Yomi-no-Kuni
Smash Lord
Allright, as many may have notice, rules in SSBM are ficle and always up to interpretation in the melee community.
I believe Rules should be up to interpretation, but there needs to be something more official than what we have now. It also needs to be as simple as possible, which it currently is not.
I want to analyze where our problems come from, and how we might go about to repair them.
This is a complex topic, and needs some time to work through. For anyone who is only interested in my results, scroll down to the TL;DR part, and you'll get the gist of my article.
Feel free to comment even if you've only read the TL;DR.
So i'd like to adress several points in this post.
I have the feeling that pretty much NONE of the US/american pro-players have a complete and extensive comprehension of the ruleset. This may be because of relatively frequent rule stages, different tournaments using different rulesets, or simply reluctance of sitting down and reading and understanding them.
However, the Melee ruleset is not a huge ruleset. Leaving aside differences of Bo3-Bo7 rules, you need to know only a handfull of things before playing: General Settings (Stages, stock, time, FriendlyFire). How does stage striking work(1-2-2-1). How does Counterpicking work (stage,char,char). Pause/any disrupting/freezing/stalling is forbidden.
More in-depth knowledge of the rules is not needed to be inside your head to play the set.
Anything besides from that are rules to regulate conflicts of interests between the players.
In case of conflicts between the players, there is always a break within/before the set/match. Knowing how to handle these conflicts will let you get on with the game faster. Not knowing these rules means you have to look them up. Having a Rulesheet (which fits on one DinA4 page) on every second or third setup (Glued to the TV), will enable everyone to read up on what they have to do (Double Blind Pick, Port/Neutral Start selection, DSR/MDSR/Bans). Arguably DSR/MDSR/Bans should be known before the set, however, if you agree on playing on a stage, that always takes priority. So if you're unsure about the opponents pick, read up on the rules, if not and you simply agree, this is legitimate aswell. Just be aware that there is no going back after agreeing.
TOs SHOULD TAKES THE TIME, to announce ALL rules before the tournament starts. It WILL NOT take more than 10-15 minutes. Prior to calling out the pools/sets, demand all games to be paused, and go through the rules, and make everyone aware that rulesheets are at every other setup.
If you do these 2 things, there should be NO rule confusion EVER.
If people do not know the exact rules for something, and need to go to the TO to make a call, the TO can NEVER please both partys. The TO is called because there has been no way to make both partys happy.
For this case, we have rules. Currently, wether the TO tries to find a compromise, or wether he follows the rules strictly, about half of the people think he made the wrong call, and these people will always be vocal about it.
It is however the TOs job, to enforce the rules reasonably. If there is no clear indication of an exception of some kind, the TO should stick to the rules as closely as possible. (exception ex.: The TV turns off, one player pauses, the other player demands punishment. The pause-clause should not be enforced here, since there is a legitimate reason to pause. This is SUPER obvious, and only in such cases should the rules be broken, ONLY by the TO or by agreement of the players.
example for use of TO powers: M2k vs Unknown match replay: At some point during the discussion between M2K and Unknown, Unknown agreed to use the gentlemans clause(meaning he agreed to play on FD again, which was against the actual counterpick rules, they played the match, so he did agree.). Unknown made a mistake here, leaving him at a great disadvantage. However, that is entirely on him, no matter how much of a hassle M2K threw. The host is ONLY there to enforce the rules, with the exception of ULTRA CLEAR cases. Here there rules were shadily followed (stage agree), so he must stick to the rules and announce the match as legitimate. As stated, it is impossible to make both partys happy. But the rules should be used the way they are meant to be.)
Okay, now comes the tricky part. Getting the rules known? No problem. Calling the rules? No problem, but you'll get your hands dirty.
Currently we have 6 Different rulesets going on on EVERY INDIVIDUAL TOURNAMENT.
There is one for Bo3s, one for Bo5s, and one for Bo7s.
The same for Teams. That is SIX rulesets on how to play the Set (based on official MBR ruleset)
I understand WHY the BR has decided for the rules that they published. They want to achieve a fair Stagedistribution, without forcing players to have to play on EVERY stage during a set, while at the same time preventing to offer default wins for someone by being able to pick a stage that gives clear advantages in a matchup several times.
Bo3 has 1 Stage Ban per player. Reason being that DSR would not take effect in a Bo3 set, and enabling the player who wins the first match to counterpick a stage in the last match that gives a clear advantage to him, basically deciding the Bo3 Set during the first match (M2k on FD comes to mind.)
Bo5 has no Bans and "A player cannot counterpick to a stage they won on", meaning in a full Bo5, everyone must counterpick 2 different stages. This way each player has the opinion to choose from 3 different stages on the deciding game, disabeling his 2 favorite stages since he should have already picked them. This means it will pretty certainly be the stage that came up while striking, or the next most neutral one.
In a Bo7 "The last stage you won on" cannot be counterpicked. The Bo5 rule does not work here, because in a full Bo7 there would not be any stages left. To prevent the fact of choosing a "unfair" stage in the deciding match (enabled by someone winning on his second counterpick last, or by winning on his opponents pick), the player that doesn't pick may ban ONE STAGE BEFORE THE LAST MATCH. (so M2K cannot go FD in the deciding match)
While these rules Try to enable the fairest stage distribution possibly, it is unnescessary complex, because the fixiation on stagebanning and existing DSRs.
The main thing this does is prevent "THE COUNTERPICK" stage from being chosen during the deciding match. The Bo7 rule is just an improvisation because the prefered DSR does not function with only 6 stages alowed without forcing the player to have limited options, maybe even counterpicking a stage that puts him at a disadvantage.
However having these 3 different rules makes the whole Melee ruleset incredibly more confusing and less homogenous.
I don't know a single tournament that actually ran these rules of three different versions for each set lenght. I don't believe many TOs have tried to understand the reasoning behind this much too complicated setup of rules. For understandabilitys sake, everyone decides to pick one of the two DSRs, maybe throws in some bans, and moves along.
Every TO does this for his own tournament, thus creating lots of differences. But someway along the road people grow tired of checking on rules that they think are terribly confusing (DSRs being mixed up, not grasping the full reason behind the official ruleset, and so on), and just don't give a damn anymore. That's were we are now. That is why people need to check with the TO, who doesn't really know why he chose the rule except that he understands it and he feels its pretty fair.
What we need is a SIMPLE rule, that regulates all Set-lengths in a sentence or 2, and is as fair as possible. That means:
not allowing stages with "unfair" advantages more than once per set, and not allowing these stages as the deciding match of the set.
additionally stage diversity would be a big plus.
I do currently not know how to come up with this rule. The way the BR solved this problem however, is insufficient and has raised more problems (different rulesets and rule disputes everywhere) than it solved.
I personally don't even know anymore which rule is which. And i think of myself as educated concerning rules.
Was the first rule "you may not counterpick to a stage you won on"
Was it "you may not counterpick the stage you last won on"?
Does it include striking, or not? Should it?
Allright, so i will now try to formulate a rule that i think would START to tackle the problem.
While trying to do so i thought about this rule: "A player may not counterpick the last stage he picked, if he won on it."
This rule stems from a friend of mine (Tero) who most or some of you know. It tackles the problem of not allowing the opponent to profit by using his counterpick again if he wins on the opponents counterpick before.
However it still allows picking the same stage twice during Bo5 and Bo7, and allows to use it during the deciding match in Bo3 and Bo5s.
If you combine this stage with a one stage Ban however, you take away the possibly "unfair"/"boring"/"unplayable" stage overall, and thereby guarantee a fair set.
This has the downside of:
- taking 2 stages out of the set for good.
- still allowing someone to use the same stage twice/allowing a player to only use 2 different stages.
Since we have 6 stages however, that would enable everyone to choose from 4 stages, meaning there should be only "neutral" or "slight advantages" left for both players to choose, without having to pick a stage that gives him a disadvantage, and prevents an "unfair" stage being picked during Bo3 sets.
The rule would be:
At the beginning of the set, each player may ban one stage from being picked.
A player may not Counterpick the last stage he picked, if he won on it.
Please give constructive criticism on this Rule, while keeping the momentary MBR ruleset in mind!
Note that i did not talk about the Team counterpick/ban rules, as you'd need to make sure what stages are generally used in teams before that.
The rules do not state that pause should be turned off. I believe the reason for that is that it causes more problems than it solves. e.g. not being able to cancel/pause matches (warm-ups/wrong stagepicks/TV obstruction or blackout/announcements).
The rules state it CAN be turned off if someone wants it to. So if you do not want to be in the situation of having to take care how to time your pause in Team matches, or hit Pause while trying to free from grabs (i list these because they are the most frequent pause reasons), turn pause of yourself before your matches. Turn pause on again after your sets, since Pause on is the official setting. (wether or not that should be the case is arguable, at the moment and since always however, it is.)
In case of Stock Stealing, you can ONLY steal a stock after the Announcer starts to call you out (Player X defeated). So there IS a accoustic signal to when to press start. You should be aware of that, and TIME your start-press, or else you are willing to accept a possible disruption of the match, and it is in no way morally incorrect to punish one for that, thus the strict rule on pausing the game without obvious cause. As a veteran tournament goer, you should be able to wait for the signal.
While i myself am a lenient person, and would not have called for the stock leffen took, i have had to deal with these kind of situations on both end of the straw. It seems there is somewhat a difference in approaching the rule problems between europe and america.
TL;DR.:
1. TOs should print out rulesheets and hang them on Setups. TOs should announce the rules before calling out the first couple of matches. It will take about 10-15 minutes, melee rules are not complicated.
2. Whenever a TO has to make a call, he can only please on party, otherwise the players would have found a solution. Thus the TO should stick with the rules except when there are REALLY obvious circumstances justifying the situation and putting the party that acted against the rules completely out of fault.
3.MBR ruleset is too complicated because it wants to make every set as neutral as possible but refuses to introduce new rules and sticks to old Ban and DSR formats. Because of that every tournament quickly thought up own compromises.
My proposal: At the beginning of the set, each player may ban one stage from being picked.
A player may not Counterpick the last stage he picked, if he won on it.
This rule has downsides (mainly wether bans are justifiable with only 6 stages alowed), but i feel it is alot simpler and almost as good.
4. personal rant about scar vs leffen situation. No offence to scar, all in all an unfortunate situation because of a very eager to win leffen and a unnecessary mistake.
Disclaimer: I want to sell none of this as proof. It is all a creation coming from my own chaotic head, and may be utter bull****. I have not yet re-read it to get rid of logical-errors/misspellings and half-sentences. I will do that tomorrow as soon as I can, but i want to have this thing off my chest right now. Please tell me if some sentences in between don't make sence or if i have really horrible spelling errors somewhere.
My background: I am a german Melee player that is mildly interested in theory, i follow several different e-sport communities (Starcraft, LOL, Smash(all), and a little bit of the FGC), and i host tournaments since 2006 and am proud to call myself an important part of the german smash community.
I believe Rules should be up to interpretation, but there needs to be something more official than what we have now. It also needs to be as simple as possible, which it currently is not.
I want to analyze where our problems come from, and how we might go about to repair them.
This is a complex topic, and needs some time to work through. For anyone who is only interested in my results, scroll down to the TL;DR part, and you'll get the gist of my article.
Feel free to comment even if you've only read the TL;DR.
So i'd like to adress several points in this post.
1. How to make the rules known by everybody.
2. Role of the TO in judging a rule-break
3. Cause of recent Rule misconceptions
(4. specific opinion on Scar vs Leffen controversity)
2. Role of the TO in judging a rule-break
3. Cause of recent Rule misconceptions
(4. specific opinion on Scar vs Leffen controversity)
1. How to make the rules known by everybody
I have the feeling that pretty much NONE of the US/american pro-players have a complete and extensive comprehension of the ruleset. This may be because of relatively frequent rule stages, different tournaments using different rulesets, or simply reluctance of sitting down and reading and understanding them.
However, the Melee ruleset is not a huge ruleset. Leaving aside differences of Bo3-Bo7 rules, you need to know only a handfull of things before playing: General Settings (Stages, stock, time, FriendlyFire). How does stage striking work(1-2-2-1). How does Counterpicking work (stage,char,char). Pause/any disrupting/freezing/stalling is forbidden.
More in-depth knowledge of the rules is not needed to be inside your head to play the set.
Anything besides from that are rules to regulate conflicts of interests between the players.
In case of conflicts between the players, there is always a break within/before the set/match. Knowing how to handle these conflicts will let you get on with the game faster. Not knowing these rules means you have to look them up. Having a Rulesheet (which fits on one DinA4 page) on every second or third setup (Glued to the TV), will enable everyone to read up on what they have to do (Double Blind Pick, Port/Neutral Start selection, DSR/MDSR/Bans). Arguably DSR/MDSR/Bans should be known before the set, however, if you agree on playing on a stage, that always takes priority. So if you're unsure about the opponents pick, read up on the rules, if not and you simply agree, this is legitimate aswell. Just be aware that there is no going back after agreeing.
TOs SHOULD TAKES THE TIME, to announce ALL rules before the tournament starts. It WILL NOT take more than 10-15 minutes. Prior to calling out the pools/sets, demand all games to be paused, and go through the rules, and make everyone aware that rulesheets are at every other setup.
If you do these 2 things, there should be NO rule confusion EVER.
2. Role of the TO in judging a rule-break
If people do not know the exact rules for something, and need to go to the TO to make a call, the TO can NEVER please both partys. The TO is called because there has been no way to make both partys happy.
For this case, we have rules. Currently, wether the TO tries to find a compromise, or wether he follows the rules strictly, about half of the people think he made the wrong call, and these people will always be vocal about it.
It is however the TOs job, to enforce the rules reasonably. If there is no clear indication of an exception of some kind, the TO should stick to the rules as closely as possible. (exception ex.: The TV turns off, one player pauses, the other player demands punishment. The pause-clause should not be enforced here, since there is a legitimate reason to pause. This is SUPER obvious, and only in such cases should the rules be broken, ONLY by the TO or by agreement of the players.
example for use of TO powers: M2k vs Unknown match replay: At some point during the discussion between M2K and Unknown, Unknown agreed to use the gentlemans clause(meaning he agreed to play on FD again, which was against the actual counterpick rules, they played the match, so he did agree.). Unknown made a mistake here, leaving him at a great disadvantage. However, that is entirely on him, no matter how much of a hassle M2K threw. The host is ONLY there to enforce the rules, with the exception of ULTRA CLEAR cases. Here there rules were shadily followed (stage agree), so he must stick to the rules and announce the match as legitimate. As stated, it is impossible to make both partys happy. But the rules should be used the way they are meant to be.)
3. Cause of recent Rule misconceptions
Okay, now comes the tricky part. Getting the rules known? No problem. Calling the rules? No problem, but you'll get your hands dirty.
Currently we have 6 Different rulesets going on on EVERY INDIVIDUAL TOURNAMENT.
There is one for Bo3s, one for Bo5s, and one for Bo7s.
The same for Teams. That is SIX rulesets on how to play the Set (based on official MBR ruleset)
I understand WHY the BR has decided for the rules that they published. They want to achieve a fair Stagedistribution, without forcing players to have to play on EVERY stage during a set, while at the same time preventing to offer default wins for someone by being able to pick a stage that gives clear advantages in a matchup several times.
Bo3 has 1 Stage Ban per player. Reason being that DSR would not take effect in a Bo3 set, and enabling the player who wins the first match to counterpick a stage in the last match that gives a clear advantage to him, basically deciding the Bo3 Set during the first match (M2k on FD comes to mind.)
Bo5 has no Bans and "A player cannot counterpick to a stage they won on", meaning in a full Bo5, everyone must counterpick 2 different stages. This way each player has the opinion to choose from 3 different stages on the deciding game, disabeling his 2 favorite stages since he should have already picked them. This means it will pretty certainly be the stage that came up while striking, or the next most neutral one.
In a Bo7 "The last stage you won on" cannot be counterpicked. The Bo5 rule does not work here, because in a full Bo7 there would not be any stages left. To prevent the fact of choosing a "unfair" stage in the deciding match (enabled by someone winning on his second counterpick last, or by winning on his opponents pick), the player that doesn't pick may ban ONE STAGE BEFORE THE LAST MATCH. (so M2K cannot go FD in the deciding match)
While these rules Try to enable the fairest stage distribution possibly, it is unnescessary complex, because the fixiation on stagebanning and existing DSRs.
The main thing this does is prevent "THE COUNTERPICK" stage from being chosen during the deciding match. The Bo7 rule is just an improvisation because the prefered DSR does not function with only 6 stages alowed without forcing the player to have limited options, maybe even counterpicking a stage that puts him at a disadvantage.
However having these 3 different rules makes the whole Melee ruleset incredibly more confusing and less homogenous.
I don't know a single tournament that actually ran these rules of three different versions for each set lenght. I don't believe many TOs have tried to understand the reasoning behind this much too complicated setup of rules. For understandabilitys sake, everyone decides to pick one of the two DSRs, maybe throws in some bans, and moves along.
Every TO does this for his own tournament, thus creating lots of differences. But someway along the road people grow tired of checking on rules that they think are terribly confusing (DSRs being mixed up, not grasping the full reason behind the official ruleset, and so on), and just don't give a damn anymore. That's were we are now. That is why people need to check with the TO, who doesn't really know why he chose the rule except that he understands it and he feels its pretty fair.
What we need is a SIMPLE rule, that regulates all Set-lengths in a sentence or 2, and is as fair as possible. That means:
not allowing stages with "unfair" advantages more than once per set, and not allowing these stages as the deciding match of the set.
additionally stage diversity would be a big plus.
I do currently not know how to come up with this rule. The way the BR solved this problem however, is insufficient and has raised more problems (different rulesets and rule disputes everywhere) than it solved.
I personally don't even know anymore which rule is which. And i think of myself as educated concerning rules.
Was the first rule "you may not counterpick to a stage you won on"
Was it "you may not counterpick the stage you last won on"?
Does it include striking, or not? Should it?
Allright, so i will now try to formulate a rule that i think would START to tackle the problem.
While trying to do so i thought about this rule: "A player may not counterpick the last stage he picked, if he won on it."
This rule stems from a friend of mine (Tero) who most or some of you know. It tackles the problem of not allowing the opponent to profit by using his counterpick again if he wins on the opponents counterpick before.
However it still allows picking the same stage twice during Bo5 and Bo7, and allows to use it during the deciding match in Bo3 and Bo5s.
If you combine this stage with a one stage Ban however, you take away the possibly "unfair"/"boring"/"unplayable" stage overall, and thereby guarantee a fair set.
This has the downside of:
- taking 2 stages out of the set for good.
- still allowing someone to use the same stage twice/allowing a player to only use 2 different stages.
Since we have 6 stages however, that would enable everyone to choose from 4 stages, meaning there should be only "neutral" or "slight advantages" left for both players to choose, without having to pick a stage that gives him a disadvantage, and prevents an "unfair" stage being picked during Bo3 sets.
The rule would be:
At the beginning of the set, each player may ban one stage from being picked.
(if needed specify exact time (before/after striking or charakters)
Please give constructive criticism on this Rule, while keeping the momentary MBR ruleset in mind!
Note that i did not talk about the Team counterpick/ban rules, as you'd need to make sure what stages are generally used in teams before that.
4. The Scar vs Leffen pause situation.
The rules do not state that pause should be turned off. I believe the reason for that is that it causes more problems than it solves. e.g. not being able to cancel/pause matches (warm-ups/wrong stagepicks/TV obstruction or blackout/announcements).
The rules state it CAN be turned off if someone wants it to. So if you do not want to be in the situation of having to take care how to time your pause in Team matches, or hit Pause while trying to free from grabs (i list these because they are the most frequent pause reasons), turn pause of yourself before your matches. Turn pause on again after your sets, since Pause on is the official setting. (wether or not that should be the case is arguable, at the moment and since always however, it is.)
In case of Stock Stealing, you can ONLY steal a stock after the Announcer starts to call you out (Player X defeated). So there IS a accoustic signal to when to press start. You should be aware of that, and TIME your start-press, or else you are willing to accept a possible disruption of the match, and it is in no way morally incorrect to punish one for that, thus the strict rule on pausing the game without obvious cause. As a veteran tournament goer, you should be able to wait for the signal.
While i myself am a lenient person, and would not have called for the stock leffen took, i have had to deal with these kind of situations on both end of the straw. It seems there is somewhat a difference in approaching the rule problems between europe and america.
TL;DR.:
1. TOs should print out rulesheets and hang them on Setups. TOs should announce the rules before calling out the first couple of matches. It will take about 10-15 minutes, melee rules are not complicated.
2. Whenever a TO has to make a call, he can only please on party, otherwise the players would have found a solution. Thus the TO should stick with the rules except when there are REALLY obvious circumstances justifying the situation and putting the party that acted against the rules completely out of fault.
3.MBR ruleset is too complicated because it wants to make every set as neutral as possible but refuses to introduce new rules and sticks to old Ban and DSR formats. Because of that every tournament quickly thought up own compromises.
My proposal: At the beginning of the set, each player may ban one stage from being picked.
(if needed specify exact time (before/after striking or charakters)
This rule is known as Tero's Smart Rule, TSR in Germany ©Tero.
4. personal rant about scar vs leffen situation. No offence to scar, all in all an unfortunate situation because of a very eager to win leffen and a unnecessary mistake.
Disclaimer: I want to sell none of this as proof. It is all a creation coming from my own chaotic head, and may be utter bull****. I have not yet re-read it to get rid of logical-errors/misspellings and half-sentences. I will do that tomorrow as soon as I can, but i want to have this thing off my chest right now. Please tell me if some sentences in between don't make sence or if i have really horrible spelling errors somewhere.
My background: I am a german Melee player that is mildly interested in theory, i follow several different e-sport communities (Starcraft, LOL, Smash(all), and a little bit of the FGC), and i host tournaments since 2006 and am proud to call myself an important part of the german smash community.
