Feelings on MK and the MK ban after Apex

[Sorto]

I am curious to see how opinions on Meta Knight and the Meta Knight ban have changed since/because of Apex.

My general topic ideas/questions are:

1. Does the fact that an Olimar outplaced all the USA MKs/players change anyones feeling about MKs dominance? May his dominance and banworthiness be based around an under evolved metagame as a whole?

2. Do the general results of the top 8/top 16 at Apex show a strong viability of characters other then MK. Such as snake, falco, olimar, ic, rob, etc?

3. From other posts I have read, it is my understanding that Japan does not think that MK is banworthy (again this is only heresay to me). I was curious if anyone does know the Japanese players thoughts on MK. I ask because it was my understanding that in the past Japans beliefs about MK were overlooked since our MKs outclasses there's. From Apex results, this does not seem to be the case.

4. Do players still feel so overwhelmingly convinced that MK should be banned now that Apex is over?

@zmx and like minded individuals who posted about this topic/idea/discussion before me- thanks for helping influence this topic discussion.

 

[Flayl]

I missed out on a few games from the GF, but did stages play any part on why Otori finally beat Nietono?

 

[Ghostbone]

If MK's dominance was because of an under evolved metagame, he was the one causing that, so he should still be banned imo.
MK can be tested for legality again in 6-12 months or something.

 

[Xubble]

I missed out on a few games from the GF, but did stages play any part on why Otori finally beat Nietono?

They ended on YI:B, which I believe is a good choice for Olimar due to the platform; and that's where Otori finished off Nietono, so Nietono lost on his own CP.

The stages weren't as polar as, say, RC, but all-in-all, Otori just outdid Nietono from what I saw.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

i still feel it's too difficult to regulate his edge/offstage shenanigans, i never really thought he was blatantly "too strong" to begin with.

 

[Cassio]

If MK's dominance was because of an under evolved metagame, he was the one causing that, so he should still be banned imo.
MK can be tested for legality again in 6-12 months or something.

I actually kind of agree with this. Although I wouldnt say it was MKs fault over Americas horrid mentality on competition. Still, a temp ban could still do some good; but there should be a lot of leniency on MK legal tournaments imo.

Its too bad something like a softban probably wouldnt work in the US.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Cassio, I like that. Should hold a vote in like half a year to bring him back.

 

[Sorto]

@ghostbone
Your argument:
If MK legal than metagame does not evolve.

Your argument is wrong. Proof by contradiction.

MK was legal in Japans metagame and it evolved beyond ours.

Mk was legal and metagame evolved. Since this occured your statement must be false.

But for all the whiney players, I see a temp soft ban as a valid-ish solution.

I am still very against a full ban. Even tho the community as a whole seems for it. And I feel there should be a new vote given the results of Apex to see if the ban is so strongly favored

 

[JTsm]

It should also be mentioned that the Japanese only uses 3 neutral stages as opposed to how many we have. Just something that's worth mentioning.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

LOL at "whiny pro-ban."

Anti-ban has done nothing BUT WHINE since the ban was announced

 

[Sorto]

Japan has a different stagelist and timer setting (longer).

Two ideas MK anti ban players supported.

@Jtsm

 

[Sorto]

LOL at "whiny pro-ban."

Pro-ban has done nothing BUT WHINE since the ban was announced

They were whining long before that haha.

 

[Juushichi]

you mean Anti-ban, SFP.

Hey John#'s, good **** getting out of R1 pools. What'd you think of MX (PM me)?

 

[Sorto]

I am curious if players opinions on the ban have changed since the results at Apex.

I haven't seen a lot of response to that..

 

[Mister Eric]

I am down for him getting unbanned. I voted ban on the last vote. But just seeing all the development this character has gone through makes me miss him personally. Sure he's kinda sorta OP. Not saying he isn't. It sucks because there's a beepton of MKs in the U.S. but that's just the way it goes. Top tier gets abused. If this was 3 years ago, w/e I'd be okay with it. But I feel it's too late now regardless of whether it sucks to see quad MKs in teams or MK ditto finals.
What I personally get out of having him legal is a character that knows how to discipline my mistakes and I like that. He makes me better overall despite struggling with him. Seeing non MK Japanese players not giving a beep about MK (like OCEAN) is encouraging for me. It makes me want to go even harder.
Idk...I really do miss the bat ball. It's sad lol.

 

[Juushichi]

Eric, you're like a woman in a bad relationship.

Jokes aside, there's time to grow for all of us. You get to break down more anti-MK tech from Ocean and play around against MK's here in the midwest (assuming we still host things, which I hope we do) with no real tournament stress, refine your technique and generally improve more like the rest of us in the US need to and we can approach MK again in like 6 months to a year. I think it's still kind of a win-win. We really kind of need to break down Olimar right now.

 

[Cassio]

Sorto the reason that happened is because in the US we rely on powerful tactics and characters to achieve success. So everyone flocks to powerful characters without focusing as much as they should on personal improvement. I dont think thats just the brawl/smash community either. In Japan they focus on their skill as players and being able to win on their personal skill. Thats why I think a temp ban could be good, and hopefully try to shift that mentality.

Mister Eric I still remember your funny post in the ban annoucement thread, lol. You should make one about Ocean.

 

[DUB]

I am curious if players opinions on the ban have changed since the results at Apex.

I haven't seen a lot of response to that..

What do you mean changed since results? There were 3MKs in top 5 and 4 MKs in the top 2 of Doubles. Ness did not win this tournament.

 

[BlueXenon]

I think the problem with MK is that the best MK's go to the same tournaments.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

While we were gonna shut down MK ban talk after the thread did it's course, I think it is fine to let people talk about how it can affect after APEX results.

However, let's keep it civil.

 

[**Havok**]

Japan has given us a harsh lesson and I honestly think we need to reconsider the ban. They beat mew2king with rob for god sakes.

If they can outplay m2k clones, we can too. I don't know about you guys but I want salty runbacks.

We need to do something about it because american performance was subpar (except for nairo) against the japanese.

 

[Sorto]

What do you mean changed since results? There were 3MKs in top 5 and 4 MKs in the top 2 of Doubles. Ness did not win this tournament.

If you ban MK. Ness still wont win.

In general the top results are less MK heavy and much less MK mains heavy

 

[Sorto]

While we were gonna shut down MK ban talk after the thread did it's course, I think it is fine to let people talk about how it can affect after APEX results.

However, let's keep it civil.

Thanks!

And will do!

 

[~ Gheb ~]

The only limitation for MK that makes sense is to ban double MK in teams. Other than that he should be left alone. I'll post more thorough posts on the issue later when I have more time but I think we can all agree that double MK in teams should not be allowed.

 

[**Havok**]

If you ban MK. Ness still wont win.

In general the top results are less MK heavy and much less MK mains heavy

Fow.

I think priority should be placed on getting our country better. Think about the big picture, we need to compete against Japan.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I wanna see the full brawl results first, cause I'm not sure where everyone was listed overall.

 

[Deleted member]

The ban isn't even official until today.

Let it have some time to pull results in before we talk about unbanning him.

 

[Cassio]

Honestly I think double MK teams wouldnt be so bad if people took teams as seriously as singles, and strategies for specific teams were developed to counter it and practiced enough. The problem is teams has more or less become a glorified side event, though thats understandable given the time commitment brawl singles takes. Doubles is likely to be perpetually underdeveloped.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

The only limitation for MK that makes sense is to ban double MK in teams.

Except that many pros would argue that double MK actually isn't as strong as MK-Snake, MK-Wario, and/or MK-G&W. The problem is simply that we had both Kakera+Otori and Anti+Mew2King in the bracket. Think about that one for a moment. One of those teams contains arguably the best player in the world, and very probably the best Metaknight in the world, teaming with his brother (also one of the very best Metaknights in the world), with obscene team play and strings; the other one of those teams consists of the "Metaknight handbook" and "the world's best doubles player" (although, to be fair, Anti might lose that title to Otori), both extremely amazing metaknights. I don't think the problem is double metaknight, but rather the players.


Either way, APEX did offer a lot of food for thought, and some arguments for both sides... I'll skip Pro-ban, because, well, I'm not pro-ban, but I think in that regards, 4 MKs in top 8, 2 in top 3, and 1 in top 1 kinda speaks for itself... But the anti-ban side, I'lll gladly bring up a few points.


Anti-ban:

1. The top-placing MKs are either internationals or the usual suspects. There is NOBODY who can reasonably doubt that Nairo and Ally are among the best players in the world, and there's no way you can really doubt that for Kakera or Otori either. I'll get back to those two in a minute... But in any case, we're not seeing "randoms" placing well with MK; we're seeing established top players (most with really, really good secondary chars*– Kakera's ICs, Otori's Diddy/ICs, Ally's Snake and Wario) placing pretty much where you'd expect them to place.
2. Japan probably won't come to MK-banned tournaments. This is a huge loss for us, because, well...
3. Japan stomped us. I've been saying this for quite a while, but our metagame has room to grow. Lots of room. I mean, for ****'s sake, Mew2King lost to OCEAN. A ROB MAIN! Otori and Nietono essentially crapped on almost everyone they met in the bracket. And they earned it – Nietono was showing off a degree of mastery with Olimar that we have never seen before, and Otori basically pulled a Salem on us... with the character we thought was done evolving. If this isn't time to take a step back and reevaluate our metagame and how we view the game as a whole, I don't know when is.

And it gets worse. You know how Japan finds our "ban MK" ideas somewhere between "hilarious" and "sad"? Well guess what: this was Otori's first tournament win. He has never won a tournament before. They have to deal with multiple MKs of that caliber (him, Kakera, Masashi) at pretty much every tournament, and they beat them to the point where banning MK seems unthinkable to them. Holy ****, guys! If I was one of the top pro-ban players, especially one who uses ROB, ICs, Falco or Olimar*, I would seriously be wondering what the **** I am doing wrong.



Of course, this doesn't solve the basic problems in the USA. MK is still ridiculously dominant, and turning this ban around before at least 6 months to a year has passed is kinda foolish, and obviously isn't going to happen. That said... We really should be thinking about what Japan has to teach us in this situation. I still think the problem is the USA metagame, and the way the USA looks at the game. However, that isn't going to solve itself, and until it gets solved, one way or another, MK needs to be banned in the USA.

Spoiler

And how free EU is in brawl.

* (ROB because of OCEAN, Olimar because of Nietono, Falco and ICs because of top Japanese pros like LSL and 9B that couldn't make it but supposedly are among the very best in the country)

 

[Nidtendofreak]

So, this thread is basically suggesting One tournament > 75% of the community's opinion a few months ago is a possibility?

Sorry, but no. I'm not even ready to call Japan > NA/Europe. There would need to be more data than one tournament, it's far too small of a sample size to call anything. Nor can you say that the US's metagame was "underdeveloped" because of the MK ban...because it wasn't in effect until like, today. The other characters haven't had a chance to grow without MK around at all, and the MK mains were probably at their lowest yesterday knowing that it's the last day where they can use their main at most tournaments.

To think anything as changed based off of one tournament would be completely silly. Only those riding either hype train would have a change of mind, and their mind could probably be very easily changed again. Quite frankly...APEX is irrelevant in terms of MK's ban.

 

[MEOW1337KITTEH]

HAHAHAHA oh wait, you're serious

 

[Juushichi]

Niddo, you're silly.

BPC made probably the best post I've seen on this entire matter for quite some time.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Sorry, but no. I'm not even ready to call Japan > NA/Europe.

M2K. Lost. To. A. ROB.

Seriously, did you even look at the sets Otori and Nietono were in? Otori basically completely wrecked everyone except Nairo, who almost went even but still lost; Nietono essentially destroyed the loser bracket. Japan wrecked us. This is clearly visible in the sets, with them completely outclassing many of our very best players. Seriously, did you see Nietono vs. Ally? Ally got his *** handed to him! Ally! The top Japanese players are simply on a different level. And the saddest part? Otori has never won a tournament before. 9B and LSL, arguably two of the very best in Japan, couldn't make it. We all got wrecked by their equivalent to Dabuz and ADHD: definitely top players, but not who you think of when you think "best in the country".

To think anything as changed based off of one tournament would be completely silly. Only those riding either hype train would have a change of mind, and their mind could probably be very easily changed again. Quite frankly...APEX is irrelevant in terms of MK's ban.

Irrelevant? No. Not in the slightest. Should it instantly reverse the decision? Hell, even if Top 8 had more Ganon than Metaknight, I'd disagree with that sentiment. But it's not irrelevant. There are lessons for both the EU and America. EU's simpler lessons are pretty blatantly clear (WE HAVE GOT TO GET BETTER AT BRAWL GUYS), but there are more nuanced lessons in here, lessons about how the game is played, and how we look at competition. To write it off as "just one tournament" is ridiculous.

<3 Juushichi

 

[Kewkky]

>people implying USA's mentality is the same as the Japanese's mentality.
>people implying MK users would pour time into their main, which will be banned the day after, meaning wasted time.
>people implying we have the same ruleset as the Japanese.
>BPC implying he knows what points actually matter to proban and instead half of his proban points are an insult.
>people sure that MK needs to be banned, getting beat by a Japanese MK, then going back on their votes.


People. :I

 

[TheReflexWonder]

We see Ice Climbers and Olimar as often as we do because they're among a very small handful of characters that can put up a solid fight against Meta Knight.

Mew2King is not an ideal indicator of top level Meta Knight play.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Mew2King is not an ideal indicator of top level Meta Knight play.

I wonder if it's unfair to list him under the Worf effect... Eh, probably.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

>people implying USA's mentality is the same as the Japanese's mentality.
>people implying MK users would pour time into their main, which will be banned the day after, meaning wasted time.
>people implying we have the same ruleset as the Japanese.
>BPC implying he knows what points actually matter to proban and instead half of his proban points are an insult.
>people sure that MK needs to be banned, getting beat by a Japanese MK, then going back on their votes.


People. :I

This.

I'm not say that either region (US or Japan) is better. They're different for sure, but there is not enough data to say either one is better. We have maybe one tournament a year where we interact, and this tournament is easily arguable as the lowest point for the NA players for one reason or another.

And it is just that: one tournament. It's not a trend, it's not concrete proof of anything in either direction: it's one event. If people maining those characters Japan showed off try to pick up the Japanese style of play with them, all the more power to them and I'm not saying Japan wasn't impressive. However, it doesn't prove anything in either direction. It doesn't prove that it's not just a different playing style that NA/Europe could adapt to after playing against it enough times.

Also, calling it now: M2K is going to say ROB beats MK like he's said for nearly every character he has lost against before.

 

[Kewkky]

I think USA doesn't "play to win". They think they have the mentality, but where's the practicing for top players? Where's the commitment to their mains? Where's the potisive attitude? FAR from "playing to win", IMO. Even lower players don't "play to win", they see something that looks like a shortcut and flock to it instead of developing their basic skills. "HA I can beat you now that I main MK! I'm better than you!", hardly and far from the truth. At that point in time that player would get beaten by others who have more basic skill and character knowledge than him, yet he keeps using MK nevertheless.

If people would really play to win, they would show it more than they show their MKs.


Minus the real MK mains, of course. They still need to practice more instead of every other day or only when a tourney is coming up. Also, they need to stay away from the ledge if they wanna get better on stage. Just saying.


Lastly, MK banned doesnz't mean he disappears from USA. It just means that MK-allowed tourneys will take the place of MK-banned tourneys, and viceversa. Just attend whichever floats your boat until a new vote happens.

 

[M@v]

I still don't regret voting for the ban. When I voted for the ban, I never was dead set it would be a permanent ban either. There should always be flexibility allowed in rulesets to flow with evolving metagames.

The argument that Nietono beating all of our mks doesn't work since his two loses were to Nairo(mk) and Otori(mk). So that statement is wrong.

 

[Cassio]

lol, from what I heard that was Otoris first tournament win.

Niddo you seeming so uninformed y? Did you even watch the tournament? It wasnt just who beat who, from watching the matches themselves it was very clear.