D3 and Iceys are not nearly as bad as MK. This has turned in to my opinion vs your opinion. Ya know that right? So either way, we are not wrong...in a way.
No... this isn't opinion.
If you're limiting your personal game balance changes to MK, you've made a large error.
If you are able to say that MKs planking makes the matchup vs. Falco (or other characters) boring (this is what most people mean when they say "not competitive") and thus must be banned, your thought can be discarded. If you're advocating the removal because you believe it is necessary for game balance you are attaching yourself to two potential paths:
1- The Constructivist Philosophy
2- The Banning of Metaknight
The banning of MK is an easier one to tackle. It is straightforward. If you believe qualities of MK make his existence in the game unfavorable, advocating his removal for a better game is not out of the question (assuming you are not basing it off of one matchup).
The banning of MK is what you could consider a
global change, and is actually a part of the Constructivist philosophy. Global changes are very straight forward and don't actually change anything; they just make certain situations more common or more likely. An example of a global change would be something like raising or lowering the timer, raising or lowering the stock count, banning a stage, those sorts of things. Any specific changes to how the game is played (like the increase/decrease of time outs due to lowering/raising time, changing Lucario's viability based on stock count, changing a specific character's viability based on the availability/common usage of stages that are good/bad for them) are a result of unique features (like Lucario's aura) or having multiple global changes (like banning Pictochat takes away a Diddy CP but doesn't change his viability much, but banning Pictochat, FD, Smashville, and Battlefield would).
The Constructivist philosophy is of changing the game we are given to create the game we want. It is in contrast to Originalist philosophy in which we want to keep the game as close to original as possible and let the game balance itself; changes are only made in extreme situations.
Originalist is the philosophy I abide by and is legitimately a better system; its weakness is that it is much slower moving than the Constructivist philosophy, but its strength is that the game will be as finely tuned, fair, and balanced as possible over the long term. Constructivist philosophy moves quickly. If you know what you want, BAM. You've got it. The problem is that it is rarely, if ever, balanced. It's generally just a bunch of people saying "well this is what I like". While this is perfectly acceptable for friendlies and get-togethers, in a competive environment this is as close to a sin as you get. A rule should never exist "just because" (This is of course excluding rulings such as the NBA shot clock to increase audience appeal; Smash currently is not an audience-based game and is fueled by tournament attendants, but should that change rules against 'boring' aspects could be logically instated).
But let's say you want the Constructivist philosophy to be your choice. You believe you can do a good enough job balancing Brawl based on what you want, you are a big TO and people are forced to agree with you or not attend, and you prefer speed over the guarantee. You have a right to that choice, but to make that choice intelligently you have to play by the rules.
Banning planking in any way is a
surgical change. Surgical changes are different than global changes in that they actually change instances we've encountered prior to the change. Banning D3's grab infininte would be a surgical change; suddenly, matchups that were heavily in his favor no longer are. Having a projectile limit woudl be a surgical change. Falco, Diddy ,etc., etc., would have to play differently. Having a LGL would be a surgical change.
Surgical changes are
bad. They should be avoided at all costs because they actually change the format of the game. Global changes simply make situations more common and the difficulty changes as a result are natural. Surgical changes create
new situations and the difficulty changes are arbitrary. There are very few surgical changes in all of competitive gaming I agree with, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are the 300% infinite limit (reasonable to all, I'd believe), anti-stalling (meaning you can't glitch yourself into a stage and sit there until the time runs out), and the banning of the infinite dimensional cape glitch (which should be considered a borderline change, really).
Why ban planking? Whether by judge rule, LGL, anti-gliding rules, whatever the reason. They're all eliminating the same "issue".
If it's because "it's boring", your argument is irrelevant and you don't really have an argument other than "I want", so everyone can ignore you. If it's because "MK is too good, let's weaken him", just ban MK and stop beating around the bush.
As we are takling about the MK vs. Falco matchup and you mentioned that MK is too good anyway, I'm going to assume that you believe without the planking rule in place you can see MK being beatable by Falco and potentially others. Let's imagine this is true without question, and you've "saved" the matchup for Falco.
However, you are being unfair and have enhanced Falco's tournament ability while ignoring others.
Fox is not tournament viable due to a plethora of infinites against him. ZSS and Pika being the biggest. Why not ban those?
D3 can CG infinite multiple characters. You'd have to ban those as well.
The ICs can infinite every character in the game, and a large majority of the cast can do nothing about it; ICs are the biggest "bottom feeder" destroyer in the game. Just TRY to be Ganon vs. ICs. You need to ban these CGs as well.
What about other "impossible" matchups? Falco destroys D3 with a vengeance due to his ability to laser, jab, and over-b. D3's attacks start much to slowly to be a threat to Falco and he is much too slow to catch Falco if he over-bs. The prominent anti-D3 strategy is to intelligently spam lasers and over-b and jab when you have a sticky situation so you can over-b away. Are you going to limit Falco's laser usage to save D3 in this matchup?
From the above, you should be seeing that you either
A) agree to change everything on a case by case basis to make matches more fair (this would be messy, and is seen in games like Brawl+ and the like)
B) Believe MK vs. Falco is the only "impossible" matchup in the game (this is false)
C) Believe MK is good enough to where he needs weakening (ban MK instead; read Sirlin to find out why)
D) Realize Falco mains should pick another character as MK vs. Falco is a hard matchup due to ledge camping, but this is just as acceptable as D3 vs. DK, ICs vs. Ganon, Pika vs. Fox, etc., etc. It just stings more because Falco is close to being good. (Correct answer!)
So no, it isn't opinion. There's a science to this stuff with very consistent and concrete results. An opinion is something that you merely feel and can't really support. I can support my statements with a plethora of evidence and game theory along with the current history of Brawl, so I wouldn't classify it as an opinion. Saying that "ICs and D3 aren't nearly as bad as MK" isn't even an opinion. They're just as bad if not worse in multiple matchups. Just go ask DK mains who they'd rather play, a D3 or an MK. Saying MK vs. Falco can't compare to D3 vs. DK would be true, except that D3 vs. DK is worse.
Don't say "bananas are blue" and back it up by saying "it's an opinion". Gotta give
evidence, yo.
All I'm sayin' is that a Meta Knight camping the ledge with the objective of "standstill" ought not to be threatened by a Falco who doesn't have an identical objective. I've mentioned before that I'm not really in support of a ledge rule or anything, but it doesn't sit well with me to understate Meta Knight's available options/overstate Falco's chances of breaking the standstill.
Agreed; Falco's options are not as impossible as it appears though, and I've seen Falco mains stop planking consistently. Shugo himself failed repeatedly to stop planking until his % was so much higher that just getting a hit wouldn't do it... and he kamikazi daired and brought it back to even. Falco
has options. Planking vs. Falco is different from stalling or "broken" or anything of the sort. It's just very difficult.
I missed when playing perfect got into the discussion. I thought the point was that planking isn't very hard to do so a less skilled MK can time out a more skilled Falco. Which is stupid.
When a matchup deteriorates to using one technique over and over I don't see how competitiveness is served. But sure go ahead and compare it to completely unrelated things. It's working.
Competitiveness is easily served. The better player won. They use a stronger strategy with a better character in the matchup. An MK
not planking would not be "serving competitiveness".
Difficulty to do a technique is irrelevant. If something is effective AND easy, of COURSE it will be used often! That's why MK's tornado is so effective. It's easy and powerful and takes a significant amount of effort to stop. So... you see it all the time! If a DK is having serious troubles with tornado in the matchup the correct solution is not to ban torando. It's to find a way around it, regardless of how difficult it is, or to pick a new character.
Don't create some fancy definition of competitiveness in your head and warp the game around it.
Ha-chaa
