom Kingdom U LEGAL
Pac-Land BANNED Permanent walk-offs.
Palutena's Temple BANNED Too large.
Pilotwings DOUBTFUL I think the biplane section promotes camping between the wings too much so neither player/team would approach. I believe this happens for too long of a duration. I do think that some parts of the stage could be unique and usable though. The tilting if it's too much could walls. At the very least it would make Amsah teching very easy or at the least would slow your trajectory as your character would have collision with the stage. It's very hard to not find issues with stages that tilt. Lylat's tilting in Sm4sh is enough to cause problems. But I think the tilting from say Castle Siege's final transformation or that one flat transformation in Mushroom Kingdom U would be minimal enough to use.
Skyloft PROBABLE, I don't see any issues with the main platform layouts but the temporary walk-offs if they still exist are concerning as are some of the transition layouts.
The Great Cave Offensive BANNED Too large.
Town and City LEGAL
Wii Fit Studio BANNED Permanent walk-offs
Wrecking Crew BANNED Stage has too many objects that create collision. Similar issues to Moray Towers/Luigi's Mansion
Wuhu Island PROBABLE, volcano transformation is a bit concerning but that's it.

When you look at all the stages it's a bit astounding how many of them have walk-offs. There are a lot of stages like Coliseum or Wii Fit Studio that could have a lot of unique potential if they just had ledges.

Pretty good list, I gotta say. I'd put Castle Siege and the Pokemon Stadiums in the questionable category, since we don't know for certain if they stay in the first formation (I'm thinking Castle Siege might just make the statues intangible and remove the tilt of the third form, but we'll see). I'd also move some of the bigger stages down a peg, with Mushroom Kingdom U in questionable/probable, and Garden of Hope into doubtful (which is kind of funny considering the name). I like both of those stages, but I can see people having a problem with how big they can be. I think they could be fine for doubles, same with Pyrosphere if it returns. I haven't played the 3DS version, but does Arena Ferox have hard platforms? Some of the formations look kind of iffy to me.

I've been reading the thread and I'm still undecided as to what stage selection method I think is best. I like the method of one player asking the other to choose between a pool of 3 or so stages. My main concern overall is where triplats play in all of this, since Dream Land and Battlefield are not the same stage in my book, and we look to be having quite a few triplat stages in this game. Grouping them together wouldn't be a big deal for some characters, but for others it could make the difference of using another jump/upB. Also I think people are downplaying hazardless Wily's Castle, since it being a walled FD makes a big difference for characters with walljumps (though hopefully they bring the platforms back and it can be distinguished better).

Whatever we do, I think we should focus on a large stage list when the game comes out, since I find it very unlikely for stages to be added to the list later on in the game's meta. At the end of the day, while I think more stages would better represent someone's skill across the board, tournaments need to proceed efficiently. We can't have stages in the long run that lead to long sets, and the stage selection method can't take too much time either. Also, while I think a better player should be proficient on a large number of stages, I'm not sure if it'd really be representative in tournament sets of who the better player is. By this I mean you'd have to play more matches on more stages to really get a grasp on who plays better on more of the stages, and decide how that relates to who a better player is (ex: P1 could be better on more "neutral" stages, but P2 is better on the more unconventional stages). Ideally this shouldn't be an issue (since stage striking/selection is supposed to mitigate volatility), but with more stages you get a smaller sample of who's better overall. Just my opinion though, I never really played much competitively.

One last thing: if we're getting identical omega/BF forms we better be seeing them more in tourneys. I don't want to see everybody going to Wii Fit Studio BF form because it's a more plain background or other anti-hype reasoning (anyone that remembers UMvC3 has Bonne Wonderland burned into their retinas).

 

[Munomario777]

Thanks for the comprehensive analysis, not much to add except to point out some stuff about stages that travel through an environment.

we know that is a stage has "moving groud" (ground that would either act as a hurt box or would quickly pull you into one) is not deactivated when hazards are turned off. seen here in the first part of zero's commentary video, we can see that the hazards toggle deactivated the enemy trains as well as the spirt train splitting apart but it does not stop the implementation of moving ground.

With this in mind we can assume that if an element of a stage is physically built into its environment then it cannot be removed from the stage via hazard toggle, this means that Port Town Aero Dive, Mario Circuit and Skyloft will still probably have hurt boxes during their transformations as these stages often travel through the environment through phases.

For those three stages, I imagine they'd do something similar to the omega forms, with a completely different path through the environment that just avoids the terrain completely. If these stages don't land at all with hazards off (which is a very real possibility), they could even just reuse the paths from the omega forms.



Jamison I agree with a lot of those picks. The only big area I disagree is Great Plateau, which I'm a big proponent of for with hazards on since the cave of life is only temporary. It takes damage when attacked, but also when a fighter rebounds off of it or techs on it from knockback. So the cave of life won't prolong a match for very long, but smart use of it rewards good stage control with a second or third chance at life. I'm all for that personally.

The other thing I'd say in response is that I suspect stages like Halberd and Skyloft will remain floating platforms permanently, so Halberd would have its major issues removed in that case.

PS. Prism Tower, Green Greens, Reset Bomb, and Find Mii? Finally someone with good taste

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Wait, do we know transformation stages don't transform when hazards are off or is that a guess?
There are no transformations stages in the demo.


Spirit Train I cannot see being legal, even without the traintracks (they don't seem to be a huge issue), the train gets very close to the edge of the screen, characters with good throws seem like they'd excel.

The key phrase being "seem like" -- we don't know for sure. Hence why I'm advocating for giving them a shot. If it turns out to be totally abusable then we have evidence for a ban. If it turns out not to be abusable for whatever reason (distance not small enough, stage not being in position often or long enough, etc.), then we have a rather unique stage to play on. (Blast zones aside, a stage where low recoveries are impossible is an interesting niche.) But we need that data first.

 

[infomon]

The other thing about Great Plateau (hazards on) is that it's possible that teching the ceiling might give you enough hitstun or predictable options, that the attacker might get more follow-ups. Depending on the game's mechanics and character balance (which we can't know yet), the ceiling might lead into huge-damage combos or strings that push them out of the cave-of-life.

The classic cave-of-life was the old Hyrule Temple where people could literally just survive until 999. That might not be the case here in high-level competition. Has anyone not read Sirlin's Play to Win? We need to test the mechanic before we can say that it's overpowered.

 

[Thinkaman]

Yeah, I really raise an eyebrow when people call Great Plateau a "Cave of Life." Like, what?

 

[Jamison]

I think Umbra should be bumped up to doubtful because there's another problem with it, the stage's main platform (not the background, the main platform itself) shakes violently in a way that causes motion sickness

That's a very understandable POV. A friend of mine had a big issue visually with some of the backgrounds. Even stages like sm4sh FD the background was a bit much. I know it's fine for most people but I'm a fan of keeping the backgrounds more simple for that exact reason. You start having colorful explosions, shaking screen, bright flashes etc. it can be hard on the eyes.
There are multiple top players/commentators in Melee that end up wearing sunglasses at tournies, lots of players wearing gunnars or another brand of computer glasses for these reasons in Melee. I'm not sure how prominent protective eyewear is in the sm4sh community but considering how much more is going on in the backgrounds in sm4sh stages I could see why it would be a problem. It's actually something I've given some thought. In Melee 20XX Fountain of Dreams has been edited to make the background simpler for the sake of CPU requirements to run the stage so the background is mostly black. Even though this was done to prevent lag it makes it easier on the eyes, even though it's not necessarily an issue with that particular stage. I'd be interested to see if Ultimate would implement some sort of aesthetic change setting. Color-blind mode is becoming more and more common in games as a setting. I'd love to see Ultimate implement some sort of "background simplifier" toggle that way we could address some of the eye strain that comes from playing Smash.

As far as Great Plateau Tower I really want it to be a viable stage. I think it breaking with hazard toggle OFF is noteworthy but I still feel we are bound to use stages with hazard toggle off and we don't need yet another setting to keep track off. It would be easy to turn hazards on then next game go to Town & City and not realize you left hazards on and the platforms move slightly so the losing player could call for a replay. I'd still love it if Nintendo would acknowledge the flaw in GPT and just make a regular platform you could pass through. In that case the stage would be similar to Yoshi's Island (Brawl) and I'd think it would be a lock in competitive at least as a counter-pick, possibly a replacement for SV assuming a small stage list. I think it has a lot of potential just any structural ceiling in a stage I personally never feel great about.

Even if not competitively used I'd still like to see hazard toggle make stages more competitive. I'd personally prefer it for playing casually but the more similar you can make casual play similar to that of competitive the more appealing the competitive scene becomes for your average viewer. I hope they further push hazard toggle. Like if they decided walk-offs are a hazard and gave stages ledges it would just be more fun for everyone IMO.

 

[PoptartLord]

Didn't you know? Any hard ceiling is a cave of life. That's Smash 101. Even Moray Towers has a cave of life! The hard ceiling is to the left of the bottom floor hovering over a pit of missed-tech-to-stage-spikey-DOOM. You can make it to 300% there, easy


You could always* have punished teching a ceiling or wall if you're close enough. I've been doing it for years across multiple games.
*: I don't remember 64 well enough to recall if this holds true there, but from Melee on for sure

And now on to more specific stage talk:
Norfair:
Oh man, Norfair! Such a great stage. With 10! grabable ledges and a V shaped layout it's quite the unique stage. There's just so many mixup opportunities. Am I going to recover to the top ledge, aim for the middle, or go all the way down to the bottom? Now that ledge regrab doesn't grant invincibility any attempts at stalling can be punished. The side lava grants temporary positional advantage, just don't get crossed up or thrown or you'll get cooked instead. But the best part is the into-the-screen lava wave. That's when things get super aggressive! The bolder attacker has the advantage, but if you overextend you get punished by lava. Now for two pieces of information about Smash 4's Norfair I've gained through actually exploring the stage:
Nifty: You can shield the lava wave, and it does minimal shield damage. It's like shielding a decently powerful tilt.
Mind Blowing: You can counter the lava wave! The hitbox is a little bit out of sync with the visual, so practice in training mode or something first.

Great Plateau:
I remember reading somewhere that the impact of a launched character hitting the.... huh, what is it called? The central destroyable object? Anyway, that hitting a character into that is enough to damage and break it. Is that true? If yes, does teching also damage it? If so then any cave-like qualities are temporary (hazards on only, yes, we know).

Moray Towers:
I didn't notice any hazards on/off differences either. At first I thought maybe the on-stage ink would be different but I checked and even with hazards on the ink is never in the players' Z-axis range. I'll have to play a few rounds of "Catch the Sonic" to see if there's any circle camping problems in practice.

Has Nintendo announced when/where the next playable demo will be out? We've still got a lot of testing to do

 

[dav3yb]

Green Greens QUESTIONABLE, even assuming the exploding blocks and apples are gone the low ceiling is a concern. The holes in the middle of the stage could present issues as well but I'll cautiously say this one could work.

Small blast zones in certain directions hasn't stopped stages from being legal in the past (see yoshi's story in melee). I'd argue that it makes it better for competitive play, since someone can pick it if they have characters with good vertical killing potential.

Frigate Orpheon PROBABLE, stage flipping was the main concern. The way the stage moves does make a wall at one point but since it's not always present it likely wouldn't be a large enough issue to disqualify it.

There isn't any real reason this stage should be banned.

Reset Bomb Forest LEGAL

I like how arguments for other stages being banned don't seem to apply to this one for (some) reason. It has a high platform on one side, like hyrule castle, so why isn't camping an issue here? It also has a pit in the middle which could make it hard for Ness and Lucas to recover if they fall in. And the transformation for this stage is ****ING ATROCIOUS if it happens to go to it even with hazards off.

 

[Thinkaman]

Reset Bomb Forest has similar issues as Hanenbow. That's the simplest way to put it.

 

[Untouch]

So when is the next time the game is getting demoed?
Would like someone to get some footage of hazardless stages, we know most of them already but some more confirmation would be nice.

Here are the stages we don't have 100% confirmation of what hazardless does. (even stages which are obviously not going to be legal, for catalogueing purposes)
-Green Hill Zone
-Coliseum
-Tortimer Island (Would like confirmation that the layout is random, only seen one game with this level played with hazards off.)
-New Pork City
-Onett

 

[dav3yb]

Reset Bomb Forest has similar issues as Hanenbow. That's the simplest way to put it.

I completely forgot this was a stage :/

So when is the next time the game is getting demoed?
Would like someone to get some footage of hazardless stages, we know most of them already but some more confirmation would be nice.

Here are the stages we don't have 100% confirmation of what hazardless does. (even stages which are obviously not going to be legal, for catalogueing purposes)
-Green Hill Zone
-Coliseum
-Tortimer Island (Would like confirmation that the layout is random, only seen one game with this level played with hazards off.)
-New Pork City
-Onett

The next time i could see it being demoed would be at EVO, which is the first weekend in August.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I think we all sort of collectively blocked Hanenbow from our memory. Although if hazardless Reset Bomb Forest doesn't transform, the first form is much better.

 

[Munomario777]

PoptartLord

Great Plateau's roof does indeed take damage (and eventually break) when fighters are launched into it, even if they tech. Additionally, characters of course have the option to directly attack the roof.

On the subject of punishing wall or ceiling techs, I think I remember reading something about the frame data of these techs, where they like, let the user act before the intangibility ends or something like that? So punishing them might be a challenge if they're ready for it.

 

[mimgrim]

Question: Do you think they were wrong to limit Project M stages to 9 instead of 14-15 as well?

Project M player here.

So there's a lot of misunderstanding here in regards to why pm has its list the way it does.

The reason being laziness, and not even talking about the list size but about the actual stages picked. Those are the only stages accepted universally by the pm communitt with everything else being "jank" or having "jank" elements. I could on a whole rant on why the pm stage list actually sucks and what kinds of stages should be used but that would be derailing.

Incidently I am of the opinion that a smaller list but with each stage being different is best. My ideal would be 9 stages with no starter/cp distinction with 3 small, 3 medium, and 3 big stages with each set having small/medium/big blastzones (so like small stage with small blastzones, small stage with medium blastzones, and small stage with big blast zones. Same withbthe medium and big stages) with each stage having different layouts. The next ideal number would be 18, so basically multiples of 9 is the best to work with imo.

This is why I'm against moving stages cause of how the blast zone changes. Transforming stages where the blast zone stays the same, as long as the transformations are good, are fine tho.

 

[dav3yb]

My ideal would be 9 stages with no starter/cp distinction with 3 small, 3 medium, and 3 big stages with each set having small/medium/big blastzones (so like small stage with small blastzones, small stage with medium blastzones, and small stage with big blast zones.

This could also be a bit of an issue, since a lot of stages in smash 4 had very similar if not identical blast zones. Outside of stages that had some dramatic shift in it, or ones that were obviously larger than others, I think they were all pretty much the same.

 

[mimgrim]

This could also be a bit of an issue, since a lot of stages in smash 4 had very similar if not identical blast zones. Outside of stages that had some dramatic shift in it, or ones that were obviously larger than others, I think they were all pretty much the same.

I mean that would make things even easier tbh if thats the case. Have an even amout of small, medium, and big stages while keeping the total stage list at an odd number. So like 9 stages 3 of each size with diff layouts or 15 stages 5 of each size with diff layouts.

I'd still keep my stance on moving stagrd unless each phase is about the same size with only different layouts.

 

[dav3yb]

I mean that would make things even easier tbh if thats the case. Have an even amout of small, medium, and big stages while keeping the total stage list at an odd number. So like 9 stages 3 of each size with diff layouts or 15 stages 5 of each size with diff layouts.

I'd still keep my stance on moving stagrd unless each phase is about the same size with only different layouts.

well that was the point, pretty much all the legal stages in smash 4 i think have identical blast zones, outside of any platforms that might get closer to them, there isn't any difference. all the of "obviously larger" stages are not good for competitive smash, things like hyrule temple, great cave, big battlefield, etc...

this might not be the case with ultimate, but until we can really sit down and lab on the stages, we probably won't know for sure if there are any particular differences in stages and their blast zones.

 

[Vulgun]

On the topic of Great Plateau Tower, I do believe that its ceiling qualities unique to it can potentially make the stage the first ever tournament legal ceiling-based stage. While I do understand that "caves of life" are generally not seen upon in a good light within the Smash Bros. community, I do think that the stage's layout and mechanics based around the ceiling make it stand out from the others.

While we don't currently know the HP of the tower itself, one can assume that the tower has a low amount of HP due to how easy it is to break it with both attacks and the knockback of the opponent (we also don't know how much damage a knocked opponent does toward the tower). This consequently lessens the effect of juggling an opponent on its ceiling since it can break as you are juggling, allowing for the opponent to not take nearly as much damage as one would on a stage like Hyrule Castle or Luigi's Mansion.

Secondly, from multiple observations, the stage appears to stay destroyed for approximately 35 seconds before being completely rebuilt, which is actually quite long and allows for less obstruction than the average ceiling-based stage thus far.

Another thing that I would like to point out about the stage is how far above the characters the ceiling is. Normally, stages with caves of lives often tend to have low ceilings that approach the top of the character's model, as seen in the stages mentioned prior. There are some exceptions, but Great Plateau Tower's ceiling is tall enough to allow for normal gameplay since it's not immediately in the players' ways. Due to the stage's flat layout and high, but thin, ceiling, most horizontally-based gameplay is left untouched and thus allows for players to still play as per normal.

Again, while the Smash community has never taken a good light or good look at stages with "caves of life" or ceilings above them, Great Plateau Tower has many things that just make it appear to be more pro-competitive than every other stage of its kind. It's a one-of-a-kind take on the stage type it's in, after all.

I do think that instead of simply writing the stage off as banned before the game launches, I think that this stage needs to have a chance to be played in a few tournaments before the verdict is cast. I would personally give it 2 to 3 majors before announcing whether or not to keep the stage going forward. By then, we would have much more of a grasp on what the game would be like competitively.

I'm not saying to keep the stage legal, but rather, I'm just saying that this stage needs to have its fair chance is all.

(Edit: Regarding the health of the ceiling, it appears that the damage produced by colliding with the tower gradually ramps up as the knockback speed increases. For example, if a character collides on it in Sudden Death, they will immediately destroy the tower upon contact with it. Thusly, this allows for the tower to be broken even faster, which allows for more time on its neutral layout.)

 

[Kadji100]

I am mostly a lurker / watcher instead of active participation in the Smash scene, mostly Melee / Sm4ash (I skipped the trainwreck that was Brawl)
So here is my idea how to not only streamline the Stage Selection to not waste to much time before every MU (a thing that many people forget) but also allow the "maximum" possible amount of Stages. This should also work out for a best of 3 / Best of 5 Scenario.

Prerequirements:
The Community should decide on a List of stages that are as fair as possible to every Character on the Roster (which we basically have in the form of Neutral stages). The list of those can be relatively small (maybe 4 - 5 Stages).
The community should also decide on a list of perma-banned stages that can never be picked, no matter what.

Match 1:
Since Ultimate swaps the order of which characters / stages are picked the first Stage should be selected by Random. I am going to assume that this game will have a Stage Toggle for random Stage selection, so only the 4 - 5 starter Stages should be in the List of possible stages.

Side note: I realy hope that we have a way of seeing the "Random Stage" in the Character Select menu, otherwise the starting Stage should be picked by...i dont know the english term but basicallay write the stage names on paper, shuffle them, draw one -> thats your starting stage.

After "randomly" choosing the Stage every player picks his character. Since you know which stage is going to be played you have the option to pick the "best character" for that stage (since the first stage is neutral there should not be that much difference in viability between the characters).

Match 2:
Let the loosing player decide on the next stage. In my opinion EVERY stage, that is not explicitly Banned by Rules should be allowed to be chosen.
Only the loosing player shall be allowed to switch his character, the winner has to stick with its character.

My idea behind of this: It gives the loosing player a better opportnity to "turn the tides" - especially since the loosing player has the option to "outpick" his / her opponent.

Match 3 - 5: Repeat the process of match 2.

To make the process more fair (the community would have to sicuss that) let booth players bann X amounts of stages BEFORE ROUND 1.
If they know that they will be handicapped by certain stages with their Main Character rooster they can denie the worst counterpicks.
But once the first match Starts there is no need for more banns / strikes.

But why you may aks?
+ I think that this option could give us more freedom in stage choice and a higher varity in played stages, thus making it more exciting for spectators.
+ Stage Banning / Matches would be quick to setup

I would realy like to hear from the community (especially TOs) what they think of this.

PS: Sorry for any spelling / grammar mistakes in my post, english is not my native language, but i hope you can understand what my thought process is.

 

[Thinkaman]

I am mostly a lurker / watcher instead of active participation in the Smash scene, mostly Melee / Sm4ash (I skipped the trainwreck that was Brawl)
So here is my idea how to not only streamline the Stage Selection to not waste to much time before every MU (a thing that many people forget) but also allow the "maximum" possible amount of Stages. This should also work out for a best of 3 / Best of 5 Scenario.

Prerequirements:
The Community should decide on a List of stages that are as fair as possible to every Character on the Roster (which we basically have in the form of Neutral stages). The list of those can be relatively small (maybe 4 - 5 Stages).
The community should also decide on a list of perma-banned stages that can never be picked, no matter what.

Match 1:
Since Ultimate swaps the order of which characters / stages are picked the first Stage should be selected by Random. I am going to assume that this game will have a Stage Toggle for random Stage selection, so only the 4 - 5 starter Stages should be in the List of possible stages.

Side note: I realy hope that we have a way of seeing the "Random Stage" in the Character Select menu, otherwise the starting Stage should be picked by...i dont know the english term but basicallay write the stage names on paper, shuffle them, draw one -> thats your starting stage.

After "randomly" choosing the Stage every player picks his character. Since you know which stage is going to be played you have the option to pick the "best character" for that stage (since the first stage is neutral there should not be that much difference in viability between the characters).

Match 2:
Let the loosing player decide on the next stage. In my opinion EVERY stage, that is not explicitly Banned by Rules should be allowed to be chosen.
Only the loosing player shall be allowed to switch his character, the winner has to stick with its character.

My idea behind of this: It gives the loosing player a better opportnity to "turn the tides" - especially since the loosing player has the option to "outpick" his / her opponent.

Match 3 - 5: Repeat the process of match 2.

To make the process more fair (the community would have to sicuss that) let booth players bann X amounts of stages BEFORE ROUND 1.
If they know that they will be handicapped by certain stages with their Main Character rooster they can denie the worst counterpicks.
But once the first match Starts there is no need for more banns / strikes.

But why you may aks?
+ I think that this option could give us more freedom in stage choice and a higher varity in played stages, thus making it more exciting for spectators.
+ Stage Banning / Matches would be quick to setup

I would realy like to hear from the community (especially TOs) what they think of this.

PS: Sorry for any spelling / grammar mistakes in my post, english is not my native language, but i hope you can understand what my thought process is.

First, this is the current method with three differences:

• First match is a random "neutral"
• Winner gets no stage ban
• Winner cannot change characters

Second, this is actually (more or less) how things worked at the beginning of Melee. So let's look at why those 3 differences came about.

It was realized that some stages were just too biased against certain characters. If your opponent played Jigglypuff, you could force them to Corneria; or if they played Ganon, you could force them to Mute City. So, we started letting winners switch characters too--but forced them to do it before the loser.

But it was still pretty biased, especially because most players only play one character. So, it was decided that the winner should be allowed to ban a single stage. That way we'd never have to ban stages like Corneria, Green Green,s Mute City, Brinstar, and Rainbow Cruise.

Finally, in around 2009, Melee and Brawl events started getting sick of players randomly getting best or worst stages for game 1, like Jigglypuff on Dreamland or Ice Climbers on FD. So, we started doing stage striking instead, using lists of either 5 or 9. This removed the randomness and consistently gave the most fair stage (within the given group) for any given matchup. Costs of stage striking include taking a small but non-zero amount of additional time, confusing new players (who have to firmly remember what the neutral stage list is), and degenerating to a "let's just go to Smashville" malaise for many apathetic players.