Don't know where to start? Go back to the beginning. Today for those who don't know, Smash 64 is generally ran with 5 stocks. The match shown above took place around 2002, only three years after the release of Smash 64 and used six.
Unsurprising as it was the first release for the series, the competitive scene for Smash 64 upon first release was not as organized as any title after. While some original 64 posts have been lost, it seems that at least by the 2006 to 2007 era that 5 stocks was a common standard.
The story does not end here however, as even among the Smash 64 community there have been debates over the merits of using 4 stocks instead of five. It was even discussed potentially for an Apex ruleset. The main concern of why the stock count should be reduced is the same as Smash 4: time. Unlike other Smash titles Smash 64 lacks a mode with both stocks AND time as a choice to use. As purely using a timer has been proven to be not competitive, this has created an issue of particularly long matches in Smash 64.
While admittedly on the stage Hyrule Castle, which is now banned at most major events, one game with SuPeRbOoMfAn vs Gerson took over 52 minutes. They still had more of the set to play out after. This is certainly an unusual occurrence but even other big matches, like the Apex 2012 Grand Finals, can take over 30 minutes to finish, more time than three games of Brawl and Melee going to time.
While it seems the community still wants a 5 stock ruleset overall, the Smash 64 does have something very unique to it that is also worth mentioning: Yolo Tournaments. These are one stock, best of one sets, with brackets randomly seeded and the character the player must use randomly chosen then locked for the entire tournament. Not to mention each stage is chosen at random. These are mostly done purely for fun or charitable reasons, but is worth noting as a unique event where one stock is used especially as we look into...
While people know Melee for using four stocks today, this was not the case in the beginning. Interestingly enough some of the earliest tournaments used 5 stocks. The catch? "It was 5 stock single-match; 2 out of 3 sets were rare during early tourneys." That quote comes from Chillendude's History of a Smasher, and the match shown above is the grand final set from the very tournament mentioned. This seems to have been prevalent into at least 2004 as Chillendude also went on to say "It was also 5 stock, which was normal for MD/VA tourneys in 2002-04." He also mentioned how 6 stocks was used to "make up for single elimination". As time when on however, 4 stock matches with best of three at a minimum became a standard. But yet again something creeper into the minds of competitors: time.
"As time was getting close to expiring, Wes manged to get Chu down to his last stock while he was over 100% on his last stock. He then camped out the rest of the 30 seconds or so with up+B’s on the fin, and the timer ran out. Good thing Chu had that 100%+ damage lead, right?
Nope. M3D’s rule was that in the event of stock ties, sudden death would be played out. This seems silly now, but his reasoning at the time was, “it would be lame if someone lost by like 2%.” So instead, Wes beat Chu in sudden death and despite being on his way to 3 stocking Wes, Chu lost."
No one today would think of playing out sudden death, but back in the day it was not as unusual. In theory playing without a timer shouldn’t be a problem, it’d be better to allow the best player to be found. The main issue here was practicality, tournaments need to be able to end before venues close so only running stocks had its issues. Yet again Melee shows that the time a tournament takes seemed to be a major factor in ruleset decisions as it is today. It's spiritual successor would go on to potentially experiment outside of four stocks.
Being the spiritual successor to Melee with similar mechanics and speed, many thought that four stocks was an easy and obvious standard to use at tournaments. Things changed at The Big House 4 where Project M was ran with three stocks at a major tournament. Yet again we see this was done because of time concerns. This pattern just keep creeping into discussions. Despite the event going very well, tournaments going into the future kept with a four stock standard over worrying n times as the community felt it was best for the game.
Brawl quickly gained a notoriety for particularly long sets as the game grew competitively. Three stock tournaments could end on time so the time section was less of an issue for practicality in Brawl but more of an issue with the spectator. Watching longs games of Brawl was not enjoyable to all fans and many thought it, alongside many matches player with a single character (Meta Knight) could be an issues for Brawl's growth.
To combat this, one idea was to run one stock tournaments. With the reduced time for each match, seeing similar characters possibly wouldn't have been as bad, and may have opened up the tier lists for characters like Zero Suit Samus or Pokemon Trainer potentially. Some suggest doing best of 5 matches to combat the lack of stocks while others said that best of three where players just had three stocks and fought only on one stage would work. The grand finals match of Get On My Level, one of the first events to try this, is shown above. Top players and spectators also gave their comments on the event and the results were varied. Recently Brawl was also brought back for a special event at Xanadu which used 2 stocks and a reduced timer.
It seems however most strong Brawl tournament series like FLAOC as well as majors like Super Smash Con are likely to continue on the three stock standard despite time constraints as in general it is preferred by those still playing the game.
Yet again it seems the deciding factor for using 2 stocks in Smash 4 comes down to time as well as viewership concerns just as it was in Brawl. Tournament organizers have claimed that running three stock events would simply take too much extra time and thus two stock is chosen. After the tournament FC Return, famed TO Juggleguy personally said: "Never, ever run three stock Smash Wii U… ever. The FC day two schedule moved along at a snail’s pace in part because the inexplicable decision to run three stock Smash 4 caused delays, which were further amplified by the queueing up of multiple stream matches and the excessive number of game changeovers. PSA to all TOs, please ignore the vocal, entitled, never-ran-a-tourney-before social media monsters that argue for a three stock Smash 4 ruleset. Stick to the proven two stock ruleset so you can finish the tourney at a reasonable hour."
This opinion is not shared by all however. At the recent tournament Texas Gaming Championships 5, the tournament had 240 entrants for singles, and 80 doubles teams with on site signups. Tournament organizer for the event Xyro gave his thoughts on a three stock ruleset taking more time.
"It is a common belief that that 3 stocks add substantial time to a tournament's overall length. This is incorrect. If a TO does his/her job of doing sign-ups on time, calling matches on time, ensuring friendlies are at a minimum (or eliminated) and refrains from deviating from the advertised schedule, the overall event will not last much longer than a 2 stock event." TGC 5 had 240 1vs1 entrants and 80 2vs2 teams. I did sign-ups on site and finished 12.5 hours later. I finished before 1am as advertised. Dabuz told me that most events he attends on the EC end around 3-4am, have far less entrants and use 2 stock."
Pro player Dabuz gave his own comments on how the event went with three stocks. In his exact words: "WITH A 3 STOCK 7 MINUTE RULESET (Which BTW, I actually liked @_@ near the top 8 though when players play more safe, matches did something drag on though) AND POOLS WHERE EVERYONE THAT GOES INTO LOSERS IS RESEEDED BACK INTO WINNERS, everything was finished by midnight. That's really, really, really, really impressive. I would expect this kind of event to be 2 day."
Into the future, it seems a large section of Texas as well as Europe is looking to run 3 stocks. Another major this weekend, Ossom Fights, will take place in Spain and is set to use three stocks so it will be an interesting events to watch and study. will it still be a strong event for spectators, or is two stock superior in this case?
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So looking into the past, it seems the time events take was a primary factor in deciding our ruleset as well as stock counts. With varying sides to this issue it seems this will be a continued source of discussion within the community. Hopefully as this discussion continues we can look back into our past for inspiration and use it to come up with the best ruleset for the game's future.
Writer's Note: A special thank you to Crillxz for helping develop the idea for and inspiring this article. Consider following Crillxz on Twitter for future brilliant ideas.
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