HavocThunder
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2014
- Messages
- 41
- NNID
- HavocThunder
I’ve been sitting on this post since about January, and I’ve been really nervous about posting it. It took me all day to hit the "Create Thread" button, and I've backed out numerous times. This is really going to shake up things. I’m just going to do it and hope for the best. If I could make videos myself, I’d WAAAAY do it by now, so I’ll take the approach of writing an incredibly long and detailed post. I hope you get something out of it!
REQUIRED READING: http://smashboards.com/threads/wrecking-crew-stage-research.387506/
Please, please, please, do not even touch “Reply” to this thread if you have not done the required reading.
I want to start with talking about reasons why I want to play Wrecking Crew, why it’s my favorite stage, why it suits me, and why I’m confused that it’s been banned Day 1 – Day EVO. I want to control the tone of the discussion away from hypothetical situations, so let’s make sure everything we claim is based on real experiences or facts about the stage so a proper discussion can be had.
If you don’t read anything else, at least read the summary:
Summary:
Wrecking Crew is a stage where you have to put on your thinking cap, like the original game or any puzzle game. The main idea of Wrecking Crew is to blow things up. To support that, every explosion has a clear sign on this stage. If no one touches a bomb, nothing happens. The reverse is true: If something happens here, someone touched a bomb. That means that someone took a calculated risk to hit a bomb, whether they're aware of it or not. Any chain of explosions/floors falling/barrels falling can be followed and predicted with practice.
This stage is driven by both players’ willingness to blow things up. Since every explosion can be followed, the randomized aspects of this stage are the developers saying “Go nuts! Anything that happens is fair and reactable.” Think about why things like Peach’s Turnips or Diddy’s bananas are allowed in tournaments but not the normal method of spawning items, it’s the same thing. Wrecking Crew gives players a hand of cards, situations that both players must adapt to. The best players here are ones that understand this stage enough so they:
So if there's any argument for banning this stage, it has to address the question, "What is this stage doing to interfere between two players who can do all of the above?" Hopefully after this post and read the research I did in the research thread, you come to the same conclusion as me: Nothing.
Why am I writing this post?
Look, I play Dr. Mario. I just chill, throw pills all day, grab people who shield pills, and Super Jump Punch anyone who gets close. Yes, I guess this make me a dirty “camper” who does easy things to win. Whatever. Don’t get me started on that. Anyways, it’s pretty easy for me to watch what's going on at every stage and I notice 90% of the time my opponents happily give up stage control to huddle up near the ledge. Can I play a stage where doing that gets me a reward (like damage or a kill)? It’s really easy for me to pick Smashville, a great stage for Doc because of that platform, whenever I want. However, I don’t get much directly for stage awareness and control there. I’m totally OK with my opponent shielding all my pills since it wins me a ton of time, but I’ll just try to ignore how obnoxiously long the time limit is for players like me (I fail at ignoring this later) and ask for something else that’ll let me kill faster, Wrecking Crew. Why not both, honestly?
Anyways, Wrecking Crew is pretty much like Halberd because there’s a sign for everything. It’s easy for me to get out the way of giant lasers and crazy stuff at Halberd because I’m just throwing pills, so it's fun watching my opponent's inability to calm down as they run into literally everything there. Even though I believe there's other stages better suited for Doc, there's some good reasons to pick Wrecking Crew for him if you're comfortable here:
I LOVE playing with friends who try to understand how Wrecking Crew works because the situations get pretty crazy. I remember getting killed in mid-air by a friend charging Ike's F-Smash while he was falling on a floor. It wasn't an accident! If you think about it, that's a really interesting tactic you can't do anywhere else! How could standing on falling floors be used in more situations? I'm not sure...yet, but I'll never find out if I can't play here!
What should I be thinking about when I play at Wrecking Crew?
I can't tell you what to think because you are your own player, but I’ll share the things I think about when I come here. I'm not the best player myself, so this list is still developing. I think it's a good start though:
Great, the stage is fully aware of this! Honestly, anything you don’t like about this stage can be blown up:
Here you can see every ladder has some way of directly blowing it up. It's like this on every layout with one. The stage does not have to look like this. Blow it up.
In fact, the metagame behind “Am I going to blow something up to control the stage or will I wait” is the whole point of the stage! Nothing happens if no one wants to touch a bomb, but there’s a plenty of great reasons to use the tools the stage is trying to provide you. Many reasons I don’t know because I can’t play enough people here and my local scene copy pastes their rulesets with this stage banned around.
Sensible players and TOs should have seen enough to go "Huh. This stage is interesting, there's not much known about it. HavocThunder and anyone else who is interested in this stage should be able to play it in tournaments to some capacity" by this point...but for everyone else...
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Let's Overkill This!
I think people need MORE explanation so they feel they didn’t make a really hotheaded decision calling to completely ban this stage from Day 1, so I’ll break down every nitpick that I’ve personally heard with my own ears and read with my own eyes down below. It's not like there's a fully documented, accessible place where the hard reasons for banning Wrecking Crew are displayed so you'll have to take my word that these are all real things people coming out of mouths and fingers. This is my proof that as someone who researches this stage, I could find an answer for every issue I could think of. Even issues that have never been mentioned before.
Firstly, let me go into some hard things, the things literally NO ONE brings up when I ask people why this stage is banned because they don’t actually know how the stage works in-depth. This is great because I can explain them and have this be the source of info before anyone can try to put their usual spin on it. However, I'll do the honors. I'll phrase them in the way people would usually spin it so you can see how silly people make themselves look on a regular basis. It’s the three different RNG aspects of Wrecking Crew:
(Banning a stage by definition means no one will be able to play there, so I'm taking that definition and running with it)
The Hard Topics
Wrecking Crew should be banned because the starting layout is random
Yes, it's random but you can definitely predict what's coming.
Stop picking your nose at match start and take a look around at match countdown. :-P When the players come in you can definitely see the first two floors. Every layout can easily be recognized from it's first 2 floors, and that's an expectation that's carried into the point below. It’ll take some practice, but it’s reasonable to expect players to recognize where they are since only 10 different ones to remember. Don't overthink this, though. If you start going “Oh! I remember this layout” all the time, you’re getting somewhere!
If the player’s starting positions bothers you, you can also come up with a general gameplan for both starting player positions for every layout. Try not to overthink this too. This is a trivial matter if you develop some experience here, play the stage, and learn the layouts. I personally had no issue with this by the time I finished gathering pictures for the research thread months ago.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because the layouts falling from the top are random
Yes, they're random but you can definitely predict what's coming.
Bombs never spawn on the top row, so you have one row before a layout comes “into play”. You can always recognize every layout if you can see 2 floors of it, so no issues! You can even look at the picture above for reference. The top layout that just came into play is 2 floors high and can be destroyed now.
Note: You’re blind or your opponent is really in your head if you can’t notice them going for two floors at once. Anything the opponent can see you can see, too.
This is a trivial matter if you develop some experience here, play the stage, and learn the layouts.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because bombs could explode right when they spawn on top of me randomly
Yes, the bomb spawning location is random but you can definitely predict when they'll explode. (That's the entire point of the stage)
Here's a similar analogy. Do you put the controller down when Peach pulls a bomb out the ground? There's a lot of really important things that happen between her pulling it out and you getting hit by it. The fact that you knew she pulled a bomb before she threw it at you, you didn't block, and you died, means there's nothing wrong with it. You have plenty of time and plenty of signs to calmly adjust to the situation. Same thing here, except the bombs don't even kill til 180%-ish.
Bomb spawning is random (with some constraints listed in the research thread), but what things explode, how they explode, and how that explosion affects players and the rest of the stage are not. The latter are things that actually affect matches. It’s an important distinction to make because the stage was clearly designed around being able to adapt and react to anything exploding here:
That wasn’t so bad! Onwards to the usual complaints about the fixed things about this stage:
The Easy Topics
Wrecking Crew should be banned because barrels can fall on me randomly
Blow them up! It’s really that simple! Don’t let your opponent see your fear of barrels, though.
Taking the random claim seriously, it’s not random at all, barrel locations are FIXED on every possible layout. That’s right! It’s a little more complicated than that since some patterns with the same platform layout either have a barrel at a specified point or not. Regardless, it’s a non-issue if you play the stage and learn the layouts. I highly suggest you check the research thread or go in Training Mode to get an understanding about it.
Even if you can’t see that there’s a barrel above you, at the very worst, once again it takes about 1.75-2 seconds between your opponent destroying a 3 walled floor with a bomb and having the barrel fall on you. Here’s how that situation plays out:
Jump. Do you see a barrel? Yes? Move out the way. Problem solved.
It sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but that’s really it. I’m not sure why people freak out over it, I haven’t had any issues dodging barrels when I was aware of the floor above me. However, it’s usually more complicated than that in matches, which is the whole reason why the barrels are there. They give both you and the opponent a tool to think about and respect. You know how Charizard’s Flare Blitz is the most telegraphed move ever but people get mindgamed into getting killed by it all the time? It's a move people "shouldn't" be using but you can get away with it because your opponent is a human, top player or not. Like any other calculated risk in any competitive game. Same thing.
Note: It also takes some real planning to set the quick floor fall up, and the opponent has nearly 0 time to reach you and influence that scenario if they hit the bomb. If a barrel falls on you at the worst case, you weren’t paying attention or your opponent put you in a bad situation. No excuses.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because of the zoomed in camera
It’s got a zoomed in camera so…no one should play here ever? Huh?
I almost want to bet this was intentional to make barrel setups easier, LOL. Take advantage of this (or don’t get taken advantage of) by scouting the stage or hit someone away/get hit yourself, noting where everything is. Most of the time my opponent isn’t doing it. You should, though! J
Wrecking Crew should be banned because it’s too big
It’s too big to you so…no one should play here ever? Huh?
It’s as wide as its Omega Form, so it’s not as big as you’d think. Well, that ceiling IS crazy. >_> Height-wise, you can get around easy if you take control of the center-middle stage and/or stay underneath the opponent. Mario can get around fine since he clears a floor in a single jump. Note that it’s possible to not have a center, so blow things up until there is one. Explosions really do solve all your problems!
Even if it was too big, take advantage of it and stop going in if you're winning. The better player is the one who...it's all listed above so read that again.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because it has stage hazards that do damage
It has stage hazards and…both players who understand the stage can’t do anything about it? As explained above, every explosion on this stage can be followed like a puzzle game. (Wrecking Crew is a puzzle game so that makes sense, right?)
Yes, Wrecking Crew has stage hazards that do things to players. It wouldn’t be Wrecking Crew if things weren’t exploding here, barrels weren’t falling, and ladders didn’t exist. Just like FD wouldn’t be FD if it had platforms or Smashville wouldn't be Smashville without that shifting platform. The only real way to address this is to bluntly say “Get over it.” In fact, the whole reason I spent 3/4 months writing this post was to explain why I would generally pick this stage over a stage like Smashville. Players pick characters and customs for their strengths, too, so where’s the difference?
I'm so glad people have finally come around to Halberd. It's an awesome stage, it’s legal and has plenty of hazards too. People totally understand why Halberd is allowed, the stage gives a nice warning before things happen, which is great! Can we use that same logic to get like…almost every other stage allowed now? Since this really gets attention, it’s even allowed at EVO! Wrecking Crew needs to be at EVO too if it wants to be credible in my eyes.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because people might try to camp me out
Other people can camp you out so no one should be able to play here?
What is "camping"? "Camping" is getting hit as little as possible (even just once) and running away. This is a perfectly valid and legal strategy, and here's why:
There's two win conditions to every match. Win by timeout (and percent) or KO. This contradicts with the idea of banning a stage for camping to win. If the time limit is not going to be completely removed so "campers" like me can't win, every stage MUST be reevaluated under the condition they can’t be banned for camping to win.
This is pretty much all that needs to be said, but I can say more:
*prays this doesn't derail the discussion on Wrecking Crew since it's an irrelevant point*
(I wonder what if EVO will do anything to fix their ruleset...)
Wrecking Crew should be banned because Kirby, Charizard, and Meta-Knight can grab you anywhere and kill you for it
Ness can kill people at similar percents with B-Throw on any stage. Anyone can kill you with a throw on a stage with a walkoff. Use more explosions and keep moving so you don't get grabbed, really.
Charizard can actually kill earlier with Down-Throw. He’s got a million better reasons to pick this stage and better ways to kill people than a grab at 180% at 180% anyways. (Up-Throw might be a little better with the change in the Mewtwo patch?)
Kirby and MK kill at about 110%, which is standard killing percent, unless it was on top of barrel, where it’s 80%. The ceiling on this stage is crazy high at the 8th floor, and I can make an educated guess this was the reason why. Barrel kills are actually a really cool way to kill people. Kirby and MK need it, it takes setup, and I would totally pick this stage if I played them more. This IS a pretty good Kirby stage since punishing is his thing. People need more reasons to branch out of Smashville-land not less.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because projectiles can’t go through bombs
Customs exist for this very purpose, so use them! Otherwise, projectile characters are going to have to be creative here. Good, screw them, except Doc J Is this one of those times giant pill might be worth it? It’s up to the players to figure it out.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because you can get hurt from walls
If you look behind your character, you can see where the walls will explode. Don’t stand in front of one if it’s exploding. You can shield them, but be wary of any opponents nearby. Also, hit more bombs if this is a problem so you “own the explosions”. It’s pretty hard to get killed by them since they don’t kill until about 180% - 200%.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because ladders are weird
Firstly, this stage is called Wrecking Crew so feel free to blow up any ladders you want to vent your frustration towards!
Secondly, ladders have existed for years since Brawl, so what were you doing?
Honestly...ladders are ladders. If you’re having issues navigating them, remember to NOT press up or down on any sort of stick if you don’t want to grab them. I’ll admit I’m still learning how to make use of them myself. Note that grabbing a ladder CANCELS your helpless animation, so grabbing one is useful for everyone with a good horizontal recovery. Chilling near a ladder lets you take some less-risky Up-Bs too! Cool! Also, if you want to do anything that’s not “Go up or down this ladder” you have to “ladder cancel” by hitting side first. It’s why it’s easy to do Side-anything off ladders.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because it’s not popular
Popularity has nothing to do with legality. Banning something because it’s too popular/not popular enough doesn’t fly for characters, so I expect the same for stages. If people suddenly stopped playing on Smashville, should it be banned to save everyone the trouble of picking it? Since people generally don’t like Lylat Cruise, should it be banned to save people the trouble? Should Ganondorf be banned to preemptively save everyone the trouble of playing him? Should MK or Diddy be banned because they get too popular?
I want Wrecking Crew to be ultimately allowed because it’s fair and competitive, not because I personally like it, you personally hate it, it’s currently unpopular or it’ll get too popular. Hopefully me talking about how I like it makes people want to give it a chance, but ultimately what the stage is doing is what's most important here. I really hate Battlefield's layout, but if people want to pick that stage against me, I'll have to deal with it because the stage is fair and competitive. I made this giant post because I care that the same amount of tolerance to be enforced among all stages in a neutral space, the rules. The people who make these decisions behind these rules MUST have the same equal tolerance for me, too.
Conclusions
If you can put all this together, you’ll realize this blows the door open wide for Palutena’s Temple, Gaur Plains, Great Cave Offensive, a ton of other stages. But…people honestly believe that if they don’t like a stage, no one should play on it ever, like what's happened with Wrecking Crew already. That's the definition of banning something. It's really not something to be taken lightly, which is why it *usually* requires some hard proof (not in the case of stages or with MK in Brawl, where after enough complaining, things can get banned)
So, AFTER ALL THIS, if you're still thinking that no one will miss this stage by banning it, SCREW YOU, you're exactly the reason why I was nervous about making this post. In fact, read my entire post again. It's clear my own research on Wrecking Crew hasn't given me all the answers. I won't have the room to figure it out if I can't ever play there! At least from what I see, I can easily conclude that the stage is fair, so that's a good starting point.
Here are the future topics that are next on my list when I get access to a Wii U again for pictures:
(Hint: Wily's Castle is the easiest of these stages to say "Nothing" too! Even easier than Wrecking Crew!)
Honestly if there was literally ANY other competitive Smash community out there that was more accepting of all the stages in the game, I’d be there in a heartbeat. This is the main place where people gather to talk about Smash, so I guess I have nothing to do but complain about it here.
(I had an extra note here about how there’s a lot of open, blatant hate in real-life + online for people who like these stages, but I'll leave it out. Basically, I had to split with a couple "friends" over their inability to realize their real-life rants about these people who "cheat to win with hazards" are targeted at me. Basically all of these bans that are so casually talked about here have a very real effect on my life and the people I play against.)
I already had to wait half a year (3DS release) for people to finally realize that customs make a HUGE difference for players like me, and I literally cannot play on most of the stages I feel are best for me unless it includes like...Skyloft maybe, Halberd, Smashville, or FD. Even if Wrecking Crew is allowed, my opponents can just outright ban my best stage using *ANY* stage striking system, even if they won the first match in the set. This is great for other unpopular stages like probably Lylat now, but now WC will be the target of the bans. See how slanted stage striking is for people who value being able to pick unpopular stages? My opponent's can't strike Doc and force me to pick someone else if I win too much with him, but they can do that with Wrecking Crew. I think I understand WC more than Doc, lol. Where's the line crossed? I almost just finished this post and I'm still wondering why I wrote it, this feels hopeless...
Ending on a Positive Note
Whenever I post stuff like this, I feel so ashamed about what I’m saying, it’s quite clear my interests are different from most posters here. But…I think about the fact I like Wrecking Crew and just want to freely play on all my favorite stages, and it really makes me get going. I’m not the best player or a top player at all, but I’m steadily improving and I’d like to play where I feel the most comfortable. It’s funny, I owe my recent switch to Dr. Mario and my recent minor successes in locals to the things I learned from single-player on Wii U + 3DS and not anyone else who told me to “pick this currently really good character”.
All I know is that there’s an awful lot of Wrecking Crew “experts” out there, in real life and over the internet, who overexaggerate a lot of things that happen here. I’d really like to know how TOs and EVO came to the conclusion that this stage was unfair from Day 1. They must be doing some research that I don’t know about, because when I play on this stage, I’m fully aware of everything going on. I can’t always act on it, but I’m working on it. Anyways, I’d like to know specifically what you can do at Wrecking Crew that’s enough to get both players DISQUALIFIED from a match. If TOs and players know more about how this stage works than me, I hope they cough up a reason not on the list above or I’ll (respectfully!) tear them up for it. I’ve spent months researching this stage, but maybe there’s something really obvious I missed, you never know.
Hopefully me putting myself out there like this will help get enough people talking to get all these stages legal! I really hope someone looks at this and values my opinion on Wrecking Crew as someone who actually plays there. I 100% honestly don’t believe anyone else would’ve found what I found about Wrecking Crew if I didn’t do it myself.
Don’t wait on my permission or a TOs permission or a top players permission to play here, go into Training Mode, pick Wrecking Crew, and try it out for yourself! Everything I posted can be verified for yourself, so if I’m wrong about anything, feel free to post below so it can be fixed here and the research thread. Figuring this stage out should be a community effort. Some things might’ve changed in the Mewtwo patch and I haven’t had a chance to double check everything again.
If you want to play me here, I won’t have any access to my Wii U until the summer :< But that shouldn’t stop you from playing Wrecking Crew with your friends or at friendlies (or requesting it for tournaments)! Post screenshots or videos of any weird scenarios so we can discuss it, I really want to avoid hypothetical scenarios.
If you want an interactive tutorial on Wrecking Crew, go do that event where you have to destroy the entire stage. I haven’t specifically counted, but I’m pretty certain it goes through every preset layout once. That one-floor one counts twice I believe, which is interesting.
There’s some specific scenarios on certain layouts that I think are worth fighting to keep, but this post is already long enough. I can start with this:
See that barrel over there on the left? I’d like to study how to affects ledge scenarios since it’s always there on that platform layout. I'm just starting the discussion, but I'd love to share notes about some scenarios that people are having trouble dealing with. Go go go, discuss!
REQUIRED READING: http://smashboards.com/threads/wrecking-crew-stage-research.387506/
Please, please, please, do not even touch “Reply” to this thread if you have not done the required reading.
I want to start with talking about reasons why I want to play Wrecking Crew, why it’s my favorite stage, why it suits me, and why I’m confused that it’s been banned Day 1 – Day EVO. I want to control the tone of the discussion away from hypothetical situations, so let’s make sure everything we claim is based on real experiences or facts about the stage so a proper discussion can be had.
If you don’t read anything else, at least read the summary:
Summary:
Wrecking Crew is a stage where you have to put on your thinking cap, like the original game or any puzzle game. The main idea of Wrecking Crew is to blow things up. To support that, every explosion has a clear sign on this stage. If no one touches a bomb, nothing happens. The reverse is true: If something happens here, someone touched a bomb. That means that someone took a calculated risk to hit a bomb, whether they're aware of it or not. Any chain of explosions/floors falling/barrels falling can be followed and predicted with practice.
This stage is driven by both players’ willingness to blow things up. Since every explosion can be followed, the randomized aspects of this stage are the developers saying “Go nuts! Anything that happens is fair and reactable.” Think about why things like Peach’s Turnips or Diddy’s bananas are allowed in tournaments but not the normal method of spawning items, it’s the same thing. Wrecking Crew gives players a hand of cards, situations that both players must adapt to. The best players here are ones that understand this stage enough so they:
- Can use the predictable explosions to win by timeout or KO
- Can identify upcoming layouts in unexpected situations from looking at the first 2 floors
- Can control and predict their opponent’s ability to hit bombs
- Can destroy layouts that favor their opponent
- Can control the pace of the match by keeping layouts that favor them
- Can follow exactly what will happen when a bomb is touched
- Have a smart gameplan for every possible layout
- Set up scenarios that put their opponents in barrels often
- Can use ladders to their advantage
So if there's any argument for banning this stage, it has to address the question, "What is this stage doing to interfere between two players who can do all of the above?" Hopefully after this post and read the research I did in the research thread, you come to the same conclusion as me: Nothing.
Why am I writing this post?
Look, I play Dr. Mario. I just chill, throw pills all day, grab people who shield pills, and Super Jump Punch anyone who gets close. Yes, I guess this make me a dirty “camper” who does easy things to win. Whatever. Don’t get me started on that. Anyways, it’s pretty easy for me to watch what's going on at every stage and I notice 90% of the time my opponents happily give up stage control to huddle up near the ledge. Can I play a stage where doing that gets me a reward (like damage or a kill)? It’s really easy for me to pick Smashville, a great stage for Doc because of that platform, whenever I want. However, I don’t get much directly for stage awareness and control there. I’m totally OK with my opponent shielding all my pills since it wins me a ton of time, but I’ll just try to ignore how obnoxiously long the time limit is for players like me (I fail at ignoring this later) and ask for something else that’ll let me kill faster, Wrecking Crew. Why not both, honestly?
Anyways, Wrecking Crew is pretty much like Halberd because there’s a sign for everything. It’s easy for me to get out the way of giant lasers and crazy stuff at Halberd because I’m just throwing pills, so it's fun watching my opponent's inability to calm down as they run into literally everything there. Even though I believe there's other stages better suited for Doc, there's some good reasons to pick Wrecking Crew for him if you're comfortable here:
- Pills can be thrown over bombs
- Pills can be thrown while standing on barrels
- Giant pill wrecks bombs and is helpful for defending an important bomb
- Rage + Ol' One Two = <3
- Catching people on platforms and ladders makes Ol' One Two REALLY useful in general
- Super Jump Punch can be cancelled by grabbing ladders (Ol' One Two can't unless you jump :<)
- Clothesline Tornado's shield damage + shield damage from explosions = A lot of broken shields
- There's a wall under the ledges for walljumping
- Soaring Tornado destroys anyone trying to recover high
- Flare Blitz lets you punish anyone going for a bomb or accidentally grabbing a ladder from crazy places
- Blast Burn REALLY lets you punish anyone going for a bomb or ladder
- Flare Blitz and Blast Burn will pop the shield of anyone who shielded like...2 explosions (want to get some specific numbers on this)
- Dragon Rush lets him run away/approach through bombs like a jerk
- Fireball Cannon covers an entire floor with its range and is one of the very important projectiles that go through bombs
- His aerials are generally good at destroying bombs (DK's pound is the king of this though)
- Flamethrower holds people in place for barrels
- The incredibly high ceiling and wide blastzones make it a pain to kill him, so rage gets nuts
- Fly, an incredible kill move, can be CANCELLED by grabbing a ladder
- He has no problem killing people with Up-Air
- Platforms everywhere meaning people can't dodge your up-air attempts without exposing themselves to some version of Fly. Also any knockdown = fun time
- He has a million different ways to recover from the wall to Flare Blitzing/Dragon Rushing to a ladder/platform
I LOVE playing with friends who try to understand how Wrecking Crew works because the situations get pretty crazy. I remember getting killed in mid-air by a friend charging Ike's F-Smash while he was falling on a floor. It wasn't an accident! If you think about it, that's a really interesting tactic you can't do anywhere else! How could standing on falling floors be used in more situations? I'm not sure...yet, but I'll never find out if I can't play here!
What should I be thinking about when I play at Wrecking Crew?
I can't tell you what to think because you are your own player, but I’ll share the things I think about when I come here. I'm not the best player myself, so this list is still developing. I think it's a good start though:
- Am I generally going to touch a bomb or watch the opponent this match?
- When does my opponent like to touch bombs and how do they like to do it?
- Which layouts are my opponent willing to keep and which will they blow up asap?
- Does the opponent know anything about this stage? I know exactly what will happen whenever a bomb explodes so how can I take advantage of the situations they put themselves into?
Great, the stage is fully aware of this! Honestly, anything you don’t like about this stage can be blown up:
- If there's any layout you have trouble with, blow it up.
- If you have an issue with barrels, blow them up.
- If you can’t figure out ladders, blow them up.
- If your opponent is good at using ladders, blow them up.
- If you hate approaching opponents, blow them up.
- If you need a way to approach, blow something up.
- If your opponent is a dirty stinky camper, blow them up.
- If your opponent likes to use bombs to do evil things, blow them up first.
- If you really like Flare Blitz, punish people who blow things up.
Here you can see every ladder has some way of directly blowing it up. It's like this on every layout with one. The stage does not have to look like this. Blow it up.
In fact, the metagame behind “Am I going to blow something up to control the stage or will I wait” is the whole point of the stage! Nothing happens if no one wants to touch a bomb, but there’s a plenty of great reasons to use the tools the stage is trying to provide you. Many reasons I don’t know because I can’t play enough people here and my local scene copy pastes their rulesets with this stage banned around.
Sensible players and TOs should have seen enough to go "Huh. This stage is interesting, there's not much known about it. HavocThunder and anyone else who is interested in this stage should be able to play it in tournaments to some capacity" by this point...but for everyone else...
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Let's Overkill This!
I think people need MORE explanation so they feel they didn’t make a really hotheaded decision calling to completely ban this stage from Day 1, so I’ll break down every nitpick that I’ve personally heard with my own ears and read with my own eyes down below. It's not like there's a fully documented, accessible place where the hard reasons for banning Wrecking Crew are displayed so you'll have to take my word that these are all real things people coming out of mouths and fingers. This is my proof that as someone who researches this stage, I could find an answer for every issue I could think of. Even issues that have never been mentioned before.
Firstly, let me go into some hard things, the things literally NO ONE brings up when I ask people why this stage is banned because they don’t actually know how the stage works in-depth. This is great because I can explain them and have this be the source of info before anyone can try to put their usual spin on it. However, I'll do the honors. I'll phrase them in the way people would usually spin it so you can see how silly people make themselves look on a regular basis. It’s the three different RNG aspects of Wrecking Crew:
(Banning a stage by definition means no one will be able to play there, so I'm taking that definition and running with it)
The Hard Topics
Wrecking Crew should be banned because the starting layout is random
Yes, it's random but you can definitely predict what's coming.
Stop picking your nose at match start and take a look around at match countdown. :-P When the players come in you can definitely see the first two floors. Every layout can easily be recognized from it's first 2 floors, and that's an expectation that's carried into the point below. It’ll take some practice, but it’s reasonable to expect players to recognize where they are since only 10 different ones to remember. Don't overthink this, though. If you start going “Oh! I remember this layout” all the time, you’re getting somewhere!
If the player’s starting positions bothers you, you can also come up with a general gameplan for both starting player positions for every layout. Try not to overthink this too. This is a trivial matter if you develop some experience here, play the stage, and learn the layouts. I personally had no issue with this by the time I finished gathering pictures for the research thread months ago.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because the layouts falling from the top are random
Yes, they're random but you can definitely predict what's coming.
Bombs never spawn on the top row, so you have one row before a layout comes “into play”. You can always recognize every layout if you can see 2 floors of it, so no issues! You can even look at the picture above for reference. The top layout that just came into play is 2 floors high and can be destroyed now.
Note: You’re blind or your opponent is really in your head if you can’t notice them going for two floors at once. Anything the opponent can see you can see, too.
This is a trivial matter if you develop some experience here, play the stage, and learn the layouts.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because bombs could explode right when they spawn on top of me randomly
Yes, the bomb spawning location is random but you can definitely predict when they'll explode. (That's the entire point of the stage)
Here's a similar analogy. Do you put the controller down when Peach pulls a bomb out the ground? There's a lot of really important things that happen between her pulling it out and you getting hit by it. The fact that you knew she pulled a bomb before she threw it at you, you didn't block, and you died, means there's nothing wrong with it. You have plenty of time and plenty of signs to calmly adjust to the situation. Same thing here, except the bombs don't even kill til 180%-ish.
Bomb spawning is random (with some constraints listed in the research thread), but what things explode, how they explode, and how that explosion affects players and the rest of the stage are not. The latter are things that actually affect matches. It’s an important distinction to make because the stage was clearly designed around being able to adapt and react to anything exploding here:
- There’s spawners, fixed on each layout, that clearly indicate where bombs will spawn
- Bombs have 14 HP. Most of the stronger b-airs I can think of do 13 HP. Any move from any character I can think of, including Smash attacks, that does 14 HP in one shot are well-telegraphed, from the player’s use of it in expected situations or naturally built into the character in unexpected situations.
- The only other way to make a bomb instantly explode is to have a floor fall on it. If a floor is falling, SOMEONE hit a bomb.
- If you hit the bomb earlier...ask yourself why you hit a bomb then jumped/ran into an explosion you caused. >_>
- If your opponent hit the bomb earlier…were you paying attention to them *hitting the bomb* or were you picking your nose again?
- It usually takes at the VERY worst 1.75 seconds (with one particularly situational but valuable setup with 3 weak walls and one bomb) to > 5/6 seconds between someone hitting a bomb and the floor falling.
That wasn’t so bad! Onwards to the usual complaints about the fixed things about this stage:
The Easy Topics
Wrecking Crew should be banned because barrels can fall on me randomly
Blow them up! It’s really that simple! Don’t let your opponent see your fear of barrels, though.
Taking the random claim seriously, it’s not random at all, barrel locations are FIXED on every possible layout. That’s right! It’s a little more complicated than that since some patterns with the same platform layout either have a barrel at a specified point or not. Regardless, it’s a non-issue if you play the stage and learn the layouts. I highly suggest you check the research thread or go in Training Mode to get an understanding about it.
Even if you can’t see that there’s a barrel above you, at the very worst, once again it takes about 1.75-2 seconds between your opponent destroying a 3 walled floor with a bomb and having the barrel fall on you. Here’s how that situation plays out:
- Opponent hits a bomb
- The stage is exploding, walls are shaking, and it’s pretty obvious things are falling soon
- You’re doing stuff for at least 2 seconds
- A barrel hits you
Jump. Do you see a barrel? Yes? Move out the way. Problem solved.
It sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but that’s really it. I’m not sure why people freak out over it, I haven’t had any issues dodging barrels when I was aware of the floor above me. However, it’s usually more complicated than that in matches, which is the whole reason why the barrels are there. They give both you and the opponent a tool to think about and respect. You know how Charizard’s Flare Blitz is the most telegraphed move ever but people get mindgamed into getting killed by it all the time? It's a move people "shouldn't" be using but you can get away with it because your opponent is a human, top player or not. Like any other calculated risk in any competitive game. Same thing.
Note: It also takes some real planning to set the quick floor fall up, and the opponent has nearly 0 time to reach you and influence that scenario if they hit the bomb. If a barrel falls on you at the worst case, you weren’t paying attention or your opponent put you in a bad situation. No excuses.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because of the zoomed in camera
It’s got a zoomed in camera so…no one should play here ever? Huh?
I almost want to bet this was intentional to make barrel setups easier, LOL. Take advantage of this (or don’t get taken advantage of) by scouting the stage or hit someone away/get hit yourself, noting where everything is. Most of the time my opponent isn’t doing it. You should, though! J
Wrecking Crew should be banned because it’s too big
It’s too big to you so…no one should play here ever? Huh?
It’s as wide as its Omega Form, so it’s not as big as you’d think. Well, that ceiling IS crazy. >_> Height-wise, you can get around easy if you take control of the center-middle stage and/or stay underneath the opponent. Mario can get around fine since he clears a floor in a single jump. Note that it’s possible to not have a center, so blow things up until there is one. Explosions really do solve all your problems!
Even if it was too big, take advantage of it and stop going in if you're winning. The better player is the one who...it's all listed above so read that again.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because it has stage hazards that do damage
It has stage hazards and…both players who understand the stage can’t do anything about it? As explained above, every explosion on this stage can be followed like a puzzle game. (Wrecking Crew is a puzzle game so that makes sense, right?)
Yes, Wrecking Crew has stage hazards that do things to players. It wouldn’t be Wrecking Crew if things weren’t exploding here, barrels weren’t falling, and ladders didn’t exist. Just like FD wouldn’t be FD if it had platforms or Smashville wouldn't be Smashville without that shifting platform. The only real way to address this is to bluntly say “Get over it.” In fact, the whole reason I spent 3/4 months writing this post was to explain why I would generally pick this stage over a stage like Smashville. Players pick characters and customs for their strengths, too, so where’s the difference?
I'm so glad people have finally come around to Halberd. It's an awesome stage, it’s legal and has plenty of hazards too. People totally understand why Halberd is allowed, the stage gives a nice warning before things happen, which is great! Can we use that same logic to get like…almost every other stage allowed now? Since this really gets attention, it’s even allowed at EVO! Wrecking Crew needs to be at EVO too if it wants to be credible in my eyes.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because people might try to camp me out
Other people can camp you out so no one should be able to play here?
What is "camping"? "Camping" is getting hit as little as possible (even just once) and running away. This is a perfectly valid and legal strategy, and here's why:
There's two win conditions to every match. Win by timeout (and percent) or KO. This contradicts with the idea of banning a stage for camping to win. If the time limit is not going to be completely removed so "campers" like me can't win, every stage MUST be reevaluated under the condition they can’t be banned for camping to win.
This is pretty much all that needs to be said, but I can say more:
*prays this doesn't derail the discussion on Wrecking Crew since it's an irrelevant point*
It's important to mention the only reason I'm bringing this up is because people equate camping into banning. I think it's crazy and unfair that my existence and preference for win conditions can be used to ban stages I like or honestly any stage at all! If I or someone else posted a video of me camping someone out on Wrecking Crew, I GUARANTEE someone would use it as proof that the stage should be banned. Think about it, what if your match footage of you counterpicking Final Destination was used as core evidence to ban it without your permission? I think my outrage about this is perfectly understandable!!!
I'm not the person who makes the rules, so I'll turn this towards the TOs who do:
Why do you not use the default rules that make it so you have to kill someone first to reliably win? The whole problem behind the perception of camping is caused by a community-made rule, winning by percent all the time. That and the obnoxiously long time limit that I, as a camper, hate because of how rough it is to stall someone out 3 freaking minutes a stock.
Who does having a long time limit help again? It's certainly not me, and it certainly drags matches out for TOs, it's really just there to make ignorant players feel like I'm being accommodated. If the time limit mattered, why isn't it ever brought up in LEGAL stage discussion? Why is it only important in banned stage discussion? If it mattered, why isn't the time limit condition for winning listed under EVO's ruleset?
I would rather put this into another thread, but INEVITABLY this comes up in every stage discussion that even hints at having a good reason to run. Honestly, since it's easily decisively proven that camping is legal, this "camping" witch hunt has nothing to do with Wrecking Crew or ANY stage and everything to do with the perception of these poisonous “campers” like me. Be the better player and get hit less. As soon as you get the life lead, the camper has to do something about it. I love these kind of fights because both players are thinking! There isn’t even a circle here to desperately claim circle camping and if there was one, you can blow it up because that’s the whole point of the stage.
(I'm trying to be more open about my like for camping on stages like these so people realize how stupid they look when they go "OMG THESE WRETCHED CAMPERS RUINING THIS GAME". APEX was really, really, really embarrassing, and I'll never forget that. I'm going to need better reasons than my existence as a Smash player as enough to ban a stage. If you bring up camping in this thread, please be aware you're directly referring to me and derailing the discussion away from Wrecking Crew so be prepared for my (not happy) response (please get involved mods...). I've been around for awhile so clearly I'm not breaking anything. I'm sorry I would prefer to win on my own terms and not yours? I'm not playing a match with you to make you feel comfortable)
Either way, as I came to an understanding about while posting in the Stage Discussion Thread, there's nothing to discuss about a contradiction in the rules except solutions, unless you're telling me there ISN'T a time limit rule where you can win by percent? Please educate me, because that's the only way out of not reevaluating every stage in this game. That or blatantly ignoring the extremely clear point I made that the rules make no sense.
I'm not the person who makes the rules, so I'll turn this towards the TOs who do:
Why do you not use the default rules that make it so you have to kill someone first to reliably win? The whole problem behind the perception of camping is caused by a community-made rule, winning by percent all the time. That and the obnoxiously long time limit that I, as a camper, hate because of how rough it is to stall someone out 3 freaking minutes a stock.
Who does having a long time limit help again? It's certainly not me, and it certainly drags matches out for TOs, it's really just there to make ignorant players feel like I'm being accommodated. If the time limit mattered, why isn't it ever brought up in LEGAL stage discussion? Why is it only important in banned stage discussion? If it mattered, why isn't the time limit condition for winning listed under EVO's ruleset?
I would rather put this into another thread, but INEVITABLY this comes up in every stage discussion that even hints at having a good reason to run. Honestly, since it's easily decisively proven that camping is legal, this "camping" witch hunt has nothing to do with Wrecking Crew or ANY stage and everything to do with the perception of these poisonous “campers” like me. Be the better player and get hit less. As soon as you get the life lead, the camper has to do something about it. I love these kind of fights because both players are thinking! There isn’t even a circle here to desperately claim circle camping and if there was one, you can blow it up because that’s the whole point of the stage.
(I'm trying to be more open about my like for camping on stages like these so people realize how stupid they look when they go "OMG THESE WRETCHED CAMPERS RUINING THIS GAME". APEX was really, really, really embarrassing, and I'll never forget that. I'm going to need better reasons than my existence as a Smash player as enough to ban a stage. If you bring up camping in this thread, please be aware you're directly referring to me and derailing the discussion away from Wrecking Crew so be prepared for my (not happy) response (please get involved mods...). I've been around for awhile so clearly I'm not breaking anything. I'm sorry I would prefer to win on my own terms and not yours? I'm not playing a match with you to make you feel comfortable)
Either way, as I came to an understanding about while posting in the Stage Discussion Thread, there's nothing to discuss about a contradiction in the rules except solutions, unless you're telling me there ISN'T a time limit rule where you can win by percent? Please educate me, because that's the only way out of not reevaluating every stage in this game. That or blatantly ignoring the extremely clear point I made that the rules make no sense.
(I wonder what if EVO will do anything to fix their ruleset...)
Wrecking Crew should be banned because Kirby, Charizard, and Meta-Knight can grab you anywhere and kill you for it
Ness can kill people at similar percents with B-Throw on any stage. Anyone can kill you with a throw on a stage with a walkoff. Use more explosions and keep moving so you don't get grabbed, really.
Charizard can actually kill earlier with Down-Throw. He’s got a million better reasons to pick this stage and better ways to kill people than a grab at 180% at 180% anyways. (Up-Throw might be a little better with the change in the Mewtwo patch?)
Kirby and MK kill at about 110%, which is standard killing percent, unless it was on top of barrel, where it’s 80%. The ceiling on this stage is crazy high at the 8th floor, and I can make an educated guess this was the reason why. Barrel kills are actually a really cool way to kill people. Kirby and MK need it, it takes setup, and I would totally pick this stage if I played them more. This IS a pretty good Kirby stage since punishing is his thing. People need more reasons to branch out of Smashville-land not less.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because projectiles can’t go through bombs
Customs exist for this very purpose, so use them! Otherwise, projectile characters are going to have to be creative here. Good, screw them, except Doc J Is this one of those times giant pill might be worth it? It’s up to the players to figure it out.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because you can get hurt from walls
If you look behind your character, you can see where the walls will explode. Don’t stand in front of one if it’s exploding. You can shield them, but be wary of any opponents nearby. Also, hit more bombs if this is a problem so you “own the explosions”. It’s pretty hard to get killed by them since they don’t kill until about 180% - 200%.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because ladders are weird
Firstly, this stage is called Wrecking Crew so feel free to blow up any ladders you want to vent your frustration towards!
Secondly, ladders have existed for years since Brawl, so what were you doing?
Honestly...ladders are ladders. If you’re having issues navigating them, remember to NOT press up or down on any sort of stick if you don’t want to grab them. I’ll admit I’m still learning how to make use of them myself. Note that grabbing a ladder CANCELS your helpless animation, so grabbing one is useful for everyone with a good horizontal recovery. Chilling near a ladder lets you take some less-risky Up-Bs too! Cool! Also, if you want to do anything that’s not “Go up or down this ladder” you have to “ladder cancel” by hitting side first. It’s why it’s easy to do Side-anything off ladders.
Wrecking Crew should be banned because it’s not popular
Popularity has nothing to do with legality. Banning something because it’s too popular/not popular enough doesn’t fly for characters, so I expect the same for stages. If people suddenly stopped playing on Smashville, should it be banned to save everyone the trouble of picking it? Since people generally don’t like Lylat Cruise, should it be banned to save people the trouble? Should Ganondorf be banned to preemptively save everyone the trouble of playing him? Should MK or Diddy be banned because they get too popular?
I want Wrecking Crew to be ultimately allowed because it’s fair and competitive, not because I personally like it, you personally hate it, it’s currently unpopular or it’ll get too popular. Hopefully me talking about how I like it makes people want to give it a chance, but ultimately what the stage is doing is what's most important here. I really hate Battlefield's layout, but if people want to pick that stage against me, I'll have to deal with it because the stage is fair and competitive. I made this giant post because I care that the same amount of tolerance to be enforced among all stages in a neutral space, the rules. The people who make these decisions behind these rules MUST have the same equal tolerance for me, too.
Conclusions
If you can put all this together, you’ll realize this blows the door open wide for Palutena’s Temple, Gaur Plains, Great Cave Offensive, a ton of other stages. But…people honestly believe that if they don’t like a stage, no one should play on it ever, like what's happened with Wrecking Crew already. That's the definition of banning something. It's really not something to be taken lightly, which is why it *usually* requires some hard proof (not in the case of stages or with MK in Brawl, where after enough complaining, things can get banned)
So, AFTER ALL THIS, if you're still thinking that no one will miss this stage by banning it, SCREW YOU, you're exactly the reason why I was nervous about making this post. In fact, read my entire post again. It's clear my own research on Wrecking Crew hasn't given me all the answers. I won't have the room to figure it out if I can't ever play there! At least from what I see, I can easily conclude that the stage is fair, so that's a good starting point.
Here are the future topics that are next on my list when I get access to a Wii U again for pictures:
- Wily’s Castle
- Flat Zone X <--This stage is SO good for Doc! WOW
- Pac-Land
- Pac-Land with items turned on low (anything not off) and everything disabled (+1 if you know why!)
(Hint: Wily's Castle is the easiest of these stages to say "Nothing" too! Even easier than Wrecking Crew!)
Honestly if there was literally ANY other competitive Smash community out there that was more accepting of all the stages in the game, I’d be there in a heartbeat. This is the main place where people gather to talk about Smash, so I guess I have nothing to do but complain about it here.
(I had an extra note here about how there’s a lot of open, blatant hate in real-life + online for people who like these stages, but I'll leave it out. Basically, I had to split with a couple "friends" over their inability to realize their real-life rants about these people who "cheat to win with hazards" are targeted at me. Basically all of these bans that are so casually talked about here have a very real effect on my life and the people I play against.)
I already had to wait half a year (3DS release) for people to finally realize that customs make a HUGE difference for players like me, and I literally cannot play on most of the stages I feel are best for me unless it includes like...Skyloft maybe, Halberd, Smashville, or FD. Even if Wrecking Crew is allowed, my opponents can just outright ban my best stage using *ANY* stage striking system, even if they won the first match in the set. This is great for other unpopular stages like probably Lylat now, but now WC will be the target of the bans. See how slanted stage striking is for people who value being able to pick unpopular stages? My opponent's can't strike Doc and force me to pick someone else if I win too much with him, but they can do that with Wrecking Crew. I think I understand WC more than Doc, lol. Where's the line crossed? I almost just finished this post and I'm still wondering why I wrote it, this feels hopeless...
Ending on a Positive Note
Whenever I post stuff like this, I feel so ashamed about what I’m saying, it’s quite clear my interests are different from most posters here. But…I think about the fact I like Wrecking Crew and just want to freely play on all my favorite stages, and it really makes me get going. I’m not the best player or a top player at all, but I’m steadily improving and I’d like to play where I feel the most comfortable. It’s funny, I owe my recent switch to Dr. Mario and my recent minor successes in locals to the things I learned from single-player on Wii U + 3DS and not anyone else who told me to “pick this currently really good character”.
All I know is that there’s an awful lot of Wrecking Crew “experts” out there, in real life and over the internet, who overexaggerate a lot of things that happen here. I’d really like to know how TOs and EVO came to the conclusion that this stage was unfair from Day 1. They must be doing some research that I don’t know about, because when I play on this stage, I’m fully aware of everything going on. I can’t always act on it, but I’m working on it. Anyways, I’d like to know specifically what you can do at Wrecking Crew that’s enough to get both players DISQUALIFIED from a match. If TOs and players know more about how this stage works than me, I hope they cough up a reason not on the list above or I’ll (respectfully!) tear them up for it. I’ve spent months researching this stage, but maybe there’s something really obvious I missed, you never know.
Hopefully me putting myself out there like this will help get enough people talking to get all these stages legal! I really hope someone looks at this and values my opinion on Wrecking Crew as someone who actually plays there. I 100% honestly don’t believe anyone else would’ve found what I found about Wrecking Crew if I didn’t do it myself.
Don’t wait on my permission or a TOs permission or a top players permission to play here, go into Training Mode, pick Wrecking Crew, and try it out for yourself! Everything I posted can be verified for yourself, so if I’m wrong about anything, feel free to post below so it can be fixed here and the research thread. Figuring this stage out should be a community effort. Some things might’ve changed in the Mewtwo patch and I haven’t had a chance to double check everything again.
If you want to play me here, I won’t have any access to my Wii U until the summer :< But that shouldn’t stop you from playing Wrecking Crew with your friends or at friendlies (or requesting it for tournaments)! Post screenshots or videos of any weird scenarios so we can discuss it, I really want to avoid hypothetical scenarios.
If you want an interactive tutorial on Wrecking Crew, go do that event where you have to destroy the entire stage. I haven’t specifically counted, but I’m pretty certain it goes through every preset layout once. That one-floor one counts twice I believe, which is interesting.
There’s some specific scenarios on certain layouts that I think are worth fighting to keep, but this post is already long enough. I can start with this:
See that barrel over there on the left? I’d like to study how to affects ledge scenarios since it’s always there on that platform layout. I'm just starting the discussion, but I'd love to share notes about some scenarios that people are having trouble dealing with. Go go go, discuss!
