Aiko
Smash Champion
Guide to stages and counter-picking strategies.
Last updated: 01/22/07
Introduction: In competitive smash, skill is not the only factor, although it is the biggest. Along with counter-picking with characters, there is another crucial element to smash and that is stages. Obviously, a game of smash cannot occur without a stage and with the wide variety available, they are bound to have their ups and downs for every character. This guide was made to provide a source of information on which stages are suitable for which characters and which stages are good choices for counter-picking and strikeouts.
Tournaments generally follow a specific rule set regarding tournament legal stages, however, depending on the organiser; the rules for stages are subject to variance. Please check on what the rules are for stages at your tournament.
This guide is not a guide on how to unlock stages. Please check one of the many other guides that actually do that.
How picking works: For the first round, the characters are picked in a double-blind fashion; that is neither person is allowed to know what the other player is going to pick. The stage is one of the neutral stages picked at random.
After the first round, the loser of the last game gets to pick the next stage, then the winner picks their character and finally the loser picks their character. This is called advanced slobs. This allows the loser to gain an advantage because not only can they influence their choice of stage, but also their opponents choice of character, as well as being able to counter-pick that character. For example the loser may pick yoshi’s story to counter the winners Peach. The winner then picks Falco to make use of his short recovery, and then the loser is able to counter-pick the character by choosing Marth. This gives a large advantage to the loser, but allows the winner to make a choice based on the stage.
As well as the standard advanced slobs format, some tournaments may have strikeouts where players are allowed to ban stages from being picked.
Singles:
Neutral – Final Destination, Yoshi’s Story, Fountain of Dreams, Kirby’s Dreamland 64, Pokemon Stadium.
Legal – Princess Peach’s Castle, Kongo Jungle, Brinstar, Corneria, Mute City, Onett, Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroom Kingdom II, Congo Jungle N64, Rainbow Cruise, Jungle Japes, Yoshi’s Island, Green Greens, Venom, Poke Floats, Big Blue, Battlefield.
Banned – Great Bay, Icicle Mountain, Hyrule Temple, Brinstar Depths, Fourside, Flat Zone, Yoshi’s Island N64.
Doubles:
Neutral – Final Destination, Yoshi’s Story, Kirby’s Dreamland 64, Pokemon Stadium.
Legal – Princess Peach’s Castle, Kongo Jungle, Brinstar, Corneria, Onett, Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroom Kingdom II, Congo Jungle N64, Rainbow Cruise, Jungle Japes, Yoshi’s Island, Green Greens, Venom, Poke Floats, Big Blue, Fourside, Battlefield.
Banned – Great Bay, Icicle Mountain, Hyrule Temple, Brinstar Depths, Flat Zone, Yoshi’s Island N64, Fountain of Dreams, Mute City.
Please note that stages that are considered legal may be banned depending the on the rules, eg. MLG bans many of the legal stages but allows some of them to be chosen for counter-picking.
Neutral Stages:
Final Destination: This stage is a very wide single platform with large areas around it allowing extreme recovery as well as an advantage for characters with stun-able projectiles. The edge barriers are quite far from the stage, but the best way to kill, besides good edge-guarding, is off the sides. For light characters, death off the top of the screen is also feasible. The support under the platform can be hookshot/grappled as well as wall kicked.
Yoshi’s Story: Similar in layout to Battlefield but has the cloud that runs along the bottom of the stage, providing an occasional hand to survival. This stage is very small negating the recovery potential of big recoverers e.g. Peach, Jigglypuff etc. This in turn is beneficial to those with poor recovery, e.g. Falco, Mario etc. It’s also worth noting that the stage is very close to the bottom edge barrier, meaning if you perform an aerial with a long lag (e.g. Falco’s f-air) you are likely to fall to your doom.
Fountain of Dreams: Again similar to Yoshi's Story, but the 2 bottom platforms are able to move up and down from the floor. The floor has slightly less traction as well and is slightly longer. All edge barriers are of medium length away from the stage allowing ample recovery from all parts. This stage is banned from doubles due to lag.
Kirby’s Dreamland 64: This is wider thaYoshi's Story, but has roughly the same layout. Wispy, the tree blows wind occasionally which can affect your movement, DI and recovery. It’s worth noting that although the sides and bottom are of a medium length away from the stage, the ceiling is very high and thus ceiling kills are not recommended.
Pokemon Stadium: This stage consists of a medium length base with 2 platforms at equal height and the stage changes periodically. The sides and bottom are of medium length but similar to Kirby’s Dreamland 64, the ceiling is rather high. During the changes, the fire and mountain modes have a wall which allows the use of techniques such as Fox’s infinite shine and Jigglypuff’s wall of pain.
Legal Stages:
Battlefield: Similar to Final Destination, but it is much shorter and consists of 3 platforms. This is more suitable for close range characters but is still reasonable for combo-ing characters. The ledges however, are very narrow so it may be difficult to sweet spot the ledge at times, particularly for Marth, Fox and Falco as well as grappling by Link, Young Link and Samus. The edge barriers are a medium length away from the stage allowing for decent recovery but also early kills. Because of the difficult recovery for some characters as well as being able to slip through the underside of the floor, Battlefield is not always considered neutral.
Legal and banned stages coming soon!
Characters: This section is about which characters do well on which stages and which stages are bad for them. Generally if you plan on playing a certain stage, it would be wise to pick a character that works well with that stage as well as countering your opponents’ choice. You should try to strike out the stages that you are weak on if possible.
Bowser
Captain Falcon
Donkey Kong
Dr. Mario
Falco: Falco has very poor recovery so by choosing stages with short edge barriers you minimise this loss. Final destination is also an ideal choice for Falco as his short hop laser can be abused. Mushroom kingdom and Onett completely remove recovery from the game, but it also reduces Falcos short hop laser as there are many obstacles in the way. Falco is very poor at Mute City, as it can be difficult to recover in the absence of ledges, making him more predictable recovery wise. This is especially when the track disappears.
Fox
Ganondorf
Ice Climbers
Jigglypuff: Jigglypuff has tremendous recovery due to her multiple jumps as well as her pound ability. The trend is that if Jigglypuff isn’t killed on the barriers, she WILL get back. Picking Stages with far away barriers is ideal, such as Kirby’s Dreamland 64, Final destination, Pokemon Stadium etc. Because she is very light, you should try to strike out the small stages such as Yoshi’s Story.
Kirby
Link
Luigi
Mario
Marth: With Marth’s dancing blade along with his dolphin slash, he has decent horizontal and vertical recovery. Marth is also very powerful, so a small stage gives him an advantage for getting quick kills. There are very few stages that Marth is weak to.
Mewtwo
Mr. Game & Watch
Ness
Peach: Peach is another character with incredible recovery so stages with large recovery areas is ideal, such as Final Destination, Pokemon Stadium, Kirby’s Dreamland 64. If your opponent mains Peach, picking a small stage is an ideal counter-pick.
Pichu
Pikachu
Roy
Samus
Shiek
Yoshi
Young Link
Zelda
Other characters coming soon!
Credits:
BloodBowler - General proof reading and information.
If you have any information regarding other stages, characters etc. please feel free to pm me. If I add your information to the guide, I will be sure to give you proper credit. Also please feel free to give constructive criticism.
Last updated: 01/22/07
Introduction: In competitive smash, skill is not the only factor, although it is the biggest. Along with counter-picking with characters, there is another crucial element to smash and that is stages. Obviously, a game of smash cannot occur without a stage and with the wide variety available, they are bound to have their ups and downs for every character. This guide was made to provide a source of information on which stages are suitable for which characters and which stages are good choices for counter-picking and strikeouts.
Tournaments generally follow a specific rule set regarding tournament legal stages, however, depending on the organiser; the rules for stages are subject to variance. Please check on what the rules are for stages at your tournament.
This guide is not a guide on how to unlock stages. Please check one of the many other guides that actually do that.
How picking works: For the first round, the characters are picked in a double-blind fashion; that is neither person is allowed to know what the other player is going to pick. The stage is one of the neutral stages picked at random.
After the first round, the loser of the last game gets to pick the next stage, then the winner picks their character and finally the loser picks their character. This is called advanced slobs. This allows the loser to gain an advantage because not only can they influence their choice of stage, but also their opponents choice of character, as well as being able to counter-pick that character. For example the loser may pick yoshi’s story to counter the winners Peach. The winner then picks Falco to make use of his short recovery, and then the loser is able to counter-pick the character by choosing Marth. This gives a large advantage to the loser, but allows the winner to make a choice based on the stage.
As well as the standard advanced slobs format, some tournaments may have strikeouts where players are allowed to ban stages from being picked.
Singles:
Neutral – Final Destination, Yoshi’s Story, Fountain of Dreams, Kirby’s Dreamland 64, Pokemon Stadium.
Legal – Princess Peach’s Castle, Kongo Jungle, Brinstar, Corneria, Mute City, Onett, Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroom Kingdom II, Congo Jungle N64, Rainbow Cruise, Jungle Japes, Yoshi’s Island, Green Greens, Venom, Poke Floats, Big Blue, Battlefield.
Banned – Great Bay, Icicle Mountain, Hyrule Temple, Brinstar Depths, Fourside, Flat Zone, Yoshi’s Island N64.
Doubles:
Neutral – Final Destination, Yoshi’s Story, Kirby’s Dreamland 64, Pokemon Stadium.
Legal – Princess Peach’s Castle, Kongo Jungle, Brinstar, Corneria, Onett, Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroom Kingdom II, Congo Jungle N64, Rainbow Cruise, Jungle Japes, Yoshi’s Island, Green Greens, Venom, Poke Floats, Big Blue, Fourside, Battlefield.
Banned – Great Bay, Icicle Mountain, Hyrule Temple, Brinstar Depths, Flat Zone, Yoshi’s Island N64, Fountain of Dreams, Mute City.
Please note that stages that are considered legal may be banned depending the on the rules, eg. MLG bans many of the legal stages but allows some of them to be chosen for counter-picking.
Neutral Stages:
Final Destination: This stage is a very wide single platform with large areas around it allowing extreme recovery as well as an advantage for characters with stun-able projectiles. The edge barriers are quite far from the stage, but the best way to kill, besides good edge-guarding, is off the sides. For light characters, death off the top of the screen is also feasible. The support under the platform can be hookshot/grappled as well as wall kicked.
Yoshi’s Story: Similar in layout to Battlefield but has the cloud that runs along the bottom of the stage, providing an occasional hand to survival. This stage is very small negating the recovery potential of big recoverers e.g. Peach, Jigglypuff etc. This in turn is beneficial to those with poor recovery, e.g. Falco, Mario etc. It’s also worth noting that the stage is very close to the bottom edge barrier, meaning if you perform an aerial with a long lag (e.g. Falco’s f-air) you are likely to fall to your doom.
Fountain of Dreams: Again similar to Yoshi's Story, but the 2 bottom platforms are able to move up and down from the floor. The floor has slightly less traction as well and is slightly longer. All edge barriers are of medium length away from the stage allowing ample recovery from all parts. This stage is banned from doubles due to lag.
Kirby’s Dreamland 64: This is wider thaYoshi's Story, but has roughly the same layout. Wispy, the tree blows wind occasionally which can affect your movement, DI and recovery. It’s worth noting that although the sides and bottom are of a medium length away from the stage, the ceiling is very high and thus ceiling kills are not recommended.
Pokemon Stadium: This stage consists of a medium length base with 2 platforms at equal height and the stage changes periodically. The sides and bottom are of medium length but similar to Kirby’s Dreamland 64, the ceiling is rather high. During the changes, the fire and mountain modes have a wall which allows the use of techniques such as Fox’s infinite shine and Jigglypuff’s wall of pain.
Legal Stages:
Battlefield: Similar to Final Destination, but it is much shorter and consists of 3 platforms. This is more suitable for close range characters but is still reasonable for combo-ing characters. The ledges however, are very narrow so it may be difficult to sweet spot the ledge at times, particularly for Marth, Fox and Falco as well as grappling by Link, Young Link and Samus. The edge barriers are a medium length away from the stage allowing for decent recovery but also early kills. Because of the difficult recovery for some characters as well as being able to slip through the underside of the floor, Battlefield is not always considered neutral.
Legal and banned stages coming soon!
Characters: This section is about which characters do well on which stages and which stages are bad for them. Generally if you plan on playing a certain stage, it would be wise to pick a character that works well with that stage as well as countering your opponents’ choice. You should try to strike out the stages that you are weak on if possible.
Bowser
Captain Falcon
Donkey Kong
Dr. Mario
Falco: Falco has very poor recovery so by choosing stages with short edge barriers you minimise this loss. Final destination is also an ideal choice for Falco as his short hop laser can be abused. Mushroom kingdom and Onett completely remove recovery from the game, but it also reduces Falcos short hop laser as there are many obstacles in the way. Falco is very poor at Mute City, as it can be difficult to recover in the absence of ledges, making him more predictable recovery wise. This is especially when the track disappears.
Fox
Ganondorf
Ice Climbers
Jigglypuff: Jigglypuff has tremendous recovery due to her multiple jumps as well as her pound ability. The trend is that if Jigglypuff isn’t killed on the barriers, she WILL get back. Picking Stages with far away barriers is ideal, such as Kirby’s Dreamland 64, Final destination, Pokemon Stadium etc. Because she is very light, you should try to strike out the small stages such as Yoshi’s Story.
Kirby
Link
Luigi
Mario
Marth: With Marth’s dancing blade along with his dolphin slash, he has decent horizontal and vertical recovery. Marth is also very powerful, so a small stage gives him an advantage for getting quick kills. There are very few stages that Marth is weak to.
Mewtwo
Mr. Game & Watch
Ness
Peach: Peach is another character with incredible recovery so stages with large recovery areas is ideal, such as Final Destination, Pokemon Stadium, Kirby’s Dreamland 64. If your opponent mains Peach, picking a small stage is an ideal counter-pick.
Pichu
Pikachu
Roy
Samus
Shiek
Yoshi
Young Link
Zelda
Other characters coming soon!
Credits:
BloodBowler - General proof reading and information.
If you have any information regarding other stages, characters etc. please feel free to pm me. If I add your information to the guide, I will be sure to give you proper credit. Also please feel free to give constructive criticism.
