Fourth and final community vote about Meta Knight.

[Sky`]

I think marth is a better character.But that's just me. X]
Oh, and Ic's too.

 

[*_Echo_*]

honestly if u cant CP a char they should be banned.
if no char or no stage CP snake id say ban him to >_>

 

[Matador]

I was anti ban since day one. Can I has cookie now?

I was on the fence from day one...till I went to a tourney and said to myself:

"....hmm....this is doable..."

 

[memphischains]

Wait, to the ratio is the same as that for intelligent posters who main Sonic?

well no, because none of us are intelligent, we do main sonic after all.

and even if one of us was even remotely smart we still lack in numbers. So i guess one to a little

 

[AvaricePanda]

This is going nowhere.

People who think he shouldnt be banned should quote the main page and disprove those points.

MK turns the game into Super smash bros metaknight.

DOES ANYONE HERE KNOWS THE RATIO OF MID LEVEL BRAWLERS TO TOP LEVEL BRAWLERS?

This is going nowhere because people like you come into the thread, post what you think at the moment, don't read posts that are responses to your post, come back, and repeat the same thing.

I've responded to your posts at least twice now in this thread, from no response to you.

So again, honest question to pro-ban:

Why is a ban necessary when the MK situation is getting better from half a year ago?

 

[fkacyan]

incorrect. GENRALLY as a series gets older the turnout lowers(because its the same old event each month).

Im at hobo 17 now.

And my turnout is climbing ever since i dropped meta

That is the inverse of my experience in NJ, not to mention we now only have two data points.

Maybe once you know something about how drawing conclusions work you can have a discussion here, but all I'm seeing right now is a low-tier main whining that he can't beat MK and claiming he brings more people in because MK is banned, while all he's doing is pointing at numbers that may indicate something with no actual evidence or statistical proof to that matter.

Please, just stop.

 

[ShadowLink84]

i gotta go soon so ima just comment on acouple of things

what ppl have to realize is just b/c mk is the best character doesnt make him BROKEN...every game has a best character and course ur gonna see more of them then other characters in top placings....and to have only 4 (since u dont wanna count judge) competing beat MOST (not all) top players by using the best character is not enough proof that mk is broken at all

what i was saying with ppl like adhd sk92 and others is that not a top mk player beat them....the BEST PLAYER beat them...of course if the best player is at a tourny then they are going to win....m2k travels to every big tourny regardless of area so u will always see him at the top...if m2k is not at a tourny there is a really good chance of another character of winning

To that I cannot disagree. Butwhat about the national tournaments where m2k runs into peple like Ally who are certainly of the same caliber?
What in those cases where he has won or, when he has not won, still take top 2.

diddy: snakes jumpcancel throw is just as good as a glide attack....whenever a diddy throws a banana u can dash attack and catch the banana AND hit him...and if a banana is on a ground u can pick it up with a dash attack OR mortarslide which is just as good

The issue though is that this goes for characters like Sonic as well.
Mainly cus everoyne can catch it t of their dash attack AND hit diddy.
I dont find jump canceled throws as useful, aren't you still forced to go into the up throw animation afterwards?
Unless I am mistaking you.

if what ur saying about oli is that he cann outcamp every1 and never be touched...then oli should be unstoppable right??

nope.
Simply because Olimar can camp harder than Snake doesn't make him untouchable.
infact, I dont believe that even when Snake camps his hardest he is untouchable, mainly because several characters have options to deal with the camping.

This is not to say it is easy or very safe in dealing with the camping, but not unbeatable.

ppl need to drop this and just accept the face that every game has a best character....obviously hes not BROKEN since theres ppl out there that have proved that wrong...broken means cant do anything about...if theres ppl out there thats beating something thats BROKEN then thats just contradicting itself

mk is not broken

True, people do need to understand that the best character WIL dominant because theyare the best.
The issue though is whether metaknight is dominating too much.
Not just due to his dominance.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Why is a ban necessary when the MK situation is getting better from half a year ago?

Because mid level players find it to be hard herp derp.

 

[Sky`]

That is the inverse of my experience in NJ, not to mention we now only have two data points.

Maybe once you know something about how drawing conclusions work you can have a discussion here, but all I'm seeing right now is a low-tier main whining that he can't beat MK and claiming he brings more people in because MK is banned, while all he's doing is pointing at numbers that may indicate something with no actual evidence or statistical proof to that matter.

Please, just stop.

I love you Xyro, I think but...
Wow... Thiocyanide just gave the verbal d!ck.

 

[B!squick]

Are you sure this is the final one? I doubt it. I say ban DeDeDe.

 

[Xyro77]

That is the inverse of my experience in NJ, not to mention we now only have two data points.

Maybe once you know something about how drawing conclusions work you can have a discussion here, but all I'm seeing right now is a low-tier main whining that he can't beat MK and claiming he brings more people in because MK is banned, while all he's doing is pointing at numbers that may indicate something with no actual evidence or statistical proof to that matter.

Please, just stop.

ddd and olimar are worse for samus than meta is so..........lol

And results are results. Im sorry if you dont understand that. Ive been running events since 2005(and smaller ones in 2003) so i know what im doing. You can accept it or you cant. I dont give a **** about you or your kind.


SKY: hes not a TO or if he is hes a very minor one. he has nothing to say

 

[Yuna]

my convictions in believing that this community isn't man/woman enough to ban anything. I was on the fence, but I was honestly just pressured from Fiction and M2K to pick a side. I think I've been Anti-ban the whole time. Course, not longer than you, but still. I've stuck to my beliefs. =]

It's not possible to have been anti-ban for longer than I have been since I've been anti-ban since before the very MK-debate even began.

Again. I did think it...

I guess my constant need for approval in the eyes of the community led me to be a complete facade, and I just told everybody I was on the fence. **** my childish Insecurities!

Thinking it but not picking a side for months =/= Being with the anti-ban side from the very beginning.

Too bad for you then Yuna, going to anyways. I've been putting up with this **** too long to not get to get some glory.

You can stand at the sidelines basking in our glory. But you can't be a part of our clique.

Purples:

14 - 12

In favor of proban

And Spadefox is saying he won't vote.

14-11 =)

Even if we take those numbers to be true, that only accounts for the "purples" who have bothered to post their vote in this thread.

incorrect. GENRALLY as a series gets older the turnout lowers(because its the same old event each month).

Im at hobo 17 now.

And my turnout is climbing ever since i dropped meta

It does? EVO, almost every single Competitive fighting game in history and Melee disagree.

Dang, Yuna just freakin' multi-quotes people to death. Good stuff.

Edit: That was a compliment. Don't hurt me.

But I so wanted to! Can I maim? I like maiming.

If MK get's banned then there will be so much more variety in characters and not just MK MK MK placing top 4 >_>... I can't wait till that day comesssssss

Better idea: Ban everyone but MK. Then it will be 100% "skill".

Ok, imagine this for a minute. I make it so that some CPs are now neutrals and now some banned stages are now CPs. How would players react?

Unless you have good explanations for why you're doing so (because the SBR has explained why they've come up with the stageset that they have come up with), people would ridicule you because, really, they should.

Why is a ban necessary when the MK situation is getting better from half a year ago?

Some people will only be happy once MK actually drops below Snake.

 

['V']

I'm just gonna say this now.

The Melee people would NOT have tolerated this.

 

[*_Echo_*]

lets just ban him for awhile, see how it goes, if ppl like it, keep it, if not, never ban him, there

 

[jbandrew]

So again, honest question to pro-ban:

Why is a ban necessary when the MK situation is getting better from half a year ago?[/QUOTE]

Because MK destroys variety in brawl, is way too easy to use and has been dominating tournaments far too long. Sure, dominance may be going down a BIT. But it's still overwhelming when compared to other characters placements in tournaments. When one character WINS double the amount of tournaments than the 2nd best character in the game, and then dominates the top 10's of the tournaments as well... then Houston... we have a problem.

 

[Vorguen]

I place better in MK tournies, and still I have 500% better time at MK banned tournies. After the 50th time I get D-smashed or D-throwed off-stage at low% and get gimped I start to get a little annoyed.

MK should be banned, or the CP system needs to be obliterated altogether. That or the ideas of "single-blind" pick that have been floating around.

 

[tocador]

Second place is the first looser.

So yeah, MK getting 2-3-4 on genesis means he is the "second/third/forth" looser while Snake gets the big cookie.

Pro-ban shall fall.

 

[Xyro77]

yuna. evo is once a year. please think

 

[Falconv1.0]

lets just ban him for awhile, see how it goes, if ppl like it, keep it, if not, never ban him, there

You need to lurk moar, and you need to THINK HARDER.

 

[*_Echo_*]

So again, honest question to pro-ban:

Why is a ban necessary when the MK situation is getting better from half a year ago?

Because MK destroys variety in brawl, is way too easy to use and has been dominating tournaments far too long. Sure, dominance may be going down a BIT. But it's still overwhelming when compared to other characters placements in tournaments. When one character WINS double the amount of tournaments than the 2nd best character in the game, and then dominates the top 10's of the tournaments as well... then Houston... we have a problem.

i agrees....

 

['V']

I place better in MK tournies, and still I have 500% better time at MK banned tournies. After the 50th time I get D-smashed or D-throwed off-stage at low% and get gimped I start to get a little annoyed.

MK should be banned, or the CP system needs to be obliterated altogether. That or the ideas of "single-blind" pick that have been floating around.

That argument makes absolutely no sense.. If you place better in MK tournies, then that should automatically scream "no ban" to you.

 

[Falconv1.0]

i agrees....

Hey.

Genesis. Also, lurk moar.


Also, **** variety, the top tiers are camping whores.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I'm just gonna say this now.

The Melee people would NOT have tolerated this.

Well obviously but Melee didn't have someone like Metaknight in it. You also had more options to help deal with crappy match ups too that didn't involve counterpicking stages.

 

[AvaricePanda]

So again, honest question to pro-ban:

Why is a ban necessary when the MK situation is getting better from half a year ago?

Because MK destroys variety in brawl, is way too easy to use and has been dominating tournaments far too long. Sure, dominance may be going down a BIT. But it's still overwhelming when compared to other characters placements in tournaments. When one character WINS double the amount of tournaments than the 2nd best character in the game, and then dominates the top 10's of the tournaments as well... then Houston... we have a problem.[/QUOTE]

Destroys variety? He's the worst match-up for what, 3 or 4 people? 3 people that have a real better chance without him, those being Marth, Toon Link, and Peach.

Too easy to use? That's why these random scrub MKs are winning regional or really any tournaments...oh wait.

When one character wins double the amount of tournaments than the 2nd best character in the game...Marth, Melee MLG 04-05. Sure, Ken and Azen netted a lot of the wins for Marth in those events, but I coudl just discard that and say it's Marth winning a bunch of tournaments, and he's broken!!1

Dominates the top 10s of tournaments?

1 out of 8 in APEX was a pure MK main, 2 others used him as secondaries I believed.
3 out of 8 in Genesis was a pure MK main, no one using him as a secondary except DEHF for one match.

To be expected of the best character in the game.

ddd and olimar are worse for samus than meta is so..........lol

And results are results. Im sorry if you dont understand that. Ive been running events since 2005(and smaller ones in 2003) so i know what im doing. You can accept it or you cant. I dont give a **** about you or your kind.


SKY: hes not a TO or if he is hes a very minor one. he has nothing to say

This seems to be the card that people like to pull in arguments. Even though what Thiocyanide said was true and you said absolutely nothing to rebut the point he made, you're Xyro! You're a famous TO, you obviously know what you're doing and shouldn't have to explain it because you're Xyro!

Your MK banned events have netted more people than hobo15. Great. But saying that the larger numbers are directly because of MKs ban is iffy. It might, it might not, but you don't have the most concrete evidence, so don't act like you do just because you're a known TO.

 

[Tony_]

Unless you have good explanations for why you're doing so (because the SBR has explained why they've come up with the stageset that they have come up with), people would ridicule you because, really, they should.

It would be to switch it up once in a while, instead of seeing the same stage selection. People forget that this isn't Melee. Brawl is entirely different than the last game where the stages made sense. Now they don't really.

 

['V']

Well obviously but Melee didn't have someone like Metaknight in it. You also had more options to help deal with crappy match ups too that didn't involve counterpicking stages.

Melee had Fox. And Fox was ******** for quite a while. Guess what? People beat him.

 

[Yuna]

lets just ban him for awhile, see how it goes, if ppl like it, keep it, if not, never ban him, there

WTF is this BS?

I'm just gonna say this now.

The Melee people would NOT have tolerated this.

All this really proves is that the Melee Community was much more dongtacularly logical and intelligent. While being True Fakts and boner-inducingly pride-swelling, it doesn't exactly help us in our current debate.

Because MK destroys variety in brawl, is way too easy to use and has been dominating tournaments far too long.

Mew2King has dominated tournaments insofar. And he did so using King DeDeDe as well.

A better argument would be "Ban M2K!".

MK only "destroys" variety if people choose to play as him. They do not have to. There's a reason why thre are 5 other characters in S Tier with him. Because you can play any of them and stand only a slightly smaller chance of winning than using MK.

If your argument is "If a character is even slightly better than someone else, thus rendering them 'useless'", then, really, we have to start banning a whole bajillion characters.

But it's still overwhelming when compared to other characters placements in tournaments. When one character WINS double the amount of tournaments than the 2nd best character in the game, and then dominates the top 10's of the tournaments as well... then Houston... we have a problem.

Remove all M2K wins. How many do you have left? For years (the vast majority of Melee's lifespan), Marth won almost every single tournament in the U.S. But it was still just a small number of Marth players winning those tournaments. It's the same with the MK.

Also, he's only slightly better than the next best things. He's placing well so regularly because of:
1) A small number of people running around winning tournaments as him.
2) Popularity, more and more people choosing to play as him.

It doesn't matter if he's "killing" variety (yes, let's ban things for the sake of "variety") because of popularity (if everyon started maning CF tomorrow, should we ban him?) because you (yes, you) still have the choice to main plenty of other characters and stand a perfectly reasonable chance of winning major tournaments.

The fact that there are many MKs running around shouldn't really matter to you since you can beat them quite reasonable (Peach barely has a disadvantageous match-up against him for crying out loud!).

Unsurprisingly, these are "recycled" arguments from a year ago. People still refuse to listen to logic.

I place better in MK tournies, and still I have 500% better time at MK banned tournies. After the 50th time I get D-smashed or D-throwed off-stage at low% and get gimped I start to get a little annoyed.

MK should be banned, or the CP system needs to be obliterated altogether. That or the ideas of "single-blind" pick that have been floating around.

Who the hell gets "d-throwed" ("throwed"?) off-stage at low% into gimping repeatedly? What, are you just hanging around near ledges just waiting for MK to come and grab you? Dthrow's not even a very good move to throw people off the stage for gimping.

yuna. evo is once a year. please think

Please name me the multiple big tournament series whose attendance regularly drop for each new iteration since you claim that's "how it works".

Also, explain this: How come as more time passed, Melee and Brawl tournaments draw more and more people, be they entirely new tournament "series", single tournaments or "annual grand bashes"?

 

[fkacyan]

SKY: hes not a TO or if he is hes a very minor one. he has nothing to say

This is amazingly stupid, but I can't fault you for it, as you'd have no way of knowing that I was a member of the competitive rhythm community, nor would you know that I spend a fair amount of time helping out at every tourney in the NJ region I can. Moving past this....

One tourney showing higher turnout is not, will never be, and has never been an indicator of any type of result in one direction or another. NJ's attendance has trended upwards, on average, since Brawl's release. The number of tourneys, per month, has trended upwards since release. You are a statistical outlier. At least, according to my data. Maybe I'm the outlier, but as neither of us can conclusively prove anything (Yes, your word means absolutely nothing), you drawing a conclusion is outright stupidity.

 

[Yuna]

Well obviously but Melee didn't have someone like Metaknight in it. You also had more options to help deal with crappy match ups too that didn't involve counterpicking stages.

I believe the argument was that if a character such as MK did exist in Melee, the Melee Community would've scoffed at the mere notion of banning him or her.

It would be to switch it up once in a while, instead of seeing the same stage selection. People forget that this isn't Melee. Brawl is entirely different than the last game where the stages made sense. Now they don't really.

You don't get it.

You have to have good arguments for why some CP stages can be used as Neutrals and vice versa. Nobody cares about "switching it up" if in doing so, you're going to damaging the balance of neutral-system.

 

[metaXzero]

Melee had Fox. And Fox was ******** for quite a while. Guess what? People beat him.

Don't pull things out of your ***. Fox wasn't top until the 8th tier list. Even then Ken, Azen, and M2K won most stuff from 2004-2007 with Marth. Fox didn't even get a "should we ban" discussion.

Stay smart kids (-_-/d

 

[Matador]

Because MK destroys variety in brawl

If Reflex can win with PT.

If FOW can beat top MKs with Ness.

If The droves of Sonics are facing off against the best MKs and sometimes coming out victorious,

Then the lack of variety is solely the fault of those who can't bring the skill that these mentioned pros can with their respective underplayed characters. They don't win by accident. They don't get lucky.

If MK's as broken and whatnot as everyone suggests, then these players should not win, regardless of how good they are.

is way too easy to use

Nobody in this game is HARD to pick up.

At the top of the metagame, EVERY character takes a large amount of effort to do well, including MK.

and has been dominating tournaments far too long

That's what a best character is. If you ban MK, you get a new best character and, consequently, a new character in the EXACT same position. Be it Marth, Snake or ICs or someone random like Luigi...

That's how a best character works. He's going to dominate.

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

Long post is long, Amazing Ampharos.

Quite the large post.

AA, if you wanted a response so soon, you shouldn’t have made your post so long. The size of your post exceeds that of the OP, which isn’t good. This is why people ignored your post as tl;dr.

Don’t worry. I’ll respond despite the fact that no one responded to me several pages earlier when I destroyed the anti-ban’s arguments.

In other words, your ban criteria aren't at all based on a theory of rulesets in competitive games? A sound ban proposition should have a theoretical basis. History is total bunk; by asserting there's a problem, you agree what we've done up to now is inadequate. We can't look to the past for answers. Popular opinion is also bunk; large groups of people can be and frequently are simply wrong. I don't see a reference to what truly matters, sound theory. By not placing a strong theory of competitive gaming first, the whole position lacks credibility.

History is NOT total bunk. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Remember this.

These seem like weak criteria. [1] is basically an argument that aspects of a game must be similar to each other; why? I see no reason this should be true; the outliers are often the most interesting characters in fighting games. It also suggests there would be an argument to ban a radically different character even if he were really bad. For instance, consider a character that automatically removes stocks when his attacks connect. This character on a basic level is nothing like the rest of the cast. However, consider also that his attacks are at fastest frame 50 and that he's lighter than Jigglypuff with Link's recovery. Okay, he'll never hit anyone and is obviously the worst character in the game. Should this theoretical character be banned? I suggest obviously not. He's horrible, and anyone who picks him is basically deciding to lose. Being different is NOT an argument to ban anything.

No it’s not. You misinterpreted this. [1] is basically banning things that test sets of skill that are different from and not tested in the rest of the game. For example, Hyrule Temple is banned because it becomes a test of teching and you will not die if you tech perfectly. Therefore, the gameplay shifts entirely to teching. It’s basically duelists in a different form.

Meta Knight, however, has proven to be very, very special. His risk/reward system seems to be totally out of whack with every other character in the game. There are already rules made specifically for him to keep him legal until now. He was already proven to have no counterpicks and to top it all off, he excels at air camping.

As per point [2], quality is completely subjective. Mew2King says Meta Knight is the most fun character. Therefore, we can conclude that the overall gameplay is of higher quality in Mew2King's opinion with Meta Knight allowed. Therefore, [2] does not universally apply to Meta Knight since I have cited one person who disagrees strongly. [2] is really just bunk.

One person’s opinion is not enough to jump to a conclusion on, even if he is a top level player, especially if other matches and people have proven otherwise. See: PLANK.

I would point out that "what we have banned" is not very clear. Regional rules differ so much that only very obviously broken things could be called things we have banned in the past non-controversially. We banned the infinite dimensional cape and New Pork City sure. It's hard to say we've banned much more than that... Items even are debatable because we could argue easily they are NOT banned; they are a setting we simply choose to set to off for the sake of having a single tournament standard (all off with frequency set to "none" bans no more than frequency set to "high" with every item whose name begins with a consonant set to "on" with the ones whose names start with a vowel set to "off"; it's all arbitrary).

Yes it has been clear. Items ARE banned. Shadow Moses Island and Bridge of Eldin are banned. Regional rules do vary but not that much. Many areas ban the D3 standing infinites. Also, some areas have ledge grab limits in play.

I want to be clear I am not dismissive of our community; I engage myself in it because I am optimistic about the future of Brawl and its community. I do want to be realistic though, and that means we can't overlook our flaws even as we celebrate our strengths. In this, looking to other fighting game communities that are strong where we are weak may be valuable.

…… This conflicts with you first paragraph.

We do NOT set the first stage to random. That IS unfair. We use a stage striking procedure, ideally among 7 starter stages (my region uses 7, and it works out super well).

That point about Luigi's Mansion is truly absurd. Is the author not aware of the plethora of trajectories that avoid the surfaces or, more significantly, the fact that you can destroy the mansion? Teching is very frequently tested anyway; when Donkey Kong does his cargo stage spike on you on a stage such as Final Destination of Smashville (both legal everywhere), your ability to tech could very well determine if you live or die. The point about stalling is the most inane of all because we DO allow time wasting tactics such as just jumping around and airdodging a lot as Wario. Only when the tactics are uncounterable (such as the Luigi ladder in teams) do we consider it banned stalling.

Stage striking is not always used. I though you knew this when you mentioned how different rulsets can be. Also, stage striking was almost never used in the past.
Luigi’s Mansion also rebuilds itself quickly. The point is that some people could become so good at teching that matches will run the clock because no one will die since they have several places to tech. These types of matches are not exciting to watch.

This isn't true at all. Your opponent can pick any character he wants. If you are amazing at fighting Meta Knight and terrible at fighting Diddy Kong and your opponent picks Diddy Kong, what do you think happens? Meta Knight isn't even half of what you fight in a tournament; statistically only about 1/3 of your foes will use Meta Knight. Do you think it's mindlessly easy to beat the other 2/3? It's an insult to the mains of every other character to argue this, honestly. If you run into me, you had better know something about fighting Mr. Game & Watch or I'll steamroll you no matter how great you are at fighting Meta Knight. If you run into Ally and aren't versed in navigating grenades (since Meta Knight doesn't have those), the only real question is whether he'll 2 stock you or 3 stock you.

Meta Knight having no negative matchups is also extremely non-obvious. It's very easy to see a reasonable person arguing that Snake beats Meta Knight 55-45. Even if you disagree, can you assert for ABSOLUTE CERTAIN that Meta Knight has such a clear advantage? You also have to consider stage-character combos. Mr. Game & Watch beats Meta Knight 60-40 on Green Greens and 55-45 on Norfair. I know him better than anyone else, but I'm sure such circumstances exist in every matchup at least among the good characters (if you want to use Captain Falcon against Meta Knight, you can't expect the rules to help you).

Umm….. if you even touched Meta Knight once, you should know how easy it is to play. MK does a lot of the work for you.

I know that there people who are certain that their mains can beat MK, but so far, all but Ally have consistently failed.

Also, Green Greens and Norfair almost always banned because of D3’s infinites on the blocks and Meta Knight abusing the ledges respectively so those stages are not dependable.

Anything that matters decreases how much everything else matters. Mr. Game & Watch can frequently make the game VERY spacing intensive. By doing this, he decreases how much your timing abilities matter (no timing helps you if you're out of range!). Fox, on the other hand, stays in your face and forces precise timing which makes your spacing abilities matter less (if someone can quickly move in and interrupt you every time, your ability to position yourself isn't so useful, is it?). There is a point that we do have to decide which skills we are going to be testing at some point, but the game largely dictates that by what it rewards with us at best giving a subtle hand. This is really a non-argument.

There is a difference. There are characters that counter those characters. Snake counters G&W and Pika and Zamus counter Fox, thus keeping things in order. Problem is, there is NO viable Meta Knight counter.

Using all caps makes you seem more correct, right?

Sorry, that was a bit snarky, but I'm honestly not seeing any substance to this last point at all so much as yelling at people.

Not all of it was in caps. That’s not a good reason to ignore a post. You can still read it clearly, can’t you? That’s irrelevant as long as you can read it. Also, there was less substance in your response than in that quote.

Is it really universally unquestioned? That's a bold claim. Can you demonstrate it? After watching Ally's Snake in action, I personally don't think it's clear that Meta Knight is better than Snake (you're already completely wrong since you made a universal claim and one person disagreed). Your definition is vague at best. Mr. Game & Watch is an aspect of the game, and Captain Falcon is an aspect of the game. Ganondorf is a third aspect of the game. Therefore, we could consider Captain Falcon and Ganondorf jointly as "aspects of the game". Warlock Punch and Falcon Punch could be considered "mechanics of the game". Mr. Game & Watch as a game element is above Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, Warlock Punch, and Falcon Punch as "aspects or mechanics of the game". Since he exists, there's really no reason to use any of those other things (though there are many other game elements that are above those four; they're really just terrible). Is Mr. Game & Watch broken as well? This definition is simply unclear, and I could use it to argue that almost anything is broken depending on how I choose to interpret it. It's not a sound basis off which to argue Meta Knight should be banned for sure.

Ally is the ONLY Snake that has done so. No other Snake has consistently defeated MK. Meta Knight is an aspect that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the roster as he stands out as uber on all levels of play.

Also, this definition was actually clear. Read it again.

Allow me to address those sources head-on.

Praxis's document...

Transcendent priority is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it does indeed allow him to pass through other attacks. On the other hand, it does not allow him to use his attacks defensively. As a Mr. Game & Watch main, I'm very familiar with using my aerials to protect myself from projectiles. I might, for instance, stick my turtle out to eat Pit's arrows as I approach him. Meta Knight cannot do this; if he sticks out his own back aerial, Pit's arrows will pass through and hit him. Not so great, is it?

The point is wrong anyway since not all of his sword attacks have transcendent priority. His glide attack is a sword attack, and it does not.

Meta Knight's up aerial is not a momentum cancel as it does not alter his momentum in any way that any slower aerial also could not. It does allow him to potentially use a move that cancels his momentum, but Meta Knight does not have particularly good options in this regard. Mr. Game & Watch may not have any aerials that finish as quickly as Meta Knight's up aerial, but his bucket clearly gives him better momentum canceling options.

Meta Knight's nair and dair are indeed good moves. Many characters have good moves.

Meta Knight's forward smash has exceptionally long start-up, allowing many characters to "punish" by simply attacking Meta Knight before it comes out.

Yes, Meta Knight's down smash is very good. I could say that Snake's up tilt is also notoriously fast for a kill move (6 frames, and it kills significantly lower with less cooldown than Meta Knight's down smash).

Shuttle Loop is indeed an exceptional move, but it should be noted that those invincibility frames are from frames 5-8 so it is far inferior as a protective out of shield measure to moves such as Marth's Dolphin Slash that have frame 1 invincibility (Meta Knight will get hit if he tries to up special out of shield right before a hit).

Mach Tornado is indeed good, but it's also extremely high commitment. Drill Rush is the same way.

Dimensional Cape is just a terrible move other than the banned IDC. Why bring it up?

Yes, Meta Knight has a very good airdodge, but it overall has less utility than another good air dodge such as Wario's due to Wario's more useful physical properties that afford him more mobility while airdodging.

Fiction's document is in a horrible file format I don't intend to open (why not .txt?). Praxis's was already just a list of "these are good moves" that didn't really do much to say anything other than the fact that Meta Knight has good moves so I'm doubtful it's that interesting.

Nonsense. If Meta Knight couldn’t use his moves defensively, he wouldn’t be where he is now.

His glide attack doesn’t have transcendent priority, but all of his other sword moves do.

Fiction has stated that all aerials Momentum cancel the same amount months ago. MK’s uair is so fast it is the best move in the game to MC with.

Meta Knight’s forward smash startup is not that slow in comparison to other forward smashes. Look at Mario’s and Lucario’s fsmashes for example.

Dolphin Slash has a lot of landing lag. Shuttle loops has lag that can be cancelled, an arching hitbox.

Yes other characters have great moves. However, when you combine all of MK’s moves into a moveset, you have a problem. His moveset is designed to have no exploitable weakness.

I killed a Meta Knight off-stage with Mr. Game & Watch's forward aerial at a tournament last Saturday; it was not something that would have been easy to avoid. Meta Knight does indeed have an exceptional recovery, but "perfect" is an exaggeration at best. I have already demonstrated his momentum cancels to be non-excellent (at the very least worse than Mr. Game & Watch's, though I'd love to see an analysis of the momentum altering properties of Meta Knight's specials, the thing that really matters for momentum canceling ability that this argument simply did not address... though I doubt it's that good since all four ultimately terminate in a helpless falling state).

Try doing that against a decent Meta Knight. The only reason that MK got edgeguarded is because he did something wrong in recovering. When done correctly, he cannot be gimped. Period.

I watched several minutes and saw a large series of tricks to use... on stage. Where is the recovery aspect? Stop being wimps and chase him actually off-stage; this is just an argument against trying to greet Meta Knight at the ledge... something that was really obvious (even the fiercesome recovery of Ganondorf has good counters to people trying to do that).

Such as? Exactly. It’s too dangerous to follow him off stage due to his high speed, high priority aerials combined with his multiple jumps, glide, and Shuttle Loop.

Ledgestalling is incredibly unsafe. Consider this. While it is indeed hard to hit a Meta Knight, Mr. Game & Watch, or Marth player correctly ledgestalling, they too are at great risk. If they get hit, they are extremely likely to be stagespiked and possibly killed. You can only force an approach to the ledge when you have a lead, and in those cases you are forcing a mutually risky situation at best. You want to avoid risk when winning and create risk when losing. I'm not seeing the advantage here. At absolute best it's powerful only in select matchups; I certainly don't fear anyone ledgestalling me when I play as Mr. Game & Watch (I'll happily join MKs off-stage where I easily outrange them with my superior set of aerials and invincible up special), and I stopped ledgestalling myself because it was losing me matches, not winning them.

Testimonial agrees with me anyway. Plairnkk, the innovator of these tactics, claimed not to use them against Azen because Azen is smart and beats them. In general, he abused such tactics to the limit and never dominated the tournament scene with them. This suggests those tactics to be non-broken.

With Meta, it’s powerful in almost all of his matchups.

Also, when did Plairnkk say that? Please cite the thread or post.

This is just not true. Meta Knight has very poor aerial mobility which puts him in a bad situation quite frequently. Sure he has several jumps, but they just don't move him very fast. Let's say Meta Knight was just pushed upward by the wind hitboxes of Mr. Game & Watch's up aerial. He is now high in the air and needs to get down. If he tries to use his air control and jumps to get out of the way, Mr. Game & Watch can continue to up aerial him until he has no more jumps, further limiting his options. Gliding is really unsafe from that high, and all of his specials will leave him in helpless which is sure to get him hit. If he tries to airdodge through, Mr. Game & Watch can simply fishbowl on top of his airdodge, get some good damage, and send him upward again! If he tries to plow through with dair, Mr. Game & Watch can reset with uair or go for some sure damage by plowing through with Fire (doing 6%) and then putting Meta Knight in a situation in which it will be very hard to avoid a key, most ways to avoid it resulting in Mr. Game & Watch being below him again (that's bad, remember?).

The Genesis match is basically a joke. DEHF was playing as Falco, and he chose to pursue a strategy that amounted to "spam lasers and camp". Dojo, as Meta Knight, secured a lead and used assorted defensive maneuvers to simply avoid the lasers. Other characters could have done the same even easier (top tier Lucas defeats this strategy by simply holding down + B). Regardless, it's clear this isn't a very effective strategy, and Dojo was defeating it. In this situation, the correct thing for DEHF to do would have been to stop spamming lasers and to approach in an attempt to hit Meta Knight. He did not and chose to continue to spam. He also continued to fail to hit and then lost to time. His loss was to the fundamental reason that he was using a non-aggressive strategy when he was losing, saw it was not working, and chose to continue to pursue that strategy in the face of the evidence. He lost, and it seems only right and proper.

MK’s horrid air mobility is offset by his jumps, glides, and Mach tornado. It makes for an excellent horizontal recovery.

DEHF had to do that strategy due to his options being too limited to be able to so anything else safely. This game does not encourage approaching. This game doesn’t lend itself well to aggressive play.

Counterpicking is indeed important, but few players learn counterpick characters. The two best players in the world are Mew2King and Ally. Mew2King uses Meta Knight and only Meta Knight. Ally uses Snake and only Snake. As I look at my local smash scene, almost all of the players use only one character, including Steeler and Zeton who mains the definitely not top tier Pokemon Trainer and Fox (yes, Zeton plays Fox vs Pikachu in tournament, and he has won before). The people who use secondaries are unpredictable too. We have MetalMusicMan who uses King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Falco last I checked (certainly a high tier fiend). We also have Thinkaman who mains Jigglypuff and does indeed use a secondary. His secondary is Ness. Our most character diverse player, InfernoRage (claims to use everyone except Zero Suit Samus), does not use primarily Meta Knight even; at the last tournament, he used mostly R.O.B.. The appeal to numbers that most players pick up secondaries is simply not true regardless of whether you look at Meta Knight uses or not.

True, but how well have Steeler ,Zeton, and the other low tiers done at tourneys such as Genesis recently? Exactly.

Stages are the main counterpick factor I see around here. Midwest-West has more liberal stage rules than some other regions which I credit as being one of the main factors of our healthy diversity in all aspects of Brawl (characters included!). I still remember a few months ago annihilating a decent Meta Knight who didn't know what to do on Green Greens (and then winning on Luigi's Mansion due to stage knowledge, overcoming his character advantage). I do see people try to character counterpick sometimes, and it ends up just not working. Try picking Mr. Game & Watch against Thinkaman (the Jigglypuff main) if you aren't a real G&W main and expect pain. Even try picking Pikachu against Zeton the Fox. For one, good luck grabbing him; he's not just going to let you. For two, good job getting him to 80%. Now kill him. If you aren't good with Pikachu, you are going to find this hard since he'll fight back very hard, and other than chaingrabs Fox has a natural advantage on Pikachu that he knows how to exploit.

That’s because the Mansion tests skills that are not seen much in the rest of the game and the lack of stage knowledge could simply be due to it being banned so frequently.
Green Greens too.

Green Greens is a reasonable stage in general (SBR suggests it as counterpick/banned) and Meta Knight is pretty poor there. Yoshi's Island (Melee) is quite mediocre for him in general. Anyway, like I said, different characters want different thing against Meta Knight. Sure Meta Knight will love Norfair against Snake. He will like it a lot less against Mr. Game & Watch; experience has taught the local Meta Knights to ban Norfair against Mr. Game & Watch.

The three stages you have stated are NOT reliable because they are banned in most areas and ALWAYS banned in AN.

Meta Knight is definitely really good and does not have hard counters, but can't we say the same for Pikachu in smash 64 and Sheik in melee? In general all the good characters have pretty winnable matchups against each other anyway; the character matchups are really not nearly as big of a deal as they're made out to be. If Diddy Kong meets Marth, who wins? Some people want to say "Marth", but I think the more obvious answer is "the better player" with the matchup difference being small enough that it's honestly just not that big of a deal.

They are all in different Context. Smash 64 and Melee are fast paced and reward offensive play. Brawl does not. The 3 smash games very different to each other. Please do your homework in Smash 64 and Melee before you bring them up.

Meta Knight is possibly the best character. Someone has to be.

It’s a problem when the margin is this wide. See: SF2HD Akuma.

My Meta Knight is awful; I can't play him at all. I lose to players I generally beat with Mr. Game & Watch if I use Meta Knight. Meta Knight is a character that many players find natural. It's definitely not universal though; his poor aerial mobility, absolute lack of a projectile, and generally extremely non-lingering hitboxes are very awkward for some players.

There are still player that do show up from nowhere playing MK. Just look at Shadow at Mass madness before genesis. He won that thing.

Many would argue that recent performances make Ally arguably the best player in the world. Ally does not use Meta Knight. The community wide soft-ban argument is simply absurd. The real reason everyone doesn't use Meta Knight is that he's not right for everyone, and switching to Meta Knight is just a check for who has the better Meta Knight... a check to which you'll surely fail against the people who are serious Meta Knight mains. I believe that no matter what investment I put I could never do as well against Meta Knight in a ditto as I do with Mr. Game & Watch. That's why I use Mr. Game & Watch and not Meta Knight. I play to win. I do not believe I am alone in this.

I agree that soft bans are stupid. It doesn’t work at all when we all play to win.
However, the reason people don’t use MK is not always you reason. It could be other reasons like.

1. They want to place high with a low tier.

2. They want to stop him from being banned so they don’t use him.

It shouldn't be about this, and frankly, it isn't. This point is just wrong.

Evidence in high and mid level tournaments prove this to be the future of Brawl if he isn’t banned.

It's also common for smaller regions to be dominated by other players. Iowa's scene is dominated by Joker the Snake main. Missouri is extremely disparate with no one clearly dominating, and I can say MetalMusicMan, the only Meta Knight player, doesn't "dominate". The Wichita scene does have the case of having Domo being extraordinarily powerful with -Affinity- sometimes very close on his heels, both Meta Knight mains, but they are also very clearly the best players (though not so good that they can't lose to other players from within their small area). Small areas are just dominated by whoever is the best there sometimes, and Meta Knight is a commonly used character. It's only natural that several of these scenes would be Meta Knight dominated.

MK does not take as much work to play and learn. I already addressed this.

I'm very doubtful that the Meta Knight mains are worse than the people they're beating. Did you consider they may actually be the top players if they are dominating?

That is hard to believe if the player came from nowhere and hasn’t won anything previously like Shadow.

I have literally never seen anyone benefit from this. The only time I remember someone trying that stunt was Clel switching from Marth to Meta Knight, a move that ended up having him knocked out of the first tournament he tried it at. Meta Knight isn't simple or easy to use; I don't know where this myth comes from. Consider all those tricky ways to make his specials safe; do you think someone at mid levels can just pick him up and instantly do those? If you don't do those, you can punish him all day... Also, Meta Knight mains need teching powers to avoid dthrow to dsmash from Mr. Game & Watch. At mid levels, many players fail at that. How rosy are his prospects if he eats a free smash out of every throw with Mr. Game & Watch having an option to try to tech chase for usmash which kills very low?

See me above posts.

Please try to respond in no more than 15 sentences if you want a response. I learned that too from the fact that no one responded to my big post earlier in this thread.

I'm not familiar with Washington, but that sounds like those players have personal problems. There's no evidence their case is actually general; my experiences suggest quite the opposite.

Your experience is not the only one out there. Have you traveled to other states to smash?

I watched what characters the less skilled players were using at the last tournament I was at, and NONE of them were using Meta Knight. I saw lots of Sonic and Pit but not really any Meta Knight. Of course several of the better players were using Meta Knight (though more of them were using other characters), but among the lower skills, I wasn't seeing this at all. It sounds like some regions are doing it wrong, and I suspect this may be largely due to the empty hype Meta Knight has. Maybe if someone explained to these less skilled players that they will lose anyway even if they switch to Meta Knight, they might pursue their actual best winning options instead of hoping to overwhelm other bad players while losing even worse to anyone actually decent.

NO region does it “right”. Please remember this.

If you listen to posting on the boards, the community also favors melee over brawl... yet brawl tournaments routinely have double the attendance of melee tournaments. These polls are and will continue to be skewed in favor of vocal minorities, and in this case, that's people who want to ban Meta Knight. These polls are certainly non-scientific in any case; they aren't compelling evidence.

Exxagerated. Brawl and Melee are not on even terms and there have been SIGNIFICANTLY more Brawl tournaments than Melee in 2008 and 2009.

This is indeed a problematic fuzzy rule, but in the end simple risk-reward enforces it. Execute it a bit and get a small advantage. Get caught ever and be disqualified and possibly blacklisted from future tournaments. There are other, more insidious ways people could cheat to a similar effect, such as booting the game through homebrew to give certain characters subtly tweaked mechanics (like a Ness back throw that kills 5% lower) that people are unlikely to notice. They aren't a problem because the risk is too high for being caught.

As Dojo’s match has shown us, the risk/reward for that situation is so absurd. He got away with it.

There is simply no evidence that any of this is broken. Sometimes players do decently with such tactics, but do they ever win against the top players? I know a lot of players try these tactics and lose too. I see here a case of a tactic sometimes working (and sometimes not!) but never beating the best players. Why is this a concern at all?

One area’s metagame doesn’t represent the whole game, especially when many other area’s metagame has evidence.

That match gave you proof.

None of these rules (including a Norfair ban) are in place in my region, and we don't have a Meta Knight problem. Some rules, such as banning Norfair, may overall actually help Meta Knight! I would go so far as to suggest that conservative stage lists inspired by a fear of Meta Knight are one of the biggest things helping Meta Knight win in the modern metagame. I agree these rules are a non-solution, but they are also a non-solution to a non-problem. We need strong, scientific evidence of these tactics being truly dominant, not a few players placing highly but not at the top using them. Before such evidence exists, I don't know of any way to proceed other than to rule this all a series of non-issues.

There has been evidenvce of this for a while.

None of these rules (including a Norfair ban) are in place in my region, and we don't have a Meta Knight problem. Some rules, such as banning Norfair, may overall actually help Meta Knight! I would go so far as to suggest that conservative stage lists inspired by a fear of Meta Knight are one of the biggest things helping Meta Knight win in the modern metagame. I agree these rules are a non-solution, but they are also a non-solution to a non-problem. We need strong, scientific evidence of these tactics being truly dominant, not a few players placing highly but not at the top using them. Before such evidence exists, I don't know of any way to proceed other than to rule this all a series of non-issues.

Seems like you haven’t played in other areas. It’s called borderline counterppick for a reason. Many areas nowadays ban Norfair.

The last point in this conclusion wasn't really argued, but I'll say that banning Meta Knight would make our community look extremely bad (the shoryuken people already think we're scrubs now!) and would cause endless angst from the Meta Knight mains, potentially even driving top players like Mew2King to quit Brawl. I'm dubious at best that allowing him is doing more harm than good to the community.

No it wouldn’t. The game itself is what makes us look bad. Also, some high level players already quit Brawl regardless of MK. Jem is leaving Brawl, Gimpyfish left a while ago, and Azen quit as well.

Meta Knight is a good character that it is good to do well against. There's no doubt there. I do, however, fail to see this playing out. Donkey Kong does pretty well against Meta Knight and is barely used because of King Dedede, as a good example. FOW has demonstrated that Ness can challenge Meta Knight well; how much does this tend to help Ness in tournament placings? Ankoku's chart is just a popularity chart in which good characters are generally more likely to do well than bad characters; it's not compelling evidence. At most, I see this as saying "Meta Knight is the best"... which is fine. Being the best is allowed; if it weren't, we'd have to ban every character except the worst.

I’d like to point out there is no high level DK that has beaten MK in the past year.
I’d say the same for Ness. Even if the infinites are banned, with the exception of Ally no one has consistently topped MKs when it comes to top level tournaments.

In conclusion, Meta Knight should not be banned, and I have voted as such.

22% is pathetic for a broken character. If he's so dominant and necessary, how is it that 78% of the community gets on fine without him? I threw out the number 1/3 earlier, but 22% isn't even 1/4 so I was overestimating Meta Knight. All these other numbers show is that there's extreme diversity so 22%, a number that would be pretty petty in some fighting games, towers over the numbers for other characters in Brawl.

AlphaZealot also once demonstrated that Marth's numbers in melee were higher than 22% among MLG large tournaments. I can't be bothered to find the link right now, but anyone who knows high level melee wouldn't find that hard to believe. It's also not a sign that Marth is broken; 22% is just not a very big benchmark for top characters to pass.

Now I will formulate my own argument to demonstrate simply why Meta Knight should not be banned. Here is my theory for rulesets in a competitive game.

An element in a game (character, stage, tactic) is deserving of a ban if it meets either or both of the following criteria:

1) It is "broken". This means that it is so powerful that other elements are not worth using and the game as a whole degenerates into who can use that element the best.
2) It increases the variance of the game unacceptably much. Variance is best approximated as the randomness in results in play between two similarly skilled but not equally skilled players, and random game elements are the most common source of variance increases (extremely high risk high reward tactics, like camping the top of Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2, can also cause variance, however).

Meta Knight just obviously does not satisfy 2) so 1) is the only point to really consider. The evidence simply does not suggest this as 78% of the points from Ankoku's tournament result data are owned by non-Meta Knight characters. It is very hard to imagine a metagame in which 78% of the characters actually used and placing top 8 are inviable; I dare say it's simply completely implausible.

Also, as a last point, consider several of the following weaknesses Meta Knight has.

-Meta Knight has extremely low aerial mobility.

Once Meta Knight jumps, he is far less mobile than most other characters. This puts him at a big disadvantage in the air against someone like Mr. Game & Watch, and characters even as low tier as Jigglypuff can leverage this against Meta Knight. In a game in which many characters can use jumping as their primary form of movement, having to be cautious when you jump is a big concern.

-Meta Knight has no projectiles at all.

Most characters in Brawl have some form of a projectile. In fact, only the following characters have no projectile at all:

Donkey Kong, Ganondorf, Meta Knight, Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, Marth, Ike

Ganondorf and Captain Falcon are hopelessly inviable (IMO obviously the two worst characters by a big margin) so they can practically be factored out. Ike's Aether is so ridiculously disjointed from him (multiple body lengths) that it is practically an upward projectile. That leaves Meta Knight with only three true peers in this weakness (Donkey Kong, Jigglypuff, Marth); it does matter, and it really does limit Meta Knight's ability to fight long range.

-Meta Knight's attacks have extremely short durations.

Most of Meta Knight's attacks only have a duration of 2 frames which is extremely short. That makes them poor at punishing spotdodges and airdodges, and it requires Meta Knight players to be very precise in their attacks since they can't ever throw out a hitbox and hold it as a wall.

-Meta Knight has a bad jump break and is short.

Meta Knight's jump break from grabs is poor, and his small stature means many characters can hold him up in the air and force him to jump break. This allows some characters such as Yoshi to chaingrab him, and it generally sets him up for follow ups in several matchups. Among high tier characters, only Wario is in a worse situation with grab breaks.

-Meta Knight is poor at killing vertically.

Meta Knight has a difficult time killing upward, and this puts him in a difficult spot in many matchups when he finds himself on a stage such as Halberd, Brinstar, or Green Greens with a low ceiling. It gives characters with strong vertical kill potential the chance to try to center the match around center stage and therefore to focus on Meta Knight's difficulty in this regard.

-Meta Knight has an awful jab.

Meta Knight's jab is a rapid slash attack that is just not very useful at all and tends to leave him open. The point in bringing this up is that not all of Meta Knight's moves are good. Like all characters, he has some good moves and some bad moves.

In conclusion, Meta Knight should not be banned, and I have voted as such.

22% is very high for a game of 36 characters. Once again, please stop trying to compare this to other games.

22% in a game of 36 is higher and more noticeable in a game of 26.

As I said, the low aerial mobility is offset by his multiple jumps, 2 glides, shuttle loop, and tornado.

Metaknight’s lack of projectiles is a non issue due to how fast he is on the ground. As Overswarm has stated, after his ROB fires 1 laser, MetaKnight is already up close.

The lack of duration is not an issue if they are very fast and powerful. A lot of Snake’s hitboxes lasts for no more than 3 frames.

Not that bad of a jump break compared to most of the cast. Meta has many options to almost guarantee himself not to get grabbed due to his air game and lagless aerials and specials.

That’s a non-issue in most stages, unless you are playing on SMI or Bridge of Eldin, both of which are banned because of D3. MK KO’s excellently horizontally.

MK’s jab is not that bad. One medicre move does not make up for the rest of them.

AA, your post was simply too long to expect a response in a short time.
If this post isn’t responded to today, it only proves my point.

 

[ETWIST51294]

Melee had Fox. And Fox was ******** for quite a while. Guess what? People beat him.

Not true, Fox was never that good in tourneys. stop bringing up melee, we never had a balance issue. Except in like 2002-2003 when we thought shiek was broken.

 

[SnowballBob33]

How bout we **** all this. More people want him to be banned but hes not gonna be banned. So leave it up to the TO to do whatever they feel best.

And with that in mind people should boycott tournies with picket fences saying BAN MK out front or NO JOHNS at the other. Then you do rock paper scizors in a tourney to see if you get your pick if you have conflicting view points.

 

[Yuna]

Eternal Yoshi, I skimmed your post but TL;DR:ed it once I read the part where you claim that Melee and Smash 64 are different from Brawl in such a way that an MK-like character in either game shouldn't be banned (while MK should) because they are more fast paced. Yah... umm... hmmmm...

 

[memphischains]

Not true, Fox was never that good in tourneys. stop bringing up melee, we never had a balance issue. Except in like 2002-2003 when we thought shiek was broken.

There was that time where Link was the shiiii because of OoS options and Skraaa

 

[iRJi]

Great wall of china post

Good post man.

 

[Lobos]

Stuff.

 

[Llumys]

Please name me the multiple big tournament series whose attendance regularly drop for each new iteration since you claim that's "how it works".

Also, explain this: How come as more time passed, Melee and Brawl tournaments draw more and more people, be they entirely new tournament "series", single tournaments or "annual grand bashes"?

Are you aware EVO is an actual fighting game tournament series that's been running for countless years annually? They're not going to change it, especially not for Brawl. I assume somewhere along the line you mentioned EVO being more often or less often.

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

OK. Different games, different context. Brawl is NOT THAT FAST. Brawl is significantly more defensive that the other two. 64 is all offensive. Melee has the best balance between offense and defense and is quite fast.

I noticed that MK seems to have more options than the rest of the roster in all situations, including recovery as demostrated in that video.