If your name is not on a the sign up sheet, on the tio computer, or in a TO's head by 12 NOON, you're not entering the tourney. If you're going to be late past noon, you can call someone at the tourney and have them give your name to a TO. Nick, can you post that conspicuously in the first post?
Lucien,
First stage isn't random, it's whichever of the 5 is leftover after 2 are struck by each player. I was only suggesting it be made 3 to have a less convoluted process.
Concerning the counterpick stages, that looks pretty good, however I thought I should bring up the following points and ask you guys what you think:
-Frigate: OK, the stage flip thing isn't really too much to deal with...IF you know it's coming. The audio cue is a lot more telling than the visual cue, and as we all know it's almost impossible to hear crap clearly in that tourney room with 10 other matches going. I think it's obvious that if there were NO cue whatsoever we'd have banned the stage. The question is, is the reduced ability to detect the cue enough to warrant a ban?
-Norfair: Some people in the SBR have shown that the edges in the stages can be heavily camp-abused. Of course you can't do it forever because of the lava, but in many matchups, there is little to no hope for an approach if someone decides they don't want to come out, and instead camp the ledged. I suggest you guys all try it out yourselves and see what you think about it. If we're going to ban SMI because some matchups are practically unwinnable there, we'd have to ban Norfair if it gets to the same level. Basically same sort of problem as Hanenbow but not as bad.
As for SMI, etc., it's by no means a free win because the person counterpicked AGAINST always has the opportunity to pick a character that doesn't "auto-lose." As far as I know, the following characters cannot be wall-infinited or CG'd across the stage:
Fox
Jigglypuff
Pikachu
Olimar
Zelda
Mr. Game & Watch
Sheik
Kirby
Squirtle
Meta Knight
Falco
Luigi
ZSS
That's 1/3 of the cast. I'm not saying I like SMI or Bridge, but is 13 characters really too few to choose from that we need to ban stages? Remember this is only against ONE CHARACTER in the game. Anyone who wants to play Ness or Lucas is in the same situation in EVERY stage against Marth. And Luigi, Mario, DK, Samus, and Bowser are in the same situation against DDD in EVERY stage (infinite regrab). What do you guys think?
Also what do you think about this Sudden Death Rule (% tiebreak would still apply, but this is for the case of Kirby/DDD/Ganon/Bowser/whoever-cide where the game literally takes both stock at the same time): If it's on the first stage, both players are credited with a win. The next match is played on one of the starter stages. If it's on a counterpicked stage, the person who counterpicked the stage loses. The reasoning behind this is that Sudden Death is a meaningless test of camping where the best strategy is to just go to the nearest ledge and camp because you can't lose unless you mess up. You might as why not just play a 1 stock rematch, but X-cides can just be abused repeatedly to delay the outcome, and this takes too much time. With this rule, you always get a winner immediately.
