Idea for handling stage choices in a tournament (not sure on its originality)

[MajorMajora]

This method relies on a best of 3 or best of 5 scenario, I should mention.

-You would choose 1 stage to be the neutral stage. Either Battlefield or Final Destination, one or the other. The first battle of a match is ALWAYS this stage.

-The loser gets to choose from a list of counter pick stages that are far more varied than the stage selection we have now. Things like prism tower and reset bomb first would be on this stage list.

-If the match isn't over at this point, the loser of the previous battle gets to choose a counter pick stage.

However, if this is already the current method of how matches are done, I just have one question: why are we so hesitant on having stages be counter picks? Both players have equal chance to pick stages favorable to them. The single neutral stage allows a better, more defined meta to be built that allows there to be much more science to the strategies involved with counter picking stages.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Um, this is just the current system with counterpicking except game one is forced to give some characters clear advantages and clear disadvantages since you only have one starter. One starter is pretty much the worst direction for stage policy to go; there is no such thing as a truly "neutral" stage, and this kind of policy would warp the metagame pretty severely around whichever stage you did pick. In general it's way more important to ensuring fair outcomes to have as many stages as possible be game one legal; making stages counterpick only legal does way, way less good than making stages game one legal, and I just don't follow the logic that somehow having fewer starters would in any way affect the decision making in which stages to pick past game one. I'd always pick the stage most to my advantage as a counterpick whether there's 1 starter or 30 starters...

 

[MajorMajora]

So I guess my main question is why having hazards on a counter pick, if they are predictable, is at all bad?

And my point with a single stage was so that all randomness is controlled. The first stage being predictable is good since that way no one will have an advantage due to chance. All advantages due to counter picking are controlled.

 

[Raijinken]

So I guess my main question is why having hazards on a counter pick, if they are predictable, is at all bad?

And my point with a single stage was so that all randomness is controlled. The first stage being predictable is good since that way no one will have an advantage due to chance. All advantages due to counter picking are controlled.

Some people don't understand how knowledge of hazard patterns and how to take advantage of them adds skill to the game. Take Brinstar's acid - it's predictable (you can tell, with practice, roughly how high it will rise at any given time), not lethal until very high percents, and can be exploited by a smart player for combos, kill help, aided recovery, etc. Plus it serves well to counter camp-happy characters, as one of the acid positions will cover all but the topmost platform of the stage.

Basically, a lot of people (whom I'll admit I view as rather stubborn and scrubby) refuse to let anything but a human controlled character get in the way of their victory, and as many of these players are skilled and have power via skill and publicity, their opinions are followed, whether they're good or bad opinions and rule changes.

As for the first stage, in past games I'd have definitely agreed with Ampharos above, but while I cannot currently speak from experience (which I can stop saying Friday, woo hoo), what I've watched online makes it look like Final Destination is currently (finally) a neutral stage (Unless you think it unreasonably favors Mac, in which case, an equally fair point is that every other stage is equally skewed against Mac). Can't say it'll always be that way, but it looks like that now. If it stays that way, honestly, I'd lean towards making FD/Omega forms the only tournament-legal stage, unless TOs are going to start legalizing stages with more dynamic interactions.