EVO 2015: Melee or Smash 4?

[lokt]

Firstly I would like to argue that logistics shouldn't be a major factor on whether or not melee gets into EVO or not. We have the CRT Vault in socal and the smash community has dealt with these problems before. I'm sure most of us would agree that the game that is added to the EVO roster should be the one that has larger amounts of interest and exciting gameplay.

That said, I would prefer melee to be at evo next year. Personally I don't feel the excitement for sm4sh. While reading through this thread I came across this video :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU_EClaO7Sg.
What I saw was abadango camping and using projectiles while using double jumps, air dodging, and rolls to escape any close action. Meanwhile, nietono struggles to chase down pacman and repeatedly gets punished before getting an opening; This is the common theme of both games.
The first game was 3:38 long with 2 stocks.
The second game was 4:57 long.
in my experience, games get campier over time unless more offensive options are discovered. However, usually it is defensive options that are discovered. For example, olimar became a more powerful character in brawl as the metagame developed with the popularization of pivot grabs and pikmin sorting(camping gave time for olimar to obtain a better pikmin line-up). I personally don't find sm4sh an exciting game and would like to see melee at evo.

refutations:

Airdodging that induces helplessness is not necessarily or objectively better game design.

This is known as a strawman fallacy. No one ever claims that this sort of airdodging improved melee's game design directly.

And let's not forget that chaingrabbing is gone meaning you can't pick Sheik and d throw half the cast for a free win (Bowser vs Sheik is 90-10). No more ledge stalling because we all know what m2k does on the ledge with Sheik. Need I go on?

Sheik chaingrabbing is irrelevant in high levels of play because among the relevant characters, she can only chaingrab herself. Iirc she only gets one regrab on marth and can't cg any other top tier.

Instead of cherry picking certain elements of melee's metagame(that are irrelevant)to criticize, I would like you to address:
Melee's greater movement options compared to sm4sh.
Quicker gameplay that rewards offense(relative to sm4sh).
the added depth in melee's edge game.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

It's not an opinion though. I've explained why it is like 50 times, but you're clearly too pigheaded to listen to anything I say.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbM5iU3Y9QA

Wow, look at all those chaingrabs. Wanna show me some footage of Sheik chaingrabbing DK? His weight and fallspeed makes him not able to be chaingrabbed. You can techchase regrab, but you cannot chaingrab DK.

Also, have you considered that Ganon can chaingrab Sheik right back? Like 0 to 90%? Ganon also has a death chaingrab (like 12-140% and the kill-percent throws combo into kill moves) on spacies, even though it's difficult. Shouldn't those matchups be super in his favor though because he can chaingrab them to ridiculous percents? No, because chaingrabs don't ****ing matter. Quit talking out of your ***, dude. You're showing over and over that you have very little experience with competitive melee, but you refuse to quit spouting bull**** about things you don't know. Just stop.

Ignoring the fact Shiek's ability to get a grab is a million times better than Ganon's, it's not at all as fair as you're saying at all.

It's just a dumb if not worse than D3's CG in Brawl.

 

[Black Mantis]

Also, have you considered that Ganon can chaingrab Sheik right back? Like 0 to 90%? Ganon also has a death chaingrab (like 12-140% and the kill-percent throws combo into kill moves) on spacies, even though it's difficult. Shouldn't those matchups be super in his favor though because he can chaingrab them to ridiculous percents? No, because chaingrabs don't ****ing matter. Quit talking out of your ***, dude. You're showing over and over that you have very little experience with competitive melee, but you refuse to quit spouting bull**** about things you don't know. Just stop.

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Sheik_(SSBM)#In_Competitive_play

So either I'm wrong or the smash wiki (which compounds data for EVERY smash game) is wrong?

 

[Galespark]

If we cannot get both, then, Smash 4.

Melee doesn't need the EVO spotlight, Sm4sh does.

 

[Black Mantis]

Sheik chaingrabbing is irrelevant in high levels of play because among the relevant characters

Chaingrabs MADE characters irrelevant. Bowser is a character who has been historically bad for many reasons. One of them being is getting chaingrabbed. He's currently a top threat in smash 4 and with no chaingrabs he gets buffed. In Street Fighter, imagine if Zangief could command grab you once and do until low health/death with no hard knockdown in between (just repeated grabs)? Ok so you found one match where camping happens. I could watch Hungrybox vs Armada at Apex 2012 and assume Melee is campy you see how that works?

 

[hot_sexy_mario]

Since it's a fighting game tournament, I think I'll go with Melee.

 

[Scaremonger]

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Sheik_(SSBM)#In_Competitive_play

So either I'm wrong or the smash wiki (which compounds data for EVERY smash game) is wrong?

Did you seriously just quote SSBWiki?

SSBWiki is ******** and like 75% of the stuff on it is wrong.

As for your other post, chaingrabbing is not what makes Bowser irrelevant. Fox can get chaingrabbed super hard. The difference between Bowser and Fox is that Fox has the OPTIONS to not get grabbed. Bowser would suck ass, and the Sheik matchup would be 100-0, regardless of whether the Sheik chose to regrab.

 

[TunaAndBacon]

D*** yo why doesn't the OP make a poll of this, we could settle this through POLITICS.

 

[CriticalRibbon]

Ice climbers chaingrab EVERYONE from 0 to death and they're still exciting to watch and not broken (not to mention only 8th on the tier list). This discussion is irrelevant.

 

[KyUuKyUu]

Smash 4, especially in the undeveloped state it will be in by EVO, is going to be an embarrassment. Just like Brawl in 2008 - no hardcore Brawler has ever looked back on EVO 2008 and thought damn, good thing Brawl was there and represented us so well. Not only were the matches bad from a fighting games or smash point of view, but they were bad even from a Brawl point of view. It was trash, and not just from a Brawl-bashing perspective.

That said, I fully expect EVO to go with Smash 4 anyway. Our community (by which I mean competitive smashers who started more than a year ago) is really too small to have much sway against the hordes of Smash 4. Only Melee players want to see Melee, everyone else wonders where the new game is.

If the game is good, I would support its inclusion. But putting Smash 4 into EVO immediately, with little trial, coming from a developer known for not making the best competitive games, is complete folly.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Firstly I would like to argue that logistics shouldn't be a major factor on whether or not melee gets into EVO or not. We have the CRT Vault in socal and the smash community has dealt with these problems before. I'm sure most of us would agree that the game that is added to the EVO roster should be the one that has larger amounts of interest and exciting gameplay.

That said, I would prefer melee to be at evo next year. Personally I don't feel the excitement for sm4sh. While reading through this thread I came across this video :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU_EClaO7Sg.
What I saw was abadango camping and using projectiles while using double jumps, air dodging, and rolls to escape any close action. Meanwhile, nietono struggles to chase down pacman and repeatedly gets punished before getting an opening; This is the common theme of both games.
The first game was 3:38 long with 2 stocks.
The second game was 4:57 long.
in my experience, games get campier over time unless more offensive options are discovered. However, usually it is defensive options that are discovered. For example, olimar became a more powerful character in brawl as the metagame developed with the popularization of pivot grabs and pikmin sorting(camping gave time for olimar to obtain a better pikmin line-up). I personally don't find sm4sh an exciting game and would like to see melee at evo.

refutations:

This is known as a strawman fallacy. No one ever claims that this sort of airdodging improved melee's game design directly.

Sheik chaingrabbing is irrelevant in high levels of play because among the relevant characters, she can only chaingrab herself. Iirc she only gets one regrab on marth and can't cg any other top tier.

Instead of cherry picking certain elements of melee's metagame(that are irrelevant)to criticize, I would like you to address:
Melee's greater movement options compared to sm4sh.
Quicker gameplay that rewards offense(relative to sm4sh).
the added depth in melee's edge game.

The video in question is more or less you doing the same cherry picking you are accusing him of.


Pacman isn't really any different from watching people camp on melee. And it still is a lot less campy than Brawl could get.

 

[lokt]

Chaingrabs MADE characters irrelevant. Bowser is a character who has been historically bad for many reasons. One of them being is getting chaingrabbed. He's currently a top threat in smash 4 and with no chaingrabs he gets buffed. In Street Fighter, imagine if Zangief could command grab you once and do until low health/death with no hard knockdown in between (just repeated grabs)? Ok so you found one match where camping happens. I could watch Hungrybox vs Armada at Apex 2012 and assume Melee is campy you see how that works?

Chaingrabs didn't make "Bowser, Donkey Kong, Ganondorf, Link, Mr. Game & Watch, Ness, Pichu, Pikachu, Roy, and Young Link" irrelevant. I can confidently say that these characters are irrelevant due to a lack of useful options(besides pikachu).

Ok so you found one match where camping happens. I could watch Hungrybox vs Armada at Apex 2012 and assume Melee is campy you see how that works?

1. The "one match" that I found camping in is the most watched smash 4 3ds tournament match and the first match I have seen.
2. I have found more matches(4 of the first 5 matches on the japanese youtube account) to show you that this is not an outlier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G50eMJm9wxs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd6K3UrtPfk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz8A1UOH8A8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywaPDpuWx4k

3. This match is not comparable to hbox vs armada because the matchup is between a defensive character(pacman) and an offensive one(greninja). This shows that defense is a powerful tool in sm4sh even against an offensive character with high speed and projectiles. It would be more accurate to compare this sort of matchup to something like fox vs puff in melee.

 

[Black Mantis]

Welp this discussion is going nowhere. In the end smash 4 will more than likely win because Nintendo is behind it. No amounts of hate, wishful thinking, or spirit bombs can stop a company with deep pockets. I also asked a top level player I know and they told me that DK coulg get chaingrabbed by Sheik but, it doesn't matter anymore to me.

 

[Scaremonger]

Welp this discussion is going nowhere. In the end smash 4 will more than likely win because Nintendo is behind it. No amounts of hate, wishful thinking, or spirit bombs can stop a company with deep pockets. I also asked a top level player I know and they told me that DK coulg get chaingrabbed by Sheik but, it doesn't matter anymore to me.

Can you tell me who that top level player is? And can you have them contact me or something? Because Mew2King is my mom, and he told me that DK couldn't get chaingrabbed, and he also told me that [thing you said] is wrong, so obviously you're wrong.

 

[Habefiet]

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Sheik_(SSBM)#In_Competitive_play

So either I'm wrong or the smash wiki (which compounds data for EVERY smash game) is wrong?

I kinda thought everyone knew this but just so you know the matchup chart on ssbwiki is infamously wrong, hasn't been updated in years and years and is quite poor and not meaningful, and a lot of the info on the ssbwiki IS inaccurate or consists of broad generalizations that are only kinda true. It's not a great resource at this point in time.

I should also point out that you just linking that and somehow thinking countered his post very strongly implies that you didn't understand his post at all

I should also point out that Sheik's chaingrab doesn't really exist in the PAL version and her matchups with most mid and low tiers are still very good as others have tried to point out and that those characters would still be invalidated by other top characters anyway as others have pointed out and in any case your continued pushing this notion that Melee is somehow a bad game entirely because Sheik exists is really, really weird.

Anyway, on-topic

-----

I can't support any sufficiently new game being at something like Evo. Smash 4 won't have even been out a year yet and contrary to a weirdly prevalent belief among some of the more casual folks in the community that's not really a good thing. It'd be way, way too easy for someone to discover one big tech and plow through the entire tournament beating better players at the drop of a hat because they're the only one who knows the secret. Look at some of the issues early versions of P:M had where relative unknowns outright won or placed very high and you'll see what I mean. On that basis ALONE I'd support Melee over Smash 4, barring any sort of value judgment.

 

[EpixAura]

I'd really like to see Melee, but I don't mind Smash 4 instead. I will be angry if Melee gets more support but pressure from Nintendo makes them run Smash 4 instead, but other than that, any outcome is fine.

 

[lokt]

The video in question is more or less you doing the same cherry picking you are accusing him of.


Pacman isn't really any different from watching people camp on melee. And it still is a lot less campy than Brawl could get.

I definitely agree with you that I should have looked into more matches and I apologize for my bias. I provided additional examples of matches in a previous post.

Whether a game is exciting or not is definitely subjective, and when I said I prefer watching melee to sm4sh I was viewing this thread as a sort of poll in which mrwizard was collecting opinions.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Ice climbers chaingrab EVERYONE from 0 to death and they're still exciting to watch and not broken (not to mention only 8th on the tier list). This discussion is irrelevant.

I think they are boring as all hell in every game they have been in.

Chaingrabs didn't make "Bowser, Donkey Kong, Ganondorf, Link, Mr. Game & Watch, Ness, Pichu, Pikachu, Roy, and Young Link" irrelevant. I can confidently say that these characters are irrelevant due to a lack of useful options(besides pikachu).


1. The "one match" that I found camping in is the most watched smash 4 3ds tournament match and the first match I have seen.
2. I have found more matches(4 of the first 5 matches on the japanese youtube account) to show you that this is not an outlier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G50eMJm9wxs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd6K3UrtPfk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz8A1UOH8A8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywaPDpuWx4k

3. This match is not comparable to hbox vs armada because the matchup is between a defensive character(pacman) and an offensive one(greninja). This shows that defense is a powerful tool in sm4sh even against an offensive character with high speed and projectiles. It would be more accurate to compare this sort of matchup to something like fox vs puff in melee.

This is ignoring,

• Match up experience of the players
• What tier they would even be interns of power.
• The player factor.
• What the match up actually is.

I also don't know why you are cherry picking match-ups here either.

Peach vs Samus isn't gonna be that exciting in Melee either, but it plays out a lot slower than most matches.

On average a match will last 3 minutes with 2 stocks on smash 4.

 

[Mr. KoopaTurtle]

I support Melee. Smash 4 still has to prove itself in its competitive viability, and there are still some worying aspects of Smash 4.

-Combos are possible yet extremely limited and frankly unnecessary, leading to a not-so-exciting neutral game.
-Rolling and shielding are extremely strong. Defensive play just sems like a safer, easier, and stronger option at the moment.

We'll see though. I say we wait with Smash 4.

 

[standardtoaster]

@MrWizard Melee can be run on Monitors just like every game. A cheap solution is to use a Wii and the wii2hdmi converter which costs $30 each instead of using an Avermedia LGP for $150 each. It should be about the same latency as the LGP according to @Fizzi's post on reddit. It's definitely a cost effective solution that will allow you to run Melee at EVO again without having to rely on the community for TVs.

 

[CriticalRibbon]

To quote from a post elsewhere :

People don't seem to understand that EVO is a premier FGC tournament, not a smash exhibition.

I mean, there's even a not so silent minority of FGC members who would like to see smash as a whole, gone.

The people saying things like smash 4 is new and should get a chance or street fighter had two games at one point, so should smash don't seem to understand just what EVO is.

 

[EEvisu]

Wouldn't mind the WiiU version, 3DS sucks.

 

[aznforce817]

Smash 4 is Brawl 2.0 guys. No matter how much you guys wanna hype it up and all it's never going to be on a competitive and skill level of melee. You guys probably remember when brawl came out and people wanted it to be part of the evo lineup? That was one of he most disappointing things I have ever seen. And then Smash was taken off the EVO lineup due to lack of support and it was overall boring to watch. I went to this past EVO and had one of the best tournament experiences I have ever had. I listened to players from other fighting games comment how crazy the melee finals were and hype it was and i felt glad that the smash scene did a great job representing that smash was a legit and respectable fighting game. With twitch and other streaming sites growing in popularity, smash is getting the most exposure it has ever had since the beginning of EVO and MLG. I don't want smash to be wrongly represented until Smash 4 can prove itself to be on a competitive level enough to deserve to be played at the biggest fighting game tournament in the world. No game should be able to waltz into a tournament of that caliber.

Melee has my vote.

 

[Mr. KoopaTurtle]

Smash 4 is Brawl 2.0 guys. No matter how much you guys wanna hype it up and all it's never going to be on a competitive and skill level of melee. You guys probably remember when brawl came out and people wanted it to be part of the evo lineup? That was one of he most disappointing things I have ever seen. And then Smash was taken off the EVO lineup due to lack of support and it was overall boring to watch. I went to this past EVO and had one of the best tournament experiences I have ever had. I listened to players from other fighting games comment how crazy the melee finals were and hype it was and i felt glad that the smash scene did a great job representing that smash was a legit and respectable fighting game. With twitch and other streaming sites growing in popularity, smash is getting the most exposure it has ever had since the beginning of EVO and MLG. I don't want smash to be wrongly represented until Smash 4 can prove itself to be on a competitive level enough to deserve to be played at the biggest fighting game tournament in the world. No game should be able to waltz into a tournament of that caliber.

Melee has my vote.

This is basically my opinion, though not quite as extreme.

 

[KOAN]

Melee. I don't want Melee's future to be determined by Smash 4 scrubs who joined the community like 2 months ago. I doubt any of the people who posted in this thread will even attend Evo if Smash 4 is there.

 

[MTL Kyle]

or whatever when you won't let people say Brawl is a great fighting game.

I let them say. I strongly disagree and I propose a not so healthy and overused debate about why I don't consider it a great fighting game. I use the cursing "Brawltard" opposed to "Melee die hard fan" because only someone that's closed to it's own game can't accept facts. And it goes both ways, I'm not going to be hypocritical about it.

I was born a Brawl player, I still have fun with the game and I would love to compete in one-stock tournaments, because that's what I thought the scene needed. But unfortunately Brawl is not a good game to be played competitively and the community can't do much about it but accept.

I can't support any sufficiently new game being at something like Evo. Smash 4 won't have even been out a year yet and contrary to a weirdly prevalent belief among some of the more casual folks in the community that's not really a good thing. It'd be way, way too easy for someone to discover one big tech and plow through the entire tournament beating better players at the drop of a hat because they're the only one who knows the secret. Look at some of the issues early versions of P:M had where relative unknowns outright won or placed very high and you'll see what I mean. On that basis ALONE I'd support Melee over Smash 4, barring any sort of value judgment.

This is a really good point.

 

[Myran]

I let them say. I strongly disagree and I propose a not so healthy and overused debate about why I don't consider it a great fighting game. I use the cursing "Brawltard" opposed to "Melee die hard fan" because only someone that's closed to it's own game can't accept facts.

I was born a Brawl player, I still have fun with the game and I would love to compete in one-stock tournaments, because that's what I thought the scene needed. But unfortunately Brawl is not a good game to be played competitively and the community can't do much about it but accept.

Not really in a debate mood cause I'm about to be playing smash 4. Just wanna say this. Most people who argue aren't even open to the other side's ideas they just try to blindly shut down/convert. In my opinion it pretty much makes debating any of this pointless as most of the time as people are just slinging what they deem correct at the other person.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Personally if I had to pick one, it would be melee only for the fact a not janky rule set would be used, smash 4 isn't gonna have one yet or if it did I have a bad feeling if brawl Evo repeat where it used a rule set the community was strongly against.

After that or if a rule set could be made in good faith I would pick Smash 4. However, I would stress I would like both represented if possible.

 

[EPsilon933]

Smash 4 will help EVO a lot more than Melee would. Smash 4 is ridiculously hyped. Who outside of Melee's community cares about a 13 year old game that everyone's seen for too many years. Every gamer is loving Smash 4. Even traditional fighting gamers are excited for it

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

Holy **** you guys are stupid.

Melee is the only game that deserves to be at Evo. I have nothing against sm4sh, but we all already know it's not going to be better than melee.

 

[Video2gud]

Just look at numbers.
2007 Melee - 270 entrants
2008 Brawl - 110 entrants
2009 Brawl - 128 entrants
2013 Melee - 709 entrants
2014 Melee - 970 entrants

The data is there, numbers are severely higher with Melee than Brawl. Attendance DROPS (59.2%) when Brawl replaces Melee at EVO. Many people see Sm4sh as the new Brawl, and idk why you would ask this question when the game isn't out for Wii U. That's incredibly silly.

 

[MTL Kyle]

Not really in a debate mood cause I'm about to be playing smash 4. Just wanna say this. Most people who argue aren't even open to the other side's ideas they just try to blindly shut down/convert. In my opinion it pretty much makes debating any of this pointless as most of the time as people are just slinging what they deem correct at the other person.

It's pointless when people start ignoring the discussion to just represent their flags.
It feels like a soccer match sometimes

 

[Strong Badam]

Here's my opinion:

Smash games aren't like other fighting games. The community generally doesn't universally accept a new game, and often splits into subsections similarly to how different people play Marvel, Street Fighter, Tekken, etc. For a game to be competitively successful, it needs one of two things....
1. The game needs to be good. Good gameplay mechanics that encourage interaction, enjoyable to play and watch at all levels of play. Optimal strategy still fun.
2. The community needs to be especially passionate in loving their game, and put lot of effort into keeping the community growing and improving.

Melee had both of these and it's why it succeeded despite a sequel occurring and made it into two EVOs, 5+ years after its sequel's release. Not only is the game great, its community is full of passionate people who put a ton of effort into furthering the game's exposure, producing content, improving tournaments, production quality, streams, etc..

Brawl unfortunately had neither. I don't care to go into why it doesn't fulfill #1; that discussion has gone in circles for over half a decade. I'd say the super heavy supporters of Brawl dropping it entirely for its sequel should say enough... Moving on to 2:
Its community was (for the most part, not entirely) lazy and coasted on the relative "newness" of the game to attract new players, instead of putting hard work and effort into growth. When the game was dying, nothing was done for multiple years. The supposed "nail in the coffin," MLG having Melee instead of Brawl 4 years after Brawl's last year on the MLG Circuit, caused some community members to try to start a revival, but to no avail; it was simply too late. I am kind of depressed that Melee managed to have comparable numbers to Brawl for so many years despite Brawl being newer and then Melee overtook it by a landslide in the past year and a half.

Will Smash 4 have one or both of these qualities? I don't know for certain, and we won't know until later in the game's lifespan, after the dust of release hype settles. Generally, the main EVO lineup is determined in January or February. The Smash 4 community (which I fully intend to be a part of) simply won't get its opportunity to prove its worth in the first 3 months of its lifespan. Should it prove itself, I see no reason why it shouldn't be in EVO 2016. I however would be disappointed to see an unorganized Smash 4 community attend EVO 2015 and represent itself poorly, after the Melee community has put so much effort into getting itself into EVO (donation drive, providing its own setups which no other game at EVO does, breathtaking and hype gameplay for both of its showings). It'd be quite sad.

tl;dr

Let the Smash 4 community show its stuff before the game gets into EVO. To do otherwise wouldn't be fair to the other Smash games. I'll be doing what I can to help =)

 

[Myran]

It's pointless when people start ignoring the discussion to just represent their flags.
It feels like a soccer match sometimes

That's the internet for you.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I will say this for Evo15, if melee is still a main stage game. Project M should be booted for Smash 4

 

[Ashkon Honardoost]

Despite how tournament play for Smash4 works out I honestly don't think that it is viable to run a large scale event like Evo in a timely manner. The biggest problem would be getting enough setups to run a tournament effectively. Just look back at Evo 2013/2014 we already struggled with getting enough setups by the time of the actual event. I really doubt that Evo will provide enough setups to be able to run a 700+ man tournament without a rule set that promotes short sets. The matter of fact is that there weren't even enough people willing to donate full setups for melee which cost around $80 in today's market. There is no way we can get enough of the $600+ Smash 4 Setups. ($200 LCD Monitor, $250 basic wiiu, $80 game + adapter, + taxes).

I say for the logistic sense and the fact that the community is still thriving we should have Melee at Evo again. The community has been through a lot to make this game great and there is no stopping its growth.

 

[QWA]

All the people who joined Smashboards in the last month who say Smash 4 is better because it's newer scare me. The 3DS version has been out in the States for less than 2 hours, and that's probably not even the version that will be in the running for EVO in the first place. That is not nearly enough time for people to conclude that Smash 4 will be a fun, exciting game to watch. I want Smash 4 to be good really badly, but I seriously doubt that the game will have a developed enough rule-set to by the time EVO 2015 comes around.

tl:dr

Melee, because we don't know enough about Smash 4, and Melee is guaranteed hype.

 

[Miharu]

I can't support any sufficiently new game being at something like Evo. Smash 4 won't have even been out a year yet and contrary to a weirdly prevalent belief among some of the more casual folks in the community that's not really a good thing. It'd be way, way too easy for someone to discover one big tech and plow through the entire tournament beating better players at the drop of a hat because they're the only one who knows the secret. Look at some of the issues early versions of P:M had where relative unknowns outright won or placed very high and you'll see what I mean. On that basis ALONE I'd support Melee over Smash 4, barring any sort of value judgment.

This sums up my thoughts on the topic, but I have a feeling that it'll be largely irrelevant judging on how EVO has handled other games (with the most obvious being the SF and marvel series). If Nintendo is willing to buy Smash 4 a spot on the main stage, then it'll most definitely get one, Melee community or not.

I wouldn't mind seeing Smash 4 at EVO, but it's just regrettable that it probably has to come at Melee's expense.

Discussion also seems largely irrelevant/pointless as:

1) Smash 4 on the WiiU isn't even out yet (and this will presumably be the competition platform)
2) Nintendo really has the final say in the matter
3) There's an insanely large number of people that want to see Smash 4 at EVO regardless of perceived quality of play, and there honestly isn't much that people outside the majority can say to influence it

Of course I'd like to see Melee on the main stage at EVO 2015, but the pragmatist in me sees Smash 4 getting the final nod, and that's unfortunate given how hard the Melee community has worked to get Melee back into EVO for the past 2 years. Not to slight the help that other portions of the community gave towards the effort, but the Melee community (possibly PM) probably stands to lose the most here. It pains me to say this, but I don't see this ending well at all, especially given a general feeling of animosity between groups.

Goddamn we really should just try to get both Melee and Smash 4 on the main stage, I don't see any other satisfactory ending to this for me, sadly.

 

[RanserSSF4]

this is a tough decision for me personally. this highly depends on which one of the two you prefer the most. Although i have a good feeling melee will be the choice or possibly see both, if i had to choose which one to vote, it would be smash 4. it's new, it's faster, more hype than brawl, offers more aggressive options and every character is competively viable. it will never be as good as melee, but it will be better than brawl by far.

The two main problems the game does suffer are huge blastzones and the vectoring mechanic.

 

[Miharu]

Here's a couple of disagreements I have with your post:

1) Faster that Brawl by itself doesn't mean much at all if the movement options are still lacking.

2) I haven't even played the game and I can tell you with certainty that it isn't the case that the whole cast is viable in competitive play.

It's also quite frustrating seeing people this willing to drop Melee for an untested game, but it's not terribly surprising. It's understandable, but depressing.