I'd like to ask you again why you think 9 stages takes too long. The people going to a tournament are going to already know what stages to strike ASAP (unless they're scrubs, but frankly we should not be making rules based around them), so it's only going to take a few extra seconds at most. Assuming there's a large number of rounds, all it will result in is a few more minutes added to the tournament at most.
I've changed my mind. While personally, I'd run a tournament with five starters (I think it mixes variety and efficiency nicely), I see the advantages of having nine starters.
But it will need to be situational to each competition. If it's a biweekly with a small amount of knowledgeable players, then hell, go for the nine. But if it's a large tournament, publicized, with a substantial amount of the competitors traveling their via their mom's dropping them off, then I'd go for three. It really does add a large amount of time, time better spent actually playing.
And we can't just brush it aside and say "
Oh, well why are we thinking of the noobs and not the pros?" It's because we depend on being an open and accepting community. We don't need a ruleset with a
learning curve to shun them away. A smaller list for the more larger tournaments, a larger list for the smaller ones. Possibly even expanding the starter list as a tournament goes toward the finals. A tournament starting with three, finals ending with nine.
This is why I'm now in favor of the starter/counter list. Though the ban/counter list can go to hell. D**** indecisive SBR. Ban or don't ban a stage. Don't give, "
Eh, if you wanna..."
Starter
Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Yoshi's Island
Pokémon Stadium 1
Starter/Counter
Castle Siege
Delfino
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
The starter lists depending on tournament size. As size goes up, or the closer you get to the finals, include another color to your starter list.