Melee Counterpick Stages Debate

[SypherPhoenix]

I would say that the core reasoning behind playing on a variety of stages is to make sure that the player who wins the set is best in the majority of all possible gameplay situations.

I feel that legal stages in just about any 1v1 game need to meet certain requirements (that is, stages that don't are banned):


1) Equal opportunity is given to all players over the course of the match. By this, I mean that any random or unpredictable event must benefit one player as much as the other over the course of that single match.

2) The stage does not have a solution (Sirlin readers might find this familiar). There is no perfectly optimal way to play on that specific stage within the current metagame. As soon as Fox can camp with lasers in a specific pattern and be able to cover every feasible option, the stage should be banned.

3) The stage does not force the player to yield more attention to it than the player or the opponent. For example, Big Blue.






There is no reason to make these sort of bans just because we don't like the stage. Why not just ban all stages except FD? Why not ban the shine, or aerial combat? The goal when making a tournament ruleset is to leave as many options open as possible while still pinpointing skill. We should think beyond what we like or dislike. Hyperboreans, right?

I've always thought that important matches, such as grand finals at a national tournament, should not include counterpicks or player bans. They should play among all the neutral and counterpick stages, the order being decided by the random selection feature built into the game. Each stage would only be played on once, and this process would be done until all stages are exhausted. Then, I suppose, the person with the most match victories wins the set. There are better ways to carry this idea out, I'm sure; the stage order selection method isn't the greatest. But my point is that we should be testing skill on all fair stages, not just ones that the players like, or ones that characters have a specific advantage or disadvantage on.

also the difference between fox on floats and marth on yoshi's is very apparent -- fox gets an advantage on floats by adding in a new factor, a moving stage. marth gets his advantage on yoshi's by manipulating already existing factors, smaller stage length, tighter platforms.

Why is a moving stage a new factor? Hasn't Poké Floats always been mobile? What is the standard you are comparing it to? Fox gets his advantage the same way you describe Marth does: he manipulates existing factors, which in this case is the moving stage. Playing on Poké Floats doesn't necessarily give Fox the set advantage (beyond being a better character overall), considering that other characters have other counterpicks. Why is this advantage different from the advantage Marth gains on YS?

 

[ChRed2AKrisp]

I guess he's comparing it to neutrals. Most neutrals do not have moving platforms, with the exception of the cloud and the windmill, and if you realy stretch it, FoD's platforms go up and down every now and then. But yeah, floats is one of the least random stages actually, it always cycles in the exact same way.

 

[Scar]

i will say that if all your assumptions were true (1 and 3 are not) then i would agree with you, i have a problem particularly with 1.

1) Equal opportunity is given to all players over the course of the match. By this, I mean that any random or unpredictable event must benefit one player as much as the other over the course of that single match.

this would be true if the characters were all the same, but they aren't, which is the point. random factors benefit one player more or less than the other player based on character choice, for example cars on mute and jiggs/peach vs every other character, also anything like lasers on corneria and klaptrap and bowser vs those things and pichu -- bowser is big and slow, pichu is small and fast, bowser gets a much larger disadvantage by introducing the same random element

most if not all differences in character yields this imbalance

3) The stage does not force the player to yield more attention to it than the player or the opponent. For example, Big Blue.

so long as you don't know the stage like the back of your hand then yes, almost all of the counterpick stages require you to divide your attention between opponent and stage, and in many cases you just get as far away from the other person as you can and try to deal with only the stage, like again when the cars are coming at you on mute, when the stage falls on rainbow cruise back to the boat, sometimes on floats

There is no reason to make these sort of bans just because we don't like the stage.

no one is doing this

Why is a moving stage a new factor? Hasn't Poké Floats always been mobile? What is the standard you are comparing it to? Fox gets his advantage the same way you describe Marth does: he manipulates existing factors, which in this case is the moving stage. Playing on Poké Floats doesn't necessarily give Fox the set advantage (beyond being a better character overall), considering that other characters have other counterpicks. Why is this advantage different from the advantage Marth gains on YS?

this is you missing the point

i'm not saying that fox adds in a new factor or marth manipulates the stage (lol)

i'm saying that compared to the "neutrals" fox gets his advantage on floats as opposed to stages he doesn't get the same advantage on from something new, because other stages don't move

marth's advantage on story, as compared to him on other "neutrals," comes from the platforms being closer together. there are always platforms, their spacing on the stage is different, but it's nothing new, it's taking old things and changing (manipulating) them

 

[Pakman]

i will say that if all your assumptions were true (1 and 3 are not) then i would agree with you, i have a problem particularly with 1.

1) Equal opportunity is given to all players over the course of the match. By this, I mean that any random or unpredictable event must benefit one player as much as the other over the course of that single match.

this would be true if the characters were all the same, but they aren't, which is the point. random factors benefit one player more or less than the other player based on character choice, for example cars on mute and jiggs/peach vs every other character, also anything like lasers on corneria and klaptrap and bowser vs those things and pichu -- bowser is big and slow, pichu is small and fast, bowser gets a much larger disadvantage by introducing the same random element

most if not all differences in character yields this imbalance

What about when non-random, predictable, yet nonstandard events that heavily benefit a character? By this i mean a stage without ledges benefiting peach. A large stage that moves in a set pattern benefiting fox. A stage with a fin making pikachu stupid.

The hard part about this is defining non standard. I would define non standard as an attribute that is not in any neutral stage. There are plenty of non-random, predictable, non-standard that don't overly benefit specific characters (falling blocks on Rainbow Cruise.)

 

[ChRed2AKrisp]

There are plenty of non-random, predictable, non-standard that don't overly benefit specific characters (falling blocks on Rainbow Cruise.)

You're clearly misinformed. Captain Falcon cleary has an enormous advanage with those blocks, when the stage returns to the ship he can ride a block down while taunting, unnerving his opponent with his exhibition of his blatant indifference towards possible doom, all the while provoking them. No one can play well after such a demonstration of confidence and manliness, all in light of the rainbow in the background. No one can withstand this assault on their manhood and sexual orientation. The only character capable of taking this kind of abuse is jigglypuff, and we all know jiggs players have no self-respect and are gay.

Jiggs is gay.

GAY

 

[JFox]

honestly, if u really wanted to be fair, we should just all play on dreamland every match. sure the ceiling is a bit high and characters with good recovery live longer there...but like pockyD said the metagame will adapt or change slightly and then we'll have super predictable results.

nice and lame

 

[Eazy23]

if EVERYONE doesn't respond to your **** and says lol ur wrong and EVERYONE has the same understanding that you say nothing that makes any sense, don't you think that maybe it's YOU that's not making sense instead of EVERYONE ELSE


spam this is you. if you don't get it, go to dictionary.com, clear up whatever if bothering you, and figure out what this statement means. then l2argue

LOL do you really believe that a majority of smashboards memebers actually read each argumentative post, analyze it in a non biased way, and respond? I doubt it. You are in the minority when it comes to this. So pointing out what EVERYONE does, doesn't make anyone bad at debating. Atleast not when it comes to the boards.

 

[Scar]

What about when non-random, predictable, yet nonstandard events that heavily benefit a character?

yeah i think i addressed that with my pokefloats argument, floats is entirely nonrandom but i don't think it's a valuable tournament stage because what it does is it takes the tier list we have, shuffles it around a little bit, but more importantly exaggerates certain advantages some characters already have, like fox's ability to camp lasers and his great maneuverability

so yeah i think that anything that's nonstandard is less valuable than that which is standard, and i define nonstandard as anything outside of the 7 neutrals

i could be convinced to drop stadium from the list because the transformations are random and 2 of the 4 are entirely unbalanced, and kj64 because the barrel sometimes ruins things

LOL do you really believe that a majority of smashboards memebers actually read each argumentative post, analyze it in a non biased way, and respond? I doubt it. You are in the minority when it comes to this. So pointing out what EVERYONE does, doesn't make anyone bad at debating. Atleast not when it comes to the boards.

i'm not pointing out what everyone does i'm just saying like when's the last time someone said oh **** spam is right, esp when he argues against me

also i dont really get the point of this post, ok so i'm in the minority bc i try to have an intelligent conversation, so what, i should stop? i post for pocky d, jfox, pakman, and mogwai. anyone else who reads/understands what i'm saying is just a bonus imo.

 

[JFox]

I love scar's posts. are always relevant and spot on. probably the best debater IMO. nice and concise (unlike me), but makes good logical RELEVANT points. Good work scar

pockyD is growing on me, but at times he still lacks a lot of relevance in his posts. He also doesnt really take a side, just plays devils advocate, which imo is kinda cheating lol (often times defending your own argument is harder than disproving someone elses). I can tell his logic is much better than mine though. Did u ever study logic Pocky? I did an intro class a few years back, but never took it further.

eazy is under-rated, but like everything else, he over-rates his own abilities from what i can tell. still pretty legit. spam just doesnt know how to stay relevant and picks at technicalities. Eggm is god awful, mostly cuz he doesnt know how to express himself. I make decent points, but i ramble which is what im doing right now so im gonna stop...

btw being sick is the most boring thing EVER

 

[UltimaScout]

So since everyone else is putting their input in here...

1) Neutrals should be knocked down to four. YS, FD, DL64, BF. These have very plain layouts and very very minimal interruptions and the stages themselves do not change.

2) The only CP's that should be banned are the ones that involve randomness for easy KO's... i.e. Jungle Japes Klap Traps. Stages like Brinstar, Mute City, Rainbow Cruise... their randomness isn't so random and it's more set based on timing.

3) Giving it some thought these are the stages I think should be allowed for CP's...

-Mute City
-Rainbow Cruise
-Corneria
-MKII (birdo's eggs aren't that random and she typically spits 3 so everyone can catch one, otherwise kill her and she won't do it)
-Brinstar (not-depths)
-Pokemon Stadium (due to it's random shiftiness it should be a CP not a neutral, however there is no random kill-you-ness)
-Fountain of Dreams (due to the platforms shifting about it should be a CP not neutral)
-DK64
-Peaches Castle (bullet bill is so slow you deserve to be hit with it... otherwise it's good cause it forces confrontation)

The idea is to avoid randomness that can kill you but focus on stages that encourage character diversity and intelligent decisions rather than just techskill/mindgames on the same few stages.

So on that note, characters who have projectiles and spam them incessantly and run while shooting them only to build damage (more specifically fox/falco) and never use them as a means to approach or once their opponent does approach through the barrage, and they run away and continue to spam... should be disqualified.

There is nothing remotely hard about that, it's doesn't require supreme intellect and it removes any aspect of fun from the game.

Now conversely if they spam to encourage the approach and once you do they **** you... that's fine. Same thing goes with falcos spamming and approaching and ****** you or drawing you into the ****.

The idea behind the neutrals also keeps very slight randomness but makes it more agreeable... Each person strikes a stage so you get a 50/50 shot at getting a stage you potentially agree on as the lesser of the 4 evils so to speak. That way you eliminate the most threatening stages and there are fewer johns.

That's just what I think... now... GO debate!

 

[pockyD]

pockyD is growing on me, but at times he still lacks a lot of relevance in his posts. He also doesnt really take a side, just plays devils advocate, which imo is kinda cheating lol (often times defending your own argument is harder than disproving someone elses). I can tell his logic is much better than mine though. Did u ever study logic Pocky? I did an intro class a few years back, but never took it further.

No, never took any classes

I actually generally avoid taking up a "side" simply to be relevant... for example, in this case, my personal preferred solution (given somewhere a few posts back) isn't on either side and isn't really practical, so it would just derail things, so I try to stick with the existing topics

And the point of debating isn't to flex my muscles and be lauded - it's to promote thinking and working towards a better solution; often-times I (and most others) realize that we aren't 100% correct in what we believe, and free discussion brings us closer to that goal, rather than being locked into your starting position. "Losing" an argument shouldn't matter so long as you brought something to the table during it.

 

[Eggm]

So since everyone else is putting their input in here...

1) Neutrals should be knocked down to four. YS, FD, DL64, BF. These have very plain layouts and very very minimal interruptions and the stages themselves do not change.

2) The only CP's that should be banned are the ones that involve randomness for easy KO's... i.e. Jungle Japes Klap Traps. Stages like Brinstar, Mute City, Rainbow Cruise... their randomness isn't so random and it's more set based on timing.

3) Giving it some thought these are the stages I think should be allowed for CP's...

-Mute City
-Rainbow Cruise
-Corneria
-MKII (birdo's eggs aren't that random and she typically spits 3 so everyone can catch one, otherwise kill her and she won't do it)
-Brinstar (not-depths)
-Pokemon Stadium (due to it's random shiftiness it should be a CP not a neutral, however there is no random kill-you-ness)
-Fountain of Dreams (due to the platforms shifting about it should be a CP not neutral)
-DK64
-Peaches Castle (bullet bill is so slow you deserve to be hit with it... otherwise it's good cause it forces confrontation)

The idea is to avoid randomness that can kill you but focus on stages that encourage character diversity and intelligent decisions rather than just techskill/mindgames on the same few stages.

So on that note, characters who have projectiles and spam them incessantly and run while shooting them only to build damage (more specifically fox/falco) and never use them as a means to approach or once their opponent does approach through the barrage, and they run away and continue to spam... should be disqualified.

There is nothing remotely hard about that, it's doesn't require supreme intellect and it removes any aspect of fun from the game.

Now conversely if they spam to encourage the approach and once you do they **** you... that's fine. Same thing goes with falcos spamming and approaching and ****** you or drawing you into the ****.

The idea behind the neutrals also keeps very slight randomness but makes it more agreeable... Each person strikes a stage so you get a 50/50 shot at getting a stage you potentially agree on as the lesser of the 4 evils so to speak. That way you eliminate the most threatening stages and there are fewer johns.

That's just what I think... now... GO debate!

While having a gigantic problem with a ton of things in this post, i will pick just one thing and try to argue with it in an attempt to get better at this. Cause as jfox said and I don't disagree with i'm god awful at agruing. xD



Lets take this part.

Neutrals should be knocked down to four. YS, FD, DL64, BF. These have very plain layouts and very very minimal interruptions and the stages themselves do not change.

I feel like YS is less neutral than the other 3 and that your above statement would be better off not including it. Let me explain why. FD, and have absolutely no outside factors that are from the stage at all that can affect your characters timing, input accuracy, or anything.

How many times have you thrown out a move that would have missed but since it hit a few shy guys who slowed down the move then hit with it cause it threw the opponents timing off. Or on the flip side how many times have you done a move and whiffed it because it happened slower and the other guy had extra time to react and dodged it, due to the move taking more overall frames from shy guy hit lag.

An argument could be made that you could use prediction to avoid and or react to the above situation, however that's not always the case. As you know the camera in smash is not perfect and sometimes the shy guys show up very very suddenly too quick for some one to react and then the above situation could occur and mess up your timing.

The next bone I have to pick with YS is the cloud. While it is 100% predictable because it moves in the exact same pattern every match it is not too unreasonable to say that its impossible to track where it is in an entire high level intense match. That being said how many times have you tried to wavedash onto the stage from the ledge and that cloud came at that exact moment and made you input an airdodge that made you lose a stock and fall to your death? Or you were knocked off in a manner which you could not see it at first but then you were hitting L to do something and instead air dodged after bouncing off the cloud or something like that and dying. Well, these things have happened to me multiple times. Therefore if it appears right as your inputting commands at inconvenient moments its is directly infulencing your input accuracy.

I have excluded DL64 from the comparisons until this point because it does have one element of the stage that affects your character and that is the wind. However the wind is not as big a factor as everyone thinks. It does not affect your input accuracy at all, or your timing. Your moves still execute in the same number of frames and whatever you told your character to do is still going to happen. And even in worse case scenario when like you are charging a smash attack vs a jiggs who used rest and missed it blows and you miss and have to hit real quick with a less powerful attack or none at all at least all it did was "reset" you into a neutral position to fight each other again as oppose to on YS maybe air dodging and losing your stock. Its much less drastic and i think with how good of a stage DL64 this one minor random factor could be overlooked.

So if your ideas were to boil the neutrals down to the MOST neutral, I feel that YS does not belong in the same category as BF, FD, and DL64.

Oh and anyone who says bf's edge is random it isn't. Its always in the same place but its just not exactly where it visually appears to be, its a little extended, as long as you know that it shouldn't be an issue to hit it as regularly as any other edge in the game.

 

[JFox]

Tim, that was incredible. I'm thoroughly impressed. instead of just typing your thoughts out as fast as u could, u actually sat there and thought about real arguments to make for why YS (a fox stage) isnt truely the fairest of stages. I'm thoroughly impressed.

With that being said, you are one of the most technically focused people in the smash community. Literally no one else gets effected by little things like that as much as eggm...but i know what ur saying and i still agree with u. Its just so funny that you chose to make an argument based on such pure melee.

Honestly though, as much as u can make the argument that the platforms of FoD are random or w/e...it shouldnt be something ban worthy because its just not THAT big a part of a match if u miss a move or two...just like the wind on DL64.

 

[ChRed2AKrisp]

So there's no pattern whatsoever to the platforms on FoD? Do they change in a particular order, or at set intervals of time?

 

[Mogwai]

no one like FoD enough to find out.

YS cloud comes out of the stage on the timer's last digit = 5, and goes back into the stage on the timer's last digit = 0. It comes out the lefttop when the 2nd to last digit is odd and out of the right bottom when the 2nd to last digit is even. Moar people should use this timer, but it's hard to pay attention to it in a match.

 

[Pakman]

And the point of debating isn't to flex my muscles and be lauded - it's to promote thinking and working towards a better solution;

That's like the nicest definition of troll I have ever seen.

j/k <3

no one like FoD enough to find out.

YS cloud comes out of the stage on the timer's last digit = 5, and goes back into the stage on the timer's last digit = 0. It comes out the lefttop when the 2nd to last digit is odd and out of the right bottom when the 2nd to last digit is even. Moar people should use this timer, but it's hard to pay attention to it in a match.

I like FoD.... I should look into that.

 

[Scar]

no one likes FoD enough to find out.

LMFAO

pocky i want to know what your ideal solution would be

 

[Mogwai]

he's already said it, it's just impractical.

I actually also like FoD, but I really don't care to know about the platforms. I guess it could theoretically be useful if they move in a set pattern, but I think it'd be more complex than the Yoshi's cloud **** that I already have a hard time paying attention to.

 

[JFox]

why not just look at the platform and adjust accordingly? LOL

 

[pockyD]

LMFAO

pocky i want to know what your ideal solution would be

frankly if you want my "ideal" solution, it's the strikeout from all legal stages, but that's simply impractical

tl;dr - If a stage is fair enough to be played on in any game of the set, it's fair enough to be played in game one. If it's not fair enough for game one, then it should never be played in any game of the set. This is why it seems like I moderately support the 7-stage only system (which uses the same stages for game 1 as for the counter-picks), but don't really agree with the details

I like any system that has the same stage set for game 1 as it does for games 2-3 (and 4-5 if necessary)

It's too bad we have to account for smashers being stupid, unprepared, and wishy-washy, or otherwise a strikedown from 13 stages wouldn't take that long at all

 

[ChRed2AKrisp]

why not just look at the platform and adjust accordingly? LOL

That's not what's annoying about them. What's annoying is, say teching away from someone, except just as you start the tech the platform comes out of the ground and you get stuck on the edge tech rolling and get punished for it.

 

[Eggm]

That's not what's annoying about them. What's annoying is, say teching away from someone, except just as you start the tech the platform comes out of the ground and you get stuck on the edge tech rolling and get punished for it.

That is EXTREMELEY annoying... omg my god... same thing when you input a WD cause you think your on the ground but the edge of a platform picks you up and makes you airdodge off to your death.

 

[pockyD]

wavedashes do not work that way

 

[Rain(ame)]

I'm going to put it bluntly:

It has been proven in the past that skill can win out CP if the skill is there. Probably the best example would be Ken vs. Wife on Mute City. It was friggin' close...but Ken beat out Wife in the end.

I know you don't think highly of me as a player, but I don't have an amazing Track record on gay cp's. I'm like 7-10 (rounds) or something like that. Even then...some of those victories were cp against me, then some I had no business losing the first match in the first place. Then there was the one against Eggm which was chock full of Shennanigans and his Fox.

There was also a "for fun" set I had with Shakugan...3-stocked him on Japes, ROFL.

Scar 4-stocked me on Japes. Cyrain 2-stocked me on Mute City, Inui 2-3 stocked me on poke'floats (that was a while back, though.), Velocity 2-stocked me on Brinstar. The list can continue.

All in all...I definitely wouild say that skill can override the gay cp factor. It's just that not everyone takes the time to play on those cp stages enough. (Like Scar and Inui)

 

[Pakman]

I'm going to put it bluntly:

It has been proven in the past that skill can win out CP if the skill is there. Probably the best example would be Ken vs. Wife on Mute City. It was friggin' close...but Ken beat out Wife in the end.

I know you don't think highly of me as a player, but I don't have an amazing Track record on gay cp's. I'm like 7-10 (rounds) or something like that. Even then...some of those victories were cp against me, then some I had no business losing the first match in the first place. Then there was the one against Eggm which was chock full of Shennanigans and his Fox.

There was also a "for fun" set I had with Shakugan...3-stocked him on Japes, ROFL.

Scar 4-stocked me on Japes. Cyrain 2-stocked me on Mute City, Inui 2-3 stocked me on poke'floats (that was a while back, though.), Velocity 2-stocked me on Brinstar. The list can continue.

All in all...I definitely wouild say that skill can override the gay cp factor. It's just that not everyone takes the time to play on those cp stages enough. (Like Scar and Inui)

The point is that if a peach is on the same skill level as a falcon, she gets the advantage of Mute City. Brinstar and FD(chain grabs). The falcon only gets one ban. The set between these two equally skilled players is almost always going to favor the peach because of stage rather than skill.

Some may argue this is a character flaw, but I feel that it is a stage flaw.

 

[Eggm]

wavedashes do not work that way

Yeah if they are done PERFECTLY. Try rolling to the very edge of a stage then Wding onto the ledge if you mess up even a little you air dodge, which is what happens when the platform thing happens.

 

[Rain(ame)]

Well, I see your point, Pakman, and while I may agree, I slightly disagree as well.

I feel it comes down to match experience and stage experience as well. Sure the skill at playing is there, but the matchup experience may be off. Or perhaps even the stage experience. VaNz....sorry about this.

In the Inui(Sheik) vs. VaNz(Sheik) MM at SPOC 4....Inui just barely beat VaNz on Mute City. It was looking bleak at first, but VaNz brought it to a close match. The main reasoning is because Inui PRACTICES on cp stages. Again...it could possibly be my lack of experience. (90% of my actual match experience is when I got to tourneys which are far and in between) I feel that knowing the cp stages gives people an edge.


Let's say peson A and person B are evenly matched. They play each other a lot and go back and forth. By chance they meet up in tournament. In their individual training: Person B is trained very well on cp stages. Person A: Practices mostly on neutral stages.

Time to break this down:

Peron B wins Match 1
Person A wins on his neutral stage cp
Person B wins on his cp stage

Person A wins match 1
Person B wins with a cp stage
Person B wins on Person A's cp which was a neutral.

Person A wins Match 1
Person B wins with a cp on a Neutral
Person B wins Match 3 on Person A's cp stage. (Let's say Person A went Fox on Green Greens)

I would say that in the first scenario which is used most often. It can be argued that Person B won by the CP stage flaw. In most cases, I'll agree.

In the second scenario, Person A won out on neutral. Person B won out on cp, and then Person B won out again due to a neutral cp that SHOULD have been in person A's favor.

In the third scenario, Person A won on neutral. Peson B won via a neutral cp. Person A then lost on a cp stage that was in favor for his character. Why? Because Person B is better on cp than he is.


I can agree that in the most commonly used scenario, the cp can be seen as being "saved" the one player. I'll even give that one, to you.

In the third one...it was all player skill. I'm sorry, but that is irrefutable.

In the second one, I'd say it was player skil, but someone MIGHT argue differently. However, the third match was definitely decided on a neutral, so who is to say?



I'm saying that cps are a skill and an art in itself. It can make and break a set, and adds a dimension to player skill. If that was hard to follow, I apologize.

 

[Cia]

The point is that if a peach is on the same skill level as a falcon, she gets the advantage of Mute City. Brinstar and FD(chain grabs). The falcon only gets one ban. The set between these two equally skilled players is almost always going to favor the peach because of stage rather than skill.

Some may argue this is a character flaw, but I feel that it is a stage flaw.

Falcon can maneuver on Brinstar so well, it's hardly a counterpick. and If anyone falls into the acid once, it's probably going to be their stock. The only reason anyone would consider Brinstar to be a bad stage for Falcon is because of knowledge that Peach and Puff tend to like the stage. And if it's good for those two, it MUST be bad for everyone else right?

Spoiler

that's not directed at you, Pakman.

As for FD.. peach's chaingrab works on him til like.. the mid 70's. After that, he's back to having a completely open space in which he can do Dthrow > Nair > Uair > Fair. (w/o interruption of platforms) So, yeah CG helps, but it's really not enough to call FD a dead end counterpick.

And again, I thought the idea behind the counterpick rule was to give the recently defeated player the momentary advantage (mentally and/or physically). So.. what's the point of a counterpick if all the good/helpful options are being restricted?

I still don't think Mute City is AS big a deal as alot of you make it out to be (Look at a SS vs PS video) but i'm not really going to get into that because i'm not in the mood for drama.

 

[JFox]

Ame- Your entire argument is based on lousy examples. Ken is better than Wife, and Marth is Peach's hardest matchup. Scar is 10+ times better than you, and would **** you on any stage, be it Japes or Brinstar Depths.

Just cuz 7 2 off suit CAN be pocket aces doesn't mean you should throw your chips into the pot. No one (except teh_lamerer) is saying that we ban stages because they are impossible to overcome. We ban stages because it tips the scales heavily in on persons favor. How heavily a stage must tip the scale to be ban-worthy has always been a bit ambiguous which is why we have been debating for years about which stages should be banned. The problem is we have no way of quantifying results to come up with a system of banning, so the banning process is far from objective.

Vanz- I think whats being debated is whether or not round 2 should or shouldnt give advantage to the loser of Round 1. I mean, we all know its been that way in the past, but the question is why. If the person out-played you Round 1, why shouldn't you have to earn it if you want to tie up the set?

edit: Green greens hates jigglypuff- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kULR6NTXD9k

 

[Rain(ame)]

JFox- my intial point was based upon skill beating out cp. Then Pakman told me what he was getting at. So I approached it from a different standpoint. Let's try and keep this without potshots as well. I know that scar is better than me. Did I ever ONCE say anything different? When have you known me to be overly confident in my own abilities? Um...never. Thank you much.

Also...please read my second post. It definitely doesn't pertain to what you said.

 

[pockyD]

the people who are pro-CP would say that it's not a question of skill vs CP; being capable playing on CPs IS a skill in its own right

 

[Rain(ame)]

the people who are pro-CP would say that it's not a question of skill vs CP; being capable playing on CPs IS a skill in its own right

I think we agree in that aspect, Pocky.

I personally don't care as much if the cp stages disappear. (Especially Green Greens) However...I would miss a bit of the diversity. Even I enjoy playing on Corneria and Rainbow Cruise every once in a while.

 

[Cia]

If the person out-played you Round 1, why shouldn't you have to earn it if you want to tie up the set?

Because winning round 1 doesn't necessarily mean you out played your opponent. While skill is definitely a factor, we all know that as long as two different characters are being played, one is going to have the advantage against the other.

One example that comes to mind is DJ Nintendo (Bowser) vs Doll (Peach) at Pound 3. Anyone who watched that match knew that DJ Played his *** off. Setting up traps, landing crazy punishes, etc. But the Peach (even tho confused as hell by a high level Bowser) still won because of the few punishes she caught. Doll didn't do anything except throw stuff, hit, and leave. Because It's Bowser, that's a completely valid strategy for Peach and there's very little Bowser can do about it.

So when a match up is soo bad that you're pretty much doomed from the start, a counterpick can a nice way nice way to even things out. Or even tip the match up in your Favor. Which ever works. And it's not even a COMPLETE counterpick because upon choosing a stage, your opponent still has the option to change their character. If they choose to remain the same character, THAT'S THEIR CHOICE. I and many others feel that having character diversity is a skill and helps you to adapt to many situations. Being a character specialist is (again) THEIR CHOICE and rules shouldn't just focus on making them comfortable. They should cater to everyone.

 

[Deathknight]

Still, it's not like getting rid of cps will get rid of characters having an advantage. Neutral stages do highly cater to certain character. For example, why should a Fox player work hard round one against a Marth player only to lose on FD the next round cause of CGing? If you want to take out that factor, why not just make it random stage all 3 matches with no strikes/bans. Then no one will get a disadvantage because they won or lost.

 

[Orion*]

i rarely go on smashboards, and im hardly a melee player. at best im a mediocre competitive brawler. but im fairly confident i understand the basic principles of this game, and i read a large part of the thread before posting...

does the anti cp argument realize that your allowed to change character when someone picks a gay stage.... >_>

nobody is forcing you to learn brinstar or mute city with a **** character or matchup. theres a reason people have secondaries...

 

[JFox]

orion, who beat's Fox on green greens? Go ahead, I'll wait....

Or how about Mute City? Every time Peach picks Mute we're gonna go Jiggs to get a somewhat half decent matchup?

I guess we're all gonna need a Fox and Peach/Jiggs in our pocket thats good enough to compete with people that main those characters. Yea that sounds reasonable. Every time Jman goes Green greens, I'll just beat him in a Fox ditto...what was I thinking?
______


Vanz, its no secret that Doll plays peach. If DJ chose to go Bowser, I dont think any stage could have saved him. But for the sake of an arguent, lets say u dont know what your opponent is going to pick R1 so u get a bad matchup round 1. Switch to another character and earn that win round 2 on a neutral stage and than stay with that character and win again R3 cuz ur better than them. Thats why we do sets, not 1 match only.

Here I'll give you a counter example. M2k is playing Mango (not finals) in the "classic ruleset". Mango cleverly goes Falco R1 knowing that M2k is going to Fox to counter his jiggs. Had m2k known, he would have gone Marth, but he doesnt so he loses round 1. Round 2 M2k picks green greens and wins. Round 3 Mango picks Mute or Brinstar (whichever M2k doesnt ban) and goes puff. Mango wins.

You see how the classic ruleset actually makes it harder to come back from a loss round 1 than all neutrals? On neutrals sure u have to actually win two in a row, which is hard of course but if u are truly better it should be possible. With counterpicks however, you might have an easier time tying it up, but than u have to outplay ur opponent drastically round 3 on their counterpick. The only reason you dont see this happening more is because typically you dont have 2 players BOTH picking counterpick stages. Usually one or even both of them will counterpick a neutral stage.

 

[Heart Break Kid]

You can beat Peach/Jiggs with Sheik on Mute

And yea why not step the character diversity up. I mean Ive beaten Jman in Fox dittoes, but I main Marth

 

[Orion*]

orion, who beat's Fox on green greens? Go ahead, I'll wait....

Or how about Mute City? Every time Peach picks Mute we're gonna go Jiggs to get a somewhat half decent matchup?

I guess we're all gonna need a Fox and Peach/Jiggs in our pocket thats good enough to compete with people that main those characters. Yea that sounds reasonable. Every time Jman goes Green greens, I'll just beat him in a Fox ditto...what was I thinking?

you dont need to have an advantageous matchup to win... no offense but that arguments worse than pro ban against mk.

"oh no he has no bad matchups/stages, he just goes even with a few characters", yet mks lose to other characters enough of the time to prove that matchup ratios only mean so much. if you play a worse character, you can either step your game up. or main a better character.

(unless fox somehow 70/30s or 80/20s the whole cast on green greens, i have no idea)

 

[Cia]

^ Exactly.

Jfox - that green greens example was Lame as hell and you know it. I can't think of anyone who's better than Jesus at the Fox ditto. (on green greens or anywhere else) But let's say you did beat Jesus on round 1 in a Fox ditto, then HE SHOULD be able to go to a stage that he feels will give him the momentary advantage. (a reasonable stage, not hyrule )

 

[JFox]

LOL sheik on mute? Thats laughable. Oh no, i have to recover....rest. Its literally that easy.

And wtf, why everything turn into dittos just cuz Fox has a broken counterpick stage? Talk about a lack of character diversity ur gonna see.

Edit: no, he should go to a normal stage and win cuz hes better than u, not cuz the rules help him tie up the set. If u beat jesus in round 1 u dont deserve that win to be taken from u by some ******* green greens bs