Feelings on MK and the MK ban after Apex

[Kimidori]

@Kimidori I'm a smash scrub, but I've also been keeping light tabs on the competitive scene as well, so I guess I'll bite.

The counter-pick stage portion of Brawl to me seems like an interesting source of depth to the amount of strategy required on each player's behalf and is a way of making the competitive scene more interesting. While I think it's a valid source of concern, I must also ask this: what other characters have no counterpicks? Is Metaknight the only character who commits this offense, or does it apply to Diddy Kong or Falco as well, or some other such currently high-place character? If Metaknight is the only one that a player can't choose an effective counter-pick against, then that kind of says to me that the problem is the character itself, not the stage ruleset.

Also consider this: Even with Japan's simplified and completely neutral stage selection, Metaknight is still rated S+ tier. This is coming from the nation with players that are clearly superior to ours. Smashville didn't change this for doubles; I watched the finals of APEX, the singles were great, but MK+MK+MK+MK is without question the worst bit of video I have tried to sit through and stomach in recent history. And unless counter-pick stages are a huge factor of what is put into consideration in the Brawl tier lists, banning counter-pick stages isn't going to change the fact that Metaknight has no disadvantageous matchups (unlike any other class, not even a 45:55), is relatively easy to do well with competitively, and because of these two facts causes competitive Brawl to be extremely centralized around that specific character. Melee may work perfectly fine with the competitive setup it has, but Fox was duking it out with Falco, Jigglypuff, Shiek and possibly Marth for years before solidifying his stance as number one, and his skill curve is completely incomparable to Metaknight's. Melee is to apples as Brawl is to oranges. Or bananas, even.



I respect Japan's decision to simply the stage setup, and that might actually be a good idea for some US tournaments as well if the host wanted to focus solely on Brawl's characters without any complications introduced by counterpick stages or even gimmicky neutrals. I don't think it will change the fact that Metaknight's presence will make the viable character selection less diverse and the experience less enjoyable for anybody playing or watching the tournament, and it CERTAINLY won't stop MK from being the best character in the game.

I totally understand where you're coming from. But of course Meta Knight is still S+ tier, he is now and shall always be, no matter what happens to stages, or even if items come. He's just that good. BUT, he's not good enough to be banned from competitive play. I also saw Apex both Doubles and Singles GF's, and, call me insane, but I liked both. I know it may be sickening to watch four Meta Knights play in one match but it happens. Also, remember that people don't play for other people's enjoyment. ;P Maybe someone like Mango does, but Hbox and Armada just play to win, therefore, they have the right mindset and do win.

I personally think it's fun watching and playing as Meta Knight (Keep in mind my opinions on Meta Knight do not at all bias towards my opinion on the ban). I really enjoyed watching people from another country who America thought they were better than totally take the character to a new level. I think it's weird some people want to stick with the ban when, Japan has not only taken other characters to higher places than America, but have even taken Meta Knight himself to a new level, to a level in which they can compete with him well.

We all know Meta Knight is even popular in Japan. But have most people notice that they are not just "Pocket Meta Knights" Like America has? Take Kakera, for example. He rocks the Ice Climbers very well, but he also is able to use Meta Knight like he only uses Meta Knight. Most of the MK users in Japan have taken him on as a complete character, just like Ally has balanced Meta Knight and Snake here, and they are not the pointless ones many Americans think they can win with just because they're using a character with no low matchups.

On the stage theory, yes, Meta Knight is the only one with NO counterpicks whatsoever. Disregarding the Apex banning of RC and Brinstar, Diddy, Falco, and even Snake don't do very well on those stages. Diddy has complete ground control over the game, whereas Rainbow Cruise is dominant to air controlling characters such as, well, Jigglypuff even. Stages like RC and Brinstar give such an advantage to some characters, that well, it in fact DOES harshly affect the metagame. That's why Japan is so superior. Because they don't focus on counterpicking, they focus on character skill. Another motive they may have over us is that they don't usually play for money.

 

[Kimidori]

but they are struck by it, since this all began by "look at how japan destroyed our meta's with rob and oli, see, he's not that broken".

Keeping MK has crushed the metagame already, how could it crush it even more when there's currently a semi stale development of metagame along for over half the cast of characters? Also, I'm also a supporter of banning some stages, like RC or Brinstar so you're preaching to the choir here. Yet in any case, again you're modifying the entire game's rules to accommodate one character. Not three or four, but one single character.

Okay, I understand your deeper opinions now.
I must point out your statement that we're changing the rules to fit one character. But in all honesty, it's not. It is simply evening the playing field twenty times more than it is now to keep the game more about skill than about "counterpicking". I think America has become so obsessed with counterpicking, that it subtracts from so much skill they should be putting into the game. I also believe that narrowing stages down to a small amount of them will, after a few tourneys, make the lower half of players realize that Meta Knight is not the only choice, because, he will, like in Japan, not have total control over a player winning or losing in the game.

From what I've read I also understand you think people should stop choosing Meta Knight because he is an "insta win" but instead the ban will give them a chance to focus on their other characters. But, IMO, if we rennovate the stages first, people will see that their Meta Knight is not as good as they thought, and that they should start focusing on the character their playstyle fits best with. When I play, I use all sorts of characters. I just use whatever I think I'll do best with. When people play really good players and get beaten when they're using a character they think they can't lose with (Most likely to happen if we switch up the stages), they are most likely to realize that that character might just not be right for them. We can't make people stop playing as Meta Knight through a ban. It's easier to let them see for themselves that they should stick to their old characters.

After an eye surgery, Would you rather force somebody's eyes open, no matter what way it might affect the things around them (including their disdain for you, if that matters), or would you rather give them some numbing drops and let them open their eyes themselves?

Edit: And in reality, to stop Meta Knight from becoming so amazing and banworthy in the first place, we should've rennovated the stagelist anyway. It's the only way to ensure maximum peak of gameplay in the future when we have every character (best or worst) able to improve skill by a ton. Banning is a (as been said before by the maker of this thread) Last resort. Why not at least try simpler stages before we jump to conclusions that Meta Knight is "broken" (When really, he's not.)?

 

[TurboPikachu]

Another motive they may have over us is that they don't usually play for money.

^^^ That plays a bigger role in the JP metagame than we think.

 

[Blue Warrior]

I totally understand where you're coming from. But of course Meta Knight is still S+ tier, he is now and shall always be, no matter what happens to stages, or even if items come. He's just that good. BUT, he's not good enough to be banned from competitive play. I also saw Apex both Doubles and Singles GF's, and, call me insane, but I liked both. I know it may be sickening to watch four Meta Knights play in one match but it happens. Also, remember that people don't play for other people's enjoyment. ;P Maybe someone like Mango does, but Hbox and Armada just play to win, therefore, they have the right mindset and do win.

I personally think it's fun watching and playing as Meta Knight (Keep in mind my opinions on Meta Knight do not at all bias towards my opinion on the ban). I really enjoyed watching people from another country who America thought they were better than totally take the character to a new level. I think it's weird some people want to stick with the ban when, Japan has not only taken other characters to higher places than America, but have even taken Meta Knight himself to a new level, to a level in which they can compete with him well.

We all know Meta Knight is even popular in Japan. But have most people notice that they are not just "Pocket Meta Knights" Like America has? Take Kakera, for example. He rocks the Ice Climbers very well, but he also is able to use Meta Knight like he only uses Meta Knight. Most of the MK users in Japan have taken him on as a complete character, just like Ally has balanced Meta Knight and Snake here, and they are not the pointless ones many Americans think they can win with just because they're using a character with no low matchups.

On the stage theory, yes, Meta Knight is the only one with NO counterpicks whatsoever. Disregarding the Apex banning of RC and Brinstar, Diddy, Falco, and even Snake don't do very well on those stages. Diddy has complete ground control over the game, whereas Rainbow Cruise is dominant to air controlling characters such as, well, Jigglypuff even. Stages like RC and Brinstar give such an advantage to some characters, that well, it in fact DOES harshly affect the metagame. That's why Japan is so superior. Because they don't focus on counterpicking, they focus on character skill. Another motive they may have over us is that they don't usually play for money.

I'd like to make an example from Team Fortress 2, one of only a few games where I have studied its competitive play and exposed myself to it for a fair amount of time, to get you to better see my view on competitive in general.

In Team Fortress 2, two teams of players try to compete for a common goal, and each player can choose one of nine classes. For competitive's sake, of course, you have to limit which game modes are valid, 6v6 was long ago considered the perfect competitive team limits, each class is restricted per team to 2 or 1 (depending on the effect on gameplay that class has, either for flow of the match or for balance reasons), and so on. While Team Fortress 2 has a "normal" setup consisting of two scouts, two soldiers, a demoman and a medic, scouts and soldiers are sometimes swapped out for the other five "utility" classes the game has to offer, meaning that every class (even the spy) has some competitive viability, even though it doesn't get as much playtime as the soldier, demo, or medic.

Team Fortress and Smash Bros. are two very different series, and one is made for competitive play while the other isn't. What strikes me about TF2 is that even though competitive play is a totally different experience from public server gameplay a lot of the time, the spirit of Team Fortress 2 is there. You are working as a team, and it is is a ton of fun to watch all of the crazy headshots, airshots, meatshots, explosive jumps, team coordination etc. that you might find in casual TF2 but not to nearly the level of mastery displayed by the professionals. Those moments where someone offclasses sniper, pyro, spy, or engineer can make for some really interesting highlights on a stream, and the fact that they're even used at all will keep casual players from feeling completely alienated to the idea of TF2 being played competitively.

They play for money, definitely. There is skill involved in it, and it is a serious event, but it is also fun, and I believe the key to a successful competitive videogame community is the spirit of the game, not just the fact that people can make money off of it. Metaknight mirrors being displayed half of the time on livestreams is not going to attract people into competitive Brawling, and besides, do you really want your contestants to bet on who can be the best metaknight or who can counter that metaknight the most proficiently, or do you find much more value in competitive play when people are putting intense thought into which character they select or the stage they choose to try and give them a strategic upper hand? That, I think, is the kind of competitive play that is going to keep a game's replay value strong, and it'll be a lot more fun to watch.



So yeah, you have some points on counter-pick stages, but I think it's really a matter of, again, whether the host wants his contestants to focus solely on character skill or also put counter-picking into their strategy. Stage restrictions are an option, but I still firmly believe banning Metaknight is a necessity, because it detracts from the "spirit" of Brawl.

 

[Blue Warrior]

Although, just as a side note, if Balanced Brawl was used for all Unity Ruleset tournaments, I think competitive Brawl would be a lot more attractive and we would have been able to push aside all this MK funny business.

 

[Attila_]

let's be honest, most the this arguing will never be resolved.

valid arguments exist for both sides, and that makes this difficult.

although one thing that i would like answered: is anyone willing to argue that mk should not be banned in doubles?

i cant think of a valid defence.

 

[Kimidori]

They play for money, definitely. There is skill involved in it, and it is a serious event, but it is also fun, and I believe the key to a successful competitive videogame community is the spirit of the game, not just the fact that people can make money off of it. Metaknight mirrors being displayed half of the time on livestreams is not going to attract people into competitive Brawling, and besides, do you really want your contestants to bet on who can be the best metaknight or who can counter that metaknight the most proficiently, or do you find much more value in competitive play when people are putting intense thought into which character they select or the stage they choose to try and give them a strategic upper hand? That, I think, is the kind of competitive play that is going to keep a game's replay value strong, and it'll be a lot more fun to watch.



So yeah, you have some points on counter-pick stages, but I think it's really a matter of, again, whether the host wants his contestants to focus solely on character skill or also put counter-picking into their strategy. Stage restrictions are an option, but I still firmly believe banning Metaknight is a necessity, because it detracts from the "spirit" of Brawl.

If you scroll up to my replies to Elessa, you'll see some points I've also made. It makes sense that it takes away from the spirit of Brawl, but I think you're missing the other piece of information that ties into taking away stages. It will cause less Meta Knight players to continue playing Meta Knight because they will realize he's not always the best choice of all. People should go off of who they do best with, not who the game says is best. For instance, playing Melee, I've used G&W a lot. G&W for goodness sakes! It's because I like how he plays and I'm able to use him decently.

I have had a lot of struggles finding characters to use lately. That's why I use a plethera of characters. I use Meta Knight sometimes (again, not biased towards my opinion on the ban ), but that's because I like his play style and I'm actually good with him. Not because he's the best character. The first character I actually ever used in Brawl was Meta Knight, lol. I liked how he is.

Bottom line is this.
1. Japan has taken Meta Knight to another level
2. Japan is still able to deal with Meta Knight well with other characters EVEN though they made him better than we have him here.
3. America went and banned him before even knowing that, even at a higher level of Meta Knight, he can still be beaten. (Hence why, Japan both has the best Meta Knights and the best players in Japan are Olimar and IC's players.

 

[Blue Warrior]

If you scroll up to my replies to Elessa, you'll see some points I've also made. It makes sense that it takes away from the spirit of Brawl, but I think you're missing the other piece of information that ties into taking away stages. It will cause less Meta Knight players to continue playing Meta Knight because they will realize he's not always the best choice of all. People should go off of who they do best with, not who the game says is best. For instance, playing Melee, I've used G&W a lot. G&W for goodness sakes! It's because I like how he plays and I'm able to use him decently.

A lot of what you brought up here is actually what concerns me; Yoshi comes fairly naturally to me, but only because I read up on it, went into practice mode for a little bit and learned about Yoshi's unique strengths. Once I did, he's a blast. But way before when I was maining Mario, I would just pick up Metaknight for the first time and I could just dominate with ease, and any other of my local Brawl-playing friends with a shred of integrity could do the same. Considering Metaknight is a naturally easy character to play as, I think you're putting too much faith in the idea that people who choose what they're good with helps this scenario.

Metaknight may have situations where he is not the best possible character to play as, but how frequent are these situations? What are they, and when they come up, is Metaknight ever truly at a disadvantage if you decide to choose him? We know that the finals at APEX had Olimar toppling over some Metaknights, but the Olimar was clearly a master of his kind. If it was just a 50:50 match-up, is there truly much incentive to learn how to play anything but Metaknight if your main goal is winning? Olimar is harder to learn after all, and he does have a few disadvantageous matchups unlike MK. This element bothers me, because it is easy for a vast majority of players to bend toward Metaknight, and the advantages of doing so are blatant.

I have had a lot of struggles finding characters to use lately. That's why I use a plethera of characters. I use Meta Knight sometimes (again, not biased towards my opinion on the ban ), but that's because I like his play style and I'm actually good with him. Not because he's the best character. The first character I actually ever used in Brawl was Meta Knight, lol. I liked how he is.

I can totally relate. I only play friendlies of course, but I have a lot of different characters I like to shift between because of their unique qualities, Metaknight included. It would be really awesome if more tournaments started using hacks like Balanced Brawl, because there are so many cool playstyles that are left unventured by the competitive scene simply because hardcoded imbalances weigh them down.

Bottom line is this.
1. Japan has taken Meta Knight to another level
2. Japan is still able to deal with Meta Knight well with other characters EVEN though they made him better than we have him here.
3. America went and banned him before even knowing that, even at a higher level of Meta Knight, he can still be beaten. (Hence why, Japan both has the best Meta Knights and the best players in Japan are Olimar and IC's players.

Agreed. I've never preached that Metaknight is near-unstoppable, only that he's the source of an unpleasant centralization.

let's be honest, most the this arguing will never be resolved.

valid arguments exist for both sides, and that makes this difficult.

although one thing that i would like answered: is anyone willing to argue that mk should not be banned in doubles?

i cant think of a valid defence.

Both arguments are correct, because the "idealistic" competitive brawl is subjective. Different people expect different things from the tournament scene. There shouldn't be this much argument over how Brawl should be played competitively: people should just accept the fact that Brawl is inherently flawed and that no one ruleset is going to appeal to every type of person who wants to participate.

There should be multiple rulesets to allow for gameplay flexibility. Consider the Unity ruleset allowed for subdivised rulesets, like:

-Balanced Brawl
--Counter-picks or the Big Three
-Vanilla Brawl
--Metaknight Banned

--All characters allowed
---Counter-picks or the Big Three
--Low Tier
etc.

I don't think it's a good idea for Brawl's competitive community to focus on one ruleset, that's what's causing this whole mess to begin with. What you need to do is compromise and allow for different kinds of events that will make everyone happy.



but hey man whatever, I don't even play comp brawl so don't listen to me

 

[Black Mantis]

Another motive they may have over us is that they don't usually play for money.

^^^this is true. That's kinda why MK is the way he is in the US.

 

[Vermanubis]

I know what you mean, but I'm not trying to comfort people by saying "just give it your best and you'll win!" because it's a lie. What I mean is that people quitting the game or switching mains stagnates the metagame and thus, it just reinforces the OPness of MK. Again, he can be beaten (possibly not by the entire cast), but for that you need to be a great player, and that takes a lot more dedication and commitment to the game than most people are willing or capable of giving it.

Plus, Verm mains freaking ganon and he hasn't given up, but keeps on going and has done amazing things with the character, just like San. They stuck to their character even though people said it's impossible and they now lead the metagame. That's what the entire cast needs, passion and commitment, and that's probably the only thing the Japanese have on top of the US, hence why they haven't banned MK.

But in the US? It is necessary imho.

I appreciate the mention, and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment.

Japan won because of passion for their characters. Ocean is passionate about ROB--he plays nothing but, and look where it got him as opposed to other ROBs who defect in hard MUs. You have to be passionate about your character. In my opinion, you've got to want to prove something to yourself more than others, and I think Japan has that mentality in a much larger way than the US does. The US has an all-or-nothing mentality, and we see where that's landed us on the shoulders of giants. If someone defects from their character, they're doing themselves a disservice in the grand scope of things. If someone defects from their character and isn't placing top 3, then they're doing nothing but needlessly dividing their focus for the sake of validation.

 

[Blue Warrior]

Money's a huge factor, I think. In fact, it's probably the biggest thing that sets us from Japan.

In the US, people would say you'd be a fool not to choose the clearest gayest winning tactic because you're risking an opportunity to get money from the tournament. In Japan, the only foolish move is not trying to win with honest skill.

 

[theunabletable]

It seems a lot of arguments revolve around APEX, why are people using one sample to say whom is better? I usually would think multiple tests, aka tournaments, would show who is better.

the reason someone would use this one sample is because the quality of this sample is far and away the best there's ever been.

multiple tests to see who is better than who would be ideal, if we had multiple 400 person tournaments a month..

apex as a singular sample is the most showing sample we've ever had, and any samples from other tournaments would just dilute the information we find from looking at apex.


MK was banned because people were sick of seeing him. Is that a bad reason for a ban? not necessarily, the community wanted it, so we'll find out in the future if it was a bad decision for our community or not.

but the only legitimate reason there was for banning him was there just being too much of him. it could DEFINITELY be solved by people just sucking it up, and learning to get good at the game and beat him. He's definitely close to even with atleast most of the top tier, and is maybe beaten by Fox and stuff on certain stagelists.

this mindset is present in our stagelist, too. we'd all get much better at the game if we didn't have gimmick stages diluting our practice, especially when those stages just reinforce our ****ty mindset that we can't beat MK.

It's unfortunate that the community wants to ban MK, because he's clearly beatable, and isn't that much better than the other characters, especially with a non-dumb stagelist.

but that doesn't mean it's illegitimate to ban MK, I mean if the community wants him gone, it's their right to remove him and play without him. Just as it's the community's right to remove all items, or play on whatever stages we want.

If what we wanted, though, was to get better at the game, we wouldn't ban MK.

Money's a huge factor, I think. In fact, it's probably the biggest thing that sets us from Japan.

In the US, people would say you'd be a fool not to choose the clearest gayest winning tactic because you're risking an opportunity to get money from the tournament. In Japan, the only foolish move is not trying to win with honest skill.

yeah this is true, and people also don't really get what incentives can do that's detrimental, especially in situations like this one. I'd say it's definitely a contributing factor in why Japan is better than us.

this video has some good points on what detriments incentives can cause. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

 

[The Ben]

There should be multiple rulesets to allow for gameplay flexibility.

Coming from the community that refuses to recognizes CPU as a talented player because Evo had a different set of rules.

 

[Elessar]

I appreciate the mention, and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment.

Japan won because of passion for their characters. Ocean is passionate about ROB--he plays nothing but, and look where it got him as opposed to other ROBs who defect in hard MUs. You have to be passionate about your character. In my opinion, you've got to want to prove something to yourself more than others, and I think Japan has that mentality in a much larger way than the US does. The US has an all-or-nothing mentality, and we see where that's landed us on the shoulders of giants. If someone defects from their character, they're doing themselves a disservice in the grand scope of things. If someone defects from their character and isn't placing top 3, then they're doing nothing but needlessly dividing their focus for the sake of validation.

Really it's the least I could do, San and you are heroes of sorts for me since you served as an inspiration for me to keep maining Link even when everybody told me to just drop him that he's holding me back. But, I love the character and I really don't want to play the game if it's not with him, and really, how can I say that he's the reason I'm not winning more matches, or that he's holding me back when I know I still have a lot of room to grow as a player, that I still have problems in my game that are because of me, not my character. I know that I will be more effective with a top tier, but I still won't be a better player and that's the huge difference and the entire point here; I need to get better and be a better, if not the best, player I can get to be before I go blaming my character for my losses.

 

[Ghostbone]

Coming from the community that refuses to recognizes CPU as a talented player because Evo had a different set of rules.

lol you serious.
More because he got lucky...
Playing Brawl with items is like playing Pokemon, individual wins are meaningless.
And at least that early in Brawl's lifespan, there are no large skill gaps to prevent someone from coasting through a tournament with luck. CPU might have been decent compared to everyone else, but Evo says nothing about his skill.

If Ken won Evo nobody would use that as evidence of skill either.

 

[Orion*]

Hylian, where have you been all my life?

homie went IN

XD

 

[Zero_Saber]

lol you serious.
More because he got lucky...
Playing Brawl with items is like playing Pokemon, individual wins are meaningless.
And at least that early in Brawl's lifespan, there are no large skill gaps to prevent someone from coasting through a tournament with luck. CPU might have been decent compared to everyone else, but Evo says nothing about his skill.

If Ken won Evo nobody would use that as evidence of skill either.

Ally and Delta-cod get top 4 in all-brawl (the event with all items and stages) every time. There is clearly some skill (albeit different kind of skill) associated with items. But this is irrelevant to the topic of MK ban. Really if it even is a temporary ban then the Japanese are going to stomp us when they come back next year. They will have like 6 months more practice playing with top MK's like Otori and Kakera (when he goes MK over IC's) while America will have to re-learn the match-up.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Coming from the community that refuses to recognizes CPU as a talented player because Evo had a different set of rules.

Yes, and I suppose this would be equally ironic if EVO had had a ruleset where the only legal stage was Warioware, and the only items were Bob-Ombs on high.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

IMO Mk players need to get better. If you're even being hit or attacking, you're doing it wrong

 

[Kimidori]

Really it's the least I could do, San and you are heroes of sorts for me since you served as an inspiration for me to keep maining Link even when everybody told me to just drop him that he's holding me back. But, I love the character and I really don't want to play the game if it's not with him, and really, how can I say that he's the reason I'm not winning more matches, or that he's holding me back when I know I still have a lot of room to grow as a player, that I still have problems in my game that are because of me, not my character. I know that I will be more effective with a top tier, but I still won't be a better player and that's the huge difference and the entire point here; I need to get better and be a better, if not the best, player I can get to be before I go blaming my character for my losses.

See? You want to get better at your own character, don't you. But, do you think you would get better if you had a million chances to defeat a giant monster and learn more about him, or would you rather just make him disappear from your life if it means that you can just face the little monsters instead? IMHO, I think the Meta Knight ban is American people running away from the facts.
As I've said before and as you agree with, the stages should definitely change. The Japanese have a very limited stagelist that allows them all to improve to great heights with their characters. (One other point I'd like to make is that if the ban stays for even a little while, Japan will be having time to improve and practice while we're stuck in the box that is an MK banned environment, only to be crushed by them in the future.)

The only thing that will make this community better is taking away stages. It will show the American players that, well, this game is about skill. No longer about who can zoom under the stage and grab the edge the longest. Or who can survive longest. Also, I think we should contemplate setting the timer where the Japanese have it (10 minutes). Along with the LGL, whether we keep it or not, It will prevent mass planking. I also don't think a smaller LGL is necessary for Meta Knight, but whatever.

As I've said before,
1. Japan has taken Meta Knight to a whole new level
2. Even at that new level, Japan is able to keep up with Meta Knight easily (hence why their top players are IC's and Olimar mains)
3. America has lower level Meta Knights
4. America isn't able to keep up with Meta Knight.

Why does this support anti-ban? Well, take a look at the differences between the Japanese and American metagame (subtracting from the fact that they don't play for money). The Japanese have 3 neutral stages that don't give a noticable advantage to almost any character. We have over 10 stages where, most of them give CLEAR advantages to certain characters over others. The Japanese have a 10 minute timer, no LGL limit, and still in their matches you won't see planking for very long at all. We have an 8 minute timer, 50 LGL limit for most characters (35 for Meta Knight), and then we still have planking problems. Finally, The Japanese have taken even Meta Knight himself to a whole new level, and yet are able to easily compete with him. Finally, We have taken Meta Knight to a somewhat good level (nowhere near the Japanese), and yet we are not able to compete with him well.

My point is, if Japanese made MK work without giving him any character-specific limits, then why can't we? He wouldn't be so popular and dominant if we made some game changes (that work and have been working for other countries). I think America should've at least waited till we knew we were best before jumping to the banhammer, ready to slap it down on the best character in the game.

 

[Jdietz43]

I think the real solution here is a revised rulset where at the beginning of every tournament each brawl player rolls a die. 1-5 means you have to play DK, while 6 means you play D3. The only stages are FD, Smashville, and BF. After a year of this metagame we should be so good at manipulating dice rolls that we won't have to play Brawl anymore.

Bro: that is amazing.

I'm totally doing this for real now, serious. I'm going to call it: The Dietz Super Special Dice Roll Holy **** Why Me Are You Serious Right Now Extravaganza.

You know, or TDSSDRHSWMAYSRNE for short.


EDIT: On a mildly serious note Blue Warrior is preaching to my choir pretty hard.

There's something everybody just has to understand ok?

There are two schools of player who compete in Brawl:

People who come to win, for whom only winning by any means brings joy.
And people who come to fight, for whom playing with strategy brings joy.

MK ban makes the first unhappy because they feel like they should be able to do anything in order to win, no matter how drastic or stilted in their favor. If it's in the game it's also fair game. No matter what that end game may end up looking like.
MK being unbanned makes the second unhappy because they feel like MK is choking off the entire rest of the game with his presence on a level otherwise unreachable, forcing everyone to be him or tolerate it when they fight and invariably lose as there's no counter strategy available.

If you don't understand that, you won't ever get past this argument, because whichever one you are there's someone just as staunchly in the other camp, getting just as much enjoyment from the other side of the fence, who wants to play Brawl just as bad.

Short of an MK only bracket I think neither will be fully happy without one being mutually exclusive.


TROLL EDIT: Also Seibrik seriously just go on your normal account already

 

[The Ben]

Yes, and I suppose this would be equally ironic if EVO had had a ruleset where the only legal stage was Warioware, and the only items were Bob-Ombs on high.

Actually it would be.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Actually it would be.

And if brawl had a mode that decided the winner over a coin flip.

 

[Steam]

See? You want to get better at your own character, don't you. But, do you think you would get better if you had a million chances to defeat a giant monster and learn more about him, or would you rather just make him disappear from your life if it means that you can just face the little monsters instead? IMHO, I think the Meta Knight ban is American people running away from the facts.
As I've said before and as you agree with, the stages should definitely change. The Japanese have a very limited stagelist that allows them all to improve to great heights with their characters. (One other point I'd like to make is that if the ban stays for even a little while, Japan will be having time to improve and practice while we're stuck in the box that is an MK banned environment, only to be crushed by them in the future.)

The only thing that will make this community better is taking away stages. It will show the American players that, well, this game is about skill. No longer about who can zoom under the stage and grab the edge the longest. Or who can survive longest. Also, I think we should contemplate setting the timer where the Japanese have it (10 minutes). Along with the LGL, whether we keep it or not, It will prevent mass planking. I also don't think a smaller LGL is necessary for Meta Knight, but whatever.

As I've said before,
1. Japan has taken Meta Knight to a whole new level
2. Even at that new level, Japan is able to keep up with Meta Knight easily (hence why their top players are IC's and Olimar mains)
3. America has lower level Meta Knights
4. America isn't able to keep up with Meta Knight.

Why does this support anti-ban? Well, take a look at the differences between the Japanese and American metagame (subtracting from the fact that they don't play for money). The Japanese have 3 neutral stages that don't give a noticable advantage to almost any character. We have over 10 stages where, most of them give CLEAR advantages to certain characters over others. The Japanese have a 10 minute timer, no LGL limit, and still in their matches you won't see planking for very long at all. We have an 8 minute timer, 50 LGL limit for most characters (35 for Meta Knight), and then we still have planking problems. Finally, The Japanese have taken even Meta Knight himself to a whole new level, and yet are able to easily compete with him. Finally, We have taken Meta Knight to a somewhat good level (nowhere near the Japanese), and yet we are not able to compete with him well.

My point is, if Japanese made MK work without giving him any character-specific limits, then why can't we? He wouldn't be so popular and dominant if we made some game changes (that work and have been working for other countries). I think America should've at least waited till we knew we were best before jumping to the banhammer, ready to slap it down on the best character in the game.

You can Scrooge on fd, sv, and bf...

And again no one's going to listen to a mk main telling everyone to just get better... Because mk mains have very rarely had to do that. And when they do have to adapt it's not too hard because mk Is so versatile.

 

[Jdietz43]

And if brawl had a mode that decided the winner over a coin flip.

Super Coin Flip Brothers?

Idk bro... we've already got TDSSDRHSWMAYSRNE... and that's way better.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

And again no one's going to listen to a mk main telling everyone to just get better... Because mk mains have very rarely had to do that. And when they do have to adapt it's not too hard because mk Is so versatile.

Have you tried playing Metaknight? I'll give you a little pointer: it's not an easy pass to top 8 at a tournament that isn't completely free, you arrogant *******. I used to think like this... Then I started to actually play the game.

 

[The Ben]

And if brawl had a mode that decided the winner over a coin flip.

It still would be. The point of competition isn't to eliminate randomness, it's to see who performs best under the given conditions. There are rock, paper, scissor tournaments and they actually get national coverage from mainstream sources (In fact, the 2010 RPS championship was hosted by MTV). The fact that somehow the Smash community completely misunderstood what competition is about from the onset is amazing.

 

[Kimidori]

You can Scrooge on fd, sv, and bf...

And again no one's going to listen to a mk main telling everyone to just get better... Because mk mains have very rarely had to do that. And when they do have to adapt it's not too hard because mk Is so versatile.

It's not scrooging that I'm talking about. Whether it's there or not does not determine the winner of a match like stages do now. Duh.

Also, I don't main Meta Knight. I just use him when I feel like it. Usually I use Ice Climbers, Diddy, or even ZSS. You can't assume I'm a MK main when I say I play as him.

Also, Meta Knight mains DO have to get better. Obviously you're not going to win a tournament with somebody where Otori is when you're someone like, well, even M2K. I'm sure Otori could beat M2K because he's better at using the character. MK's range of skill to use is not as small as you think. And adapting is only easy if you're playing an easy matchup, or against a totally predictable character. You can't adapt to someone who has a completely unpredictable playstyle.

 

[Thino]

IMO Mk players need to get better. If you're even being hit or attacking, you're doing it wrong

this is actually true, but it would bring more tears from you pro-bans and it would take even more time for him to get unbanned

 

[Elessar]

Kimidori, I think that you misinterpret why I believe that mk should be banned. It has nothing to do with me not winning, or getting better. It has to do with people either quitting the game or quitting their main due to MK's dominance. That's the real problem since then, the metagame for the other characters becomes stale and stagnant, which is what has already happened to most. This is the real problem, which is not a problem of MK as a character itself, but a problem with American mentality and culture which must be changed. That's it.

Again, let me rephrase it. Danning MK has nothing to do with being able to win more, but with jumpstarting the rest of the cast's metagame. By banning MK, then not only more characters become slightly more viable, but also, people who quit their original main for the sake of MK (which is something that, imho, should have never happened) can go back to working on their own character of choice and discover that sense of pride Verm and San clearly have for their mains.

 

[Kimidori]

Bro: that is amazing.

I'm totally doing this for real now, serious. I'm going to call it: The Dietz Super Special Dice Roll Holy **** Why Me Are You Serious Right Now Extravaganza.

You know, or TDSSDRHSWMAYSRNE for short.


EDIT: On a mildly serious note Blue Warrior is preaching to my choir pretty hard.

There's something everybody just has to understand ok?

There are two schools of player who compete in Brawl:

People who come to win, for whom only winning by any means brings joy.
And people who come to fight, for whom playing with strategy brings joy.

MK ban makes the first unhappy because they feel like they should be able to do anything in order to win, no matter how drastic or stilted in their favor. If it's in the game it's also fair game. No matter what that end game may end up looking like.
MK being unbanned makes the second unhappy because they feel like MK is choking off the entire rest of the game with his presence on a level otherwise unreachable, forcing everyone to be him or tolerate it when they fight and invariably lose as there's no counter strategy available.

If you don't understand that, you won't ever get past this argument, because whichever one you are there's someone just as staunchly in the other camp, getting just as much enjoyment from the other side of the fence, who wants to play Brawl just as bad.

Short of an MK only bracket I think neither will be fully happy without one being mutually exclusive.


TROLL EDIT: Also Seibrik seriously just go on your normal account already

Again, you're missing the point. I've seen in your other posts you tried to narrow down the smash community into 3 different people, and now two "schools"? No.

The Smash Community is full of unique people who all come to play for mostly different reasons. Some come to have fun. Some come to win. Some come to improve. And some come just because they like to play the game. People have entirely different reasons for playing.

We don't have an "MK only bracket" or anything close. Take a look at Apex 2012's entrances. Actually just look at the top five. From my understanding it looks like, including mains and sub mains, in the tops it goes:
Otori: Meta Knight
Nietono: Olimar
Nairo: Meta Knight
ESAM: Pikachu / Ice Climbers
Ally: Snake / Meta Knight
Kakera (placed 5 along with Ally) : Ice Climbers / Meta Knight

Guess what? That's the top 6 players from The biggest Brawl tournament in the world, and there are only 4 Meta Knights. 9 characters in all. That means over half of them aren't even Meta Knights. Dare I go into the top 16 and compare THAT percentage? I don't think I have to. Meta Knight is not as dominant a character as you'd think when it comes to high placing in tourneys. Sure, he's common. But he's always going to be common, you can't stop that. He's the best character in the freaking game for goodness sakes. It's not Meta Knight's fault you can't overcome him like Japan has, it's your fault. And you can't change that. There are more solutions to the fact than just getting rid of him. While most people think it will advance our metagame and keep people away from Meta Knight, it's sheltering us from the best character in the game which can only help us get better.

We need a change in ruleset before we start getting rid of characters. In fact, Meta Knight or no Meta Knight we need to change rules. The rules we have now are wayyy too varying and unfair to some characters and we should've changed it from the start.

In other words, banning Meta Knight is like running away from your fears. Read my earliar arguements, maybe your mind will begin to understand.

One last thing: If that troll edit was towards me, I'm not Seibrik lol. I'm horrible with D3 and when I DO use him, I use anything over the green and gray colorings XD

 

[Judo777]

@BAM see I thought that it was generally excepted that more diversity in stages is better and that we should only remove stages that are inherently a problem or uncompetative/don't want to test what we want to test in smash. So on stages that we have otherwise deemed to meet this criteria, MK is very strong, then I see removing them as nerfing him.

Japan's stage list was very simple they removed all stages that have the potential (within reason) to disrupt the flow of the game, but what's wrong with the stage effecting the game. This is smash bros, a game who really distinguishing quality as a fighter is that it HAS STAGES and different terrain. If you don't want to have to adapt to stages, play a different game cause this one is clearly not for you.

 

[Kimidori]

Kimidori, I think that you misinterpret why I believe that mk should be banned. It has nothing to do with me not winning, or getting better. It has to do with people either quitting the game or quitting their main due to MK's dominance. That's the real problem since then, the metagame for the other characters becomes stale and stagnant, which is what has already happened to most. This is the real problem, which is not a problem of MK as a character itself, but a problem with American mentality and culture which must be changed. That's it.

Again, let me rephrase it. Danning MK has nothing to do with being able to win more, but with jumpstarting the rest of the cast's metagame. By banning MK, then not only more characters become slightly more viable, but also, people who quit their original main for the sake of MK (which is something that, imho, should have never happened) can go back to working on their own character of choice and discover that sense of pride Verm and San clearly have for their mains.

Now here's where we don't get along. While you think MK should be banned because we need to be jumpstarting the other characters in the metagame, I think you're wrong because taking him away will actually worsen the rest of the cast because they won't be able to play against Meta Knight until he comes back. If people quit their original main, so be it. With a more strict ruleset they will be able to see that they should never have done that in the first place.

Also I would like to say that, I quit my original main not for the sake of matchups or tiers, but because he wasn't working very well. I used Lucas for a long time in Smash. It wasn't until last year that I realized he wasn't working for me. Not that he was bad or anything, I just wasn't a Lucas main at heart. TBH, after that I switched to Zelda, and after Zelda I went to Ice Climbers because I like them a lot. I never switched for the sake of winning, but that some characters just aren't right for me. So what if people switch mains, and so what if it's dominantly a switch to Meta Knight? I'm saying it won't be NEARLY as effective if we modify the ruleset. And again, it's not just for this one character, because it will benefit all characters regardless if Meta Knight is in competitive or not.

I do understand your point, but just because people are dropping old characters for better ones is on the community, not Meta Knight, and is not at all justifyable for a ban IMO.

 

[Kimidori]

@BAM see I thought that it was generally excepted that more diversity in stages is better and that we should only remove stages that are inherently a problem or uncompetative/don't want to test what we want to test in smash. So on stages that we have otherwise deemed to meet this criteria, MK is very strong, then I see removing them as nerfing him.

Japan's stage list was very simple they removed all stages that have the potential (within reason) to disrupt the flow of the game, but what's wrong with the stage effecting the game. This is smash bros, a game who really distinguishing quality as a fighter is that it HAS STAGES and different terrain. If you don't want to have to adapt to stages, play a different game cause this one is clearly not for you.

It's not the stages themselves, it's the fact that characters are able to abuse them so well it takes away from way more skill than it should.

Say, if we were to legalize Temple (totally hypathetical here), those who can tech incredibly well could just "counterpick" Temple and abuse the hell out of it.

Sometimes, stages are to the point of just so unfair that we should take them out. Stages in America have effected the metagame to the point of Japan is better than us even on our own stages. If we want to get to the level they are at this game then we should take away stages, not characters.

 

[Jdietz43]

But bro... we did change the rules.

We banned MK

Ahhh but seriously. I'm in Elessar's school of thought on this one. The game stagnated and became far less interesting. Less fun.

Where you and me differ Kimidori is that you feel like fighting MK is the big thing around and will make everyone a better player. I think that NOT fighting MK will be the best thing that happened to Brawl so far. For a very long time the dominant tourney scene has been (understandably) focused on MetaKnight, how to play with him, how to play against him.

You feel that this is a good thing. There's a big strong character for everyone to test their mettle against who will always be solid. But that only teaches people how to fight MetaKnight. There's entire other schools of combat and skills to be learned that go unfocused on because if it doesn't work against MetaKnight you've been wasting your time. How much more skilled will people get when they can stop focusing so much on how to out-do MK by playing as strangely as possible for a win, and can focus on things that actually directly improve their gameplay against other characters even including MetaKnight. When is the last time you fought a fantastic Bowser, and when/if you did what was the ratio between when you met them and how many MKs you fought in the meantime? There's a whole matchup there to be delved into, a different strategy involved revolving around exploiting his slow speed while avoiding his heavy attacks etc. etc. that no one ever gets to see in the proportions that we deal with MK.

All most of us have learned in the last few years is how to best avoid immediate loss to a spinning wall of masked puffball swords. Key word immediate. Not a whole ton else, and why would we? If we focused too much on things that helped with other matchups or rounded us all out as players we would just end up eventually steamrolled by an MK somewhere along the bracket. That's not improvement. MK isn't a magic measuring stick, nor is he beneficial in the way you think he is. Certainly playing tough battles is what makes you a better player, but playing tough battles against MK over and over does not a great player make. Nor will MK be the stick by which you should be measured a year down the road, even if he ever becomes unbanned. You act like every other character is a slack jawed imbecile who can't put up a fight between each other, so you may as well be fighting MK instead to make better use of your time. I can't tell you how wrong that is.

 

[Kimidori]

But bro... we did change the rules.

We banned MK

Ahhh but seriously. I'm in Elessar's school of thought on this one. The game stagnated and became far less interesting. Less fun.

Where you and me differ Kimidori is that you feel like fighting MK is the big thing around and will make everyone a better player. I think that NOT fighting MK will be the best thing that happened to Brawl so far. For a very long time the dominant tourney scene has been (understandably) focused on MetaKnight, how to play with him, how to play against him.

You feel that this is a good thing. There's a big strong character for everyone to test their mettle against who will always be solid. But that only teaches people how to fight MetaKnight. There's entire other schools of combat and skills to be learned that go unfocused on because if it doesn't work against MetaKnight you've been wasting your time. How much more skilled will people get when they can stop focusing so much on how to out-do MK by playing as strangely as possible for a win, and can focus on things that actually directly improve their gameplay against other characters even including MetaKnight. When is the last time you fought a fantastic Bowser, and when/if you did what was the ratio between when you met them and how many MKs you fought in the meantime? There's a whole matchup there to be delved into, a different strategy involved revolving around exploiting his slow speed while avoiding his heavy attacks etc. etc. that no one ever gets to see in the proportions that we deal with MK.

All most of us have learned in the last few years is how to best avoid immediate loss to a spinning wall of masked puffball swords. Key word immediate. Not a whole ton else, and why would we? If we focused too much on things that helped with other matchups or rounded us all out as players we would just end up eventually steamrolled by an MK somewhere along the bracket. That's not improvement. MK isn't a magic measuring stick, nor is he beneficial in the way you think he is. Certainly playing tough battles is what makes you a better player, but playing tough battles against MK over and over does not a great player make. Nor will MK be the stick by which you should be measured a year down the road, even if he ever becomes unbanned. You act like every other character is a slack jawed imbecile who can't put up a fight, so you may as well be fighting MK instead to make better use of your time. I can't tell you how wrong that is.

Okay, I see your side of the point. But yet again, you're misunderstanding. Have you even considered a different stagelist in your arguements? No. I don't act like every other character sucks at the game. I actually think some characters have a slight advantage over Meta Knight (such as Ice Climbers, Pikachu, maybe even Diddy, Olimar, etc.). You're taking this overpowered thing WAY too seriously. Also, I never said using MK will make people a better player, or even fighting him. But you CAN'T GET BETTER AT ALL if you are just going to stay away from MK altogether. It just doesn't happen. Japan will be evolving their metagame as much as ever ahead of ours while we complain about Meta Knight. When really, we should be complaining about the stages. Do you even have anything to say about the stages? Because I would like to hear it.

Edit: Also, it's an opinion that the game is becoming less interesting. Let people be people.

 

[Sylarius]

If we want to get to the level they [Japan] are at this game then we should take away stages, not characters.

I agree with this. There's way too many stages that people focus on abusing to win, to the point of counterpicks becoming (almost) free wins, most noticeably Meta Knight. He has a ridiculous advantage on RC and Brinstar, and even Nietono (I think) said he hated playing Meta Knight on Delfino because he would shark on the neutral transformation and camp out the rest.

Stages are overcentralized in the metagame, and RC/Brinstar legal is terrible. The stages are not viable for competitive play imho even with MK banned.
There should only be 5 or 7 stages legal, with no counterpicks, so that players can actually focus on improving their character and NOT how to spam uair under the stage the whole game.
...


And no, no, no. The only matchup Meta Knight has that's even or not in his favor is himself. He has an advantage over all of the cast.

 

[The Ben]

It isn't the stages' fault you all have poor practice habits. If you need to focus on 1 vs 1 fighting with as little gimmicks as possible practice that, but making it a universal standard to not play on gimmicky stages doesn't accomplish that.

 

[Kimidori]

It isn't the stages' fault you all have poor practice habits. If you need to focus on 1 vs 1 fighting with as little gimmicks as possible practice that, but making it a universal standard to not play on gimmicky stages doesn't accomplish that.

Keep in mind that these gimmicky stages give a completely unfair advantage to some characters. Also keep in mind that making it an American standard to keep in these gimmicky stages and keeping in counterpicks isn't accomplishing anything close to what Japan has without them.

 

[WindMajor]

My feelings on MK and the MK ban after Apex goes like this:

People are talking about how we should remove all the stages except for three to focus on our fundamentals in 1v1 combat, and try to lose as much focus on gimmicky stages as possible. I don't believe in this, but I will use that same justification of removing critical components of the game to strengthen my position on banning MK.

I feel like we should remove Metaknight from our game so we can focus on other parts of the game, like the rest of the cast as well as the rest of the stages. I know I may sound like a scrub because I want to remove Metaknight from the game when he "doesn't deserve" to be banned, but I'm choosing to ignore whether he deserves to be banned or not because I think removing him is the best approach to better ourselves, the community, and our ruleset.