Hey there, Smashboards! Kulprit here. I'm a TO in Nebraska that's part of a committee dedicated to perfect a stagelist for PM and have it advertised to be the most optimized stagelist to date and would love to see it as a national standard, since the scene is currently lacking that. Without further ado, here's the full-fleshed analysis! :
The PM Stagelist Committee for Nebraska would like to present the changes that have been made to the NE stagelist. The committee consists of myself, Jester, Satisfyler, j000p, and Dr. Dank, all TOs in the eastern Nebraska PM scene.
First, I would like to highlight our current stagelist and the current flaws in it:
Current PM Singles Stagelist: (3 bans, 2 in 3/5)
Starters:
Green Hill Zone
Smashville
Battlefield
Pokemon Stadium 2
Dreamland
Counterpicks: (3 bans, 2 in 3/5)
Yoshi’s Story
Wario Land
Fountain of Dreams
Bowser’s Castle (Alt.)
Final Destination
Small stages: 4
Medium stages: 3
Large stages: 3
The main issue right now is if a character favors a small stage after Game 1, the opponent can only ban 3, which makes that person think about their bans more critically. But the issue lies in having only 3 large stages. The other person can just ban all 3 large stages and not have to think much about it. This is the biggest flaw in the list, which was the point we tackled right away in the revised list.
The other issue with the stagelist was the biggest stage in the entire game (tourney legal) being a starter. The platforms and base stage are very neutral, but the stage size and blastzones are far too big for it to be a starter. This was also addressed in the revised list.
Now the overarching goal of our stagelist is to emphasize the banning process and make players think more critically about their bans. How is this accomplished, you may ask?
- For each stage size there is 1 more of that size than bans available. So in math terms, each stage size has n+1 of them available.
- Banning stages that create either too much unfair of an advantage to be considered legal. Stages that are also generally disliked in the scene will also be more likely banned.
- Stages with unique layouts that provide more to the banning process will be favored over repeat stage layouts or stage blastzones, etc.
Addressing these main concerns, we wanted to prioritize the following questions about optimizing the stagelist:
- Do we run Dreamland or Delfino’s Secret as a starter? Possibly neither?
- Do we run Yoshi’s Story or Wario Land on the list? Possibly both?
- How can we balance the stage sizes and blastzone sizes to create the most balanced stagelist than we can have?
- Is there enough variety within the stages to create specific uses for the stages?
- Does the stagelist overall meet our overarching goal?
With our requirements laid out, here’s the revised stagelist:
PM Singles Stagelist (2 bans, 1 in 3/5):
Starters:
Green Hill Zone
Smashville
Battlefield
Bowser’s Castle (Alt.)
Pokemon Stadium 2
Counterpicks:
Wario Land
Fountain of Dreams
Final Destination
Dreamland
Changes from the current stagelist to revised list:
- Removed Yoshi’s Story
- Moved Dreamland from a starter to a counterpick
- Moved Bowser’s Castle from a counter to a starter
- Went from 3 bans to 2 bans (from 2 bans to 1 in 3/5)
In picture #2, you can see that the 5 starters are the middle 5 stages in terms of sizes, including 1 Small-Med, 3 Medium, and 1 Large. The counterpicks consist of 1 Small, 1 Small-Med, and 2 Large. Which means that there are 3 Small, 3 Medium, and 3 Large stages in total. The n+1 equation still applies, as the number of bans has been reduced to 2.
The doubles stagelist has been slightly tweaked to be the following:
PM Doubles Stagelist (2 bans, 1 in 3/5):
Starters:
Smashville
Battlefield
Bowser’s Castle (Alt.)
Pokemon Stadium 2
Delfino’s Secret
Counterpicks:
Fountain of Dreams
Final Destination
Dreamland
The only change made was switching Bowser’s Castle with Dreamland for the same reason as in singles; it’s the biggest stage legal and makes sense as a counterpick due to that. For the most part, there wasn’t much critiquing that needed to be done with what we had already.
The changes will be effective starting now, and the first tournament running the new ruleset will be the CSP weekly in Columbus on Saturday, November 21st. We hope you all enjoy the new changes and use your counterpicks wisely in tournament!
- HSC|Kulprit
Sources:
https://docs.google.com/…/1LJ2IRbVIcEYajsqt95JMQOPKKp…/edit… (Google Doc showing all the raw data for any of the tourney legal stages in the past or current)
http://www.mediafire.com/…/k231fwv4w3gc6wp/StageGuide1_1.zip (mostly used as a visual aid, but the numbers are also useful)
EDIT: Forgot to add some other thoughts on the matter.
Yoshi's VS Wario Land
The main reason why we removed Yoshi's was because it interferes with tether grabs and the platform layout isn't the most intuitive ever. Nebraska actually prefers Yoshi's more since we have a more Melee-centric scene, but Wario Land brough more unique traits to the table than Yoshi's did.
Dreamland vs Delfino
Delfino's is basically a slightly smaller Dreamland and the platforms are really funky, so we run Dreamland instead of Delfino. it also has the wall that goes all the way to the bottom & has a really low bottom, so it gave some characters too much advantage.
If you want us to elaborate further on these 2 choices, just let us know.
The PM Stagelist Committee for Nebraska would like to present the changes that have been made to the NE stagelist. The committee consists of myself, Jester, Satisfyler, j000p, and Dr. Dank, all TOs in the eastern Nebraska PM scene.
First, I would like to highlight our current stagelist and the current flaws in it:
Current PM Singles Stagelist: (3 bans, 2 in 3/5)
Starters:
Green Hill Zone
Smashville
Battlefield
Pokemon Stadium 2
Dreamland
Counterpicks: (3 bans, 2 in 3/5)
Yoshi’s Story
Wario Land
Fountain of Dreams
Bowser’s Castle (Alt.)
Final Destination
Small stages: 4
Medium stages: 3
Large stages: 3
The main issue right now is if a character favors a small stage after Game 1, the opponent can only ban 3, which makes that person think about their bans more critically. But the issue lies in having only 3 large stages. The other person can just ban all 3 large stages and not have to think much about it. This is the biggest flaw in the list, which was the point we tackled right away in the revised list.
The other issue with the stagelist was the biggest stage in the entire game (tourney legal) being a starter. The platforms and base stage are very neutral, but the stage size and blastzones are far too big for it to be a starter. This was also addressed in the revised list.
Now the overarching goal of our stagelist is to emphasize the banning process and make players think more critically about their bans. How is this accomplished, you may ask?
- For each stage size there is 1 more of that size than bans available. So in math terms, each stage size has n+1 of them available.
- Banning stages that create either too much unfair of an advantage to be considered legal. Stages that are also generally disliked in the scene will also be more likely banned.
- Stages with unique layouts that provide more to the banning process will be favored over repeat stage layouts or stage blastzones, etc.
Addressing these main concerns, we wanted to prioritize the following questions about optimizing the stagelist:
- Do we run Dreamland or Delfino’s Secret as a starter? Possibly neither?
- Do we run Yoshi’s Story or Wario Land on the list? Possibly both?
- How can we balance the stage sizes and blastzone sizes to create the most balanced stagelist than we can have?
- Is there enough variety within the stages to create specific uses for the stages?
- Does the stagelist overall meet our overarching goal?
With our requirements laid out, here’s the revised stagelist:
PM Singles Stagelist (2 bans, 1 in 3/5):
Starters:
Green Hill Zone
Smashville
Battlefield
Bowser’s Castle (Alt.)
Pokemon Stadium 2
Counterpicks:
Wario Land
Fountain of Dreams
Final Destination
Dreamland
Changes from the current stagelist to revised list:
- Removed Yoshi’s Story
- Moved Dreamland from a starter to a counterpick
- Moved Bowser’s Castle from a counter to a starter
- Went from 3 bans to 2 bans (from 2 bans to 1 in 3/5)
In picture #2, you can see that the 5 starters are the middle 5 stages in terms of sizes, including 1 Small-Med, 3 Medium, and 1 Large. The counterpicks consist of 1 Small, 1 Small-Med, and 2 Large. Which means that there are 3 Small, 3 Medium, and 3 Large stages in total. The n+1 equation still applies, as the number of bans has been reduced to 2.
The doubles stagelist has been slightly tweaked to be the following:
PM Doubles Stagelist (2 bans, 1 in 3/5):
Starters:
Smashville
Battlefield
Bowser’s Castle (Alt.)
Pokemon Stadium 2
Delfino’s Secret
Counterpicks:
Fountain of Dreams
Final Destination
Dreamland
The only change made was switching Bowser’s Castle with Dreamland for the same reason as in singles; it’s the biggest stage legal and makes sense as a counterpick due to that. For the most part, there wasn’t much critiquing that needed to be done with what we had already.
The changes will be effective starting now, and the first tournament running the new ruleset will be the CSP weekly in Columbus on Saturday, November 21st. We hope you all enjoy the new changes and use your counterpicks wisely in tournament!
- HSC|Kulprit
Sources:
https://docs.google.com/…/1LJ2IRbVIcEYajsqt95JMQOPKKp…/edit… (Google Doc showing all the raw data for any of the tourney legal stages in the past or current)
http://www.mediafire.com/…/k231fwv4w3gc6wp/StageGuide1_1.zip (mostly used as a visual aid, but the numbers are also useful)
EDIT: Forgot to add some other thoughts on the matter.
Yoshi's VS Wario Land
The main reason why we removed Yoshi's was because it interferes with tether grabs and the platform layout isn't the most intuitive ever. Nebraska actually prefers Yoshi's more since we have a more Melee-centric scene, but Wario Land brough more unique traits to the table than Yoshi's did.
Dreamland vs Delfino
Delfino's is basically a slightly smaller Dreamland and the platforms are really funky, so we run Dreamland instead of Delfino. it also has the wall that goes all the way to the bottom & has a really low bottom, so it gave some characters too much advantage.
If you want us to elaborate further on these 2 choices, just let us know.
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