I'm looking to make a semi-competitive ruleset, but I'm a bit confus

[Kurodyne]

very confus actuly. This isn't for sooper seereyus play, more like "spare time in college with a group of friends" play.

I'm not totally sure how stage striking works. I have a very general idea but right now it seems a little odd at the last pick. See, if we go to by "bottom middle row are neutrals" with the 1-2-2-1 format, it could go something like:

Player 1 bans Green Hill
Player 2 bans Smashville and Battlefield
Player 1 bans Pokemon Stadium 2, which is essentially picking Delfino's Secret?

I don't really understand. The last "ban" isn't really so much a ban as opposed to just outright picking the stage, it feels like a double negative. "I don't not want to play on Delfino's Secret." I think I have this down correctly, but it's just awkward?

If I have it down right, then I should probably have more stage bans for how many stages I'll be fine with. Not exactly sure how many though..

Also, I'm interested in making the game as varied as possible and I'm lenient when it comes to stages. However, I'm not super versed in competitive PM because of the huge amount of variables when it comes to characters due to the sheer amount of viable ones. I know that the bottom, middle five are neutrals, but could any of the current counterpicks be lenient enough to be neutrals? I know FD is a neutral in Melee, as is FoD, so you think I could drag those down? Yoshi's Story and Dreamland are also down there but those seem more like counterpicks due to the former being fantastic for Marth and the latter being great for like, half the cast.

Also, I'm liking the look of Rumble Falls, Halberd, Skyworld, Lylat Cruise, Skyloft, Metal Cavern, and even Infinite Glacier if I wanna be that lenient. I'd imagine though that since these stages are banned by the default ruleset (but are a gray area for others) that they would be best for counterpicks? Kongo Jungle is one that I'm also on the fence about since I've seen stalling techniques with Peach vs Dorf but are those still present in PM?

I'm also doing secondary stages on a case-by-case basis. Delfino Plaza, PS1, Brawl Siege, and tilting Lylat Cruise will probably be counterpicks but I'm not super sure on any of these yet.

So right now, the stagelist is looking like:

Neutrals:
Battlefield
Smashville
Pokemon Stadium 2
Green Hill Zone
Delfino's Secret
Final Destination
Fountain of Dreams

Counterpicks:
Dreamland
WarioWare
Castle Siege
Yoshi's Island
Yoshi's Story
Distant Planet
Norfair
Lylat Cruise
Metal Cavern
Skyloft
Skyworld
Halberd
Rumble Falls
Infinite Glacier (On the fence with this one)
Kongo Jungle (also on the fence)



But, again, not super into PM competitive play, so.. anything I'm doing hilariously wrong? I'm also trying pretty hard to keep the stages symmetrical since stuff like that drives me nuts. I'll have to do quite a bit of swapping around, but eventually I'll get them together. (hence why i put this into customized content)

I'm also considering a small "free ban" system with Infinite Glacier, Kongo Jungle, and the alternate stages where those stages can be banned regardless of how many bans a player has.

 

[Narpas_sword]

Striking stages 1-2-1 is much easier than saying:
Strike stages, 1 - then 2 then the first player gets to pick which stage they want out of the remaining 2.

You are correct in the concept though, when there are 2 left and the last player has to strike 1, you're just picking the one you want of the two at that point.

The term Neutral has bee abolished, and 'Starter' is used to describe the starting stages. You should make FD a starter because it's too polarizing. It's in melee because of their low viable stage count.

If you want an easy out, go with bottom row starter, middle CP.
Sure there are more stages that are ok to play on, but tbh you don't need them, you'll just make the process of striking take longer.

 

[Kurodyne]

I know about those but the reason I'm adding so many stages is to keep things varied. This (most likely) won't be used at any tourneys where there's an entry fee and other such official silliness. It's more of "hey let's go to my place and play some Smash." Stage striking will prob only be present to make it close but not exactly on the nose of competitive play. if stage striking takes too long i'd imagine there'd be ten of us yelling to get on with it, haha.

to give an idea of how casual-but-still-competitive it'll probably be, i'm considering Infinite Glacier being viable yet gonna keep Team Attack, 4 stocks 8 minutes, stage striking, et cetera.

thanks for the heads-up on the neutral/starter thing though. i'm planning on making my SSS icons reflect the starter/counterpick/ban layout and ruleset so that'll help out!