Game, set, match: what do these terms mean?

[StretchNutz]

My impression is this: each "game" ends with the loss of one stock from one or both combatants. A "set" is made up of 4-7 such "games." Each "match" is decided by the winner of 2/3, 3/5, etc., such "sets."

Does this not make sense? Nay, say I.

 

[Jonas]

A stock is a stock. When one player has lost all his stocks, that's a game. Set and match are used interchangable in smash, because it doesn't have as many subdivisions as tennis.

(at least that's how I understood it)

 

[StretchNutz]

Lol oops. White Men Can't Jump is the greatest movie ever.

 

[StretchNutz]

Eh. Mine makes more sense in tournaments. You play sets contiguously and whoever wins the match moves on.

"Stock" is not a good term for that to which I'm referring, as it has a different meaning to each player at any given point in a set. "Game" offers clarity of definition and flexibility regarding the parameters of gameplay without regard to the amount of stock remaining.

 

[Jonas]

Stocks are just the score. It's like getting a point in tennis.

 

[Doser]

Eh. Mine makes more sense in tournaments. You play sets contiguously and whoever wins the match moves on.

"Stock" is not a good term for that to which I'm referring, as it has a different meaning to each player at any given point in a set. "Game" offers clarity of definition and flexibility regarding the parameters of gameplay without regard to the amount of stock remaining.

So you think that when people are playing with 4 "lives" that they are actually going through 4 games as each life is a "game".

And stock, although used in the game, doesn't make sense to you as a name for the number of times you can go through the blast lines? I think that is a very concise definition, and it really leaves no room for misinterpretation. Stock is the word we use for "lives".

I'd like to know why you would consider when someone loses a stock or both people lose a stock a game. That in itself leaves open more room for interpretation and also fails to address by how much did someone win. If a game is when both players lose both stocks, what happens when one person doesn't lose a stock at all? If it is when one player loses a stock, why bother calling that a game? Smash brothers melee is not tennis, namely because the game does not reset after someone loses a stock. Thus using "game" loses its meaning as something that can be accurately separated within a match or set or whatever you wish to call it.

Many people use the term set to encompass the separate games. I think this is mainly from the word set, which means a collection of objects, these objects being matches.

 

[StretchNutz]

"The loss of one stock from one or both players" means that if, in one simultaneous or approximately simultaneous event, both players lose a stock, or if the players fight until one loses a stock and the other stands victorious (for that game, at least), the game ends. The set resumes when the player who lost the stock descends from heaven on a cloud, offering the opponent who just scored a kill a brief respite before the next game begins.
You can start a game at a disadvantage, namely being at a high % (or asleep lolz), much like in tennis (though I am not even trying to compare smash to tennis otherwise) where one competitor gets to serve, which has decided advantages.

Also, fun fact: In SSB64 and the Japanese version of melee the announcer says "game set," implying that the victor won the final game to take the set. He is not saying "the outcome of this game is set!"

 

[StretchNutz]

I'm not suggesting that the community should start saying things like "Ken took a set 4-games-to-nil against mango!!1" either.

 

[Roneblaster]

stocks are perfect.
set's are perfect.
game is perfect.

the word match is iffy though. I know what match means in the IRL but sometimes other people, and i hear myself do it too, refer to a "game" as a "match"

 

[Shadic]

Game being a stock makes no sense, because the "score" or percent damage, I guess doesn't get reset on the player who KO'd the other.

So if you really wanna use tennis terms, it'd be something like:

Game: 4 stock match
Set: Whoever wins best of 3, 5, or however many games. Or could do the Tennis "must win by 2" idea.
Match: Whoever advances in the bracket. As in, whoever wins the necessary amount of sets.

It's not really applicable to Smash directly, so I don't get why there'd be a desire to apply the terminology.

 

[Dart!]

Stock = one of the four lives that a player has in each game

Game = each individual round played per set

Set = the full amount of games played in a match

Match = The two players pitted against each other play this out (could also be interchanged with set i suppose)

 

[StretchNutz]

So "set" and "match" mean the same thing and the Japanese announcer is just ****ing with us?

 

[LLDL]

What u guys are on some serious grass. "I won the first match on FD. He won the second and third matches on dreamland" Lol jk. But that's the way most people phrase it. I rarely hear someone refer to their set as a match.

 

[Dart!]

Idk usually when i say match i mean matchup therefore i mean the whole set of me vs whomever

 

[XkaruX]

In smash, I always thought it was:
Game (or Match) = 4 Stocks
Set = 2 or more Games (Or matches).

And that's it.