Why are people calling this an "American" mentality? Go anywhere, tournaments will be played the exact same. People will use their most powerful strategy. And how many tournaments have you guys gone to where the winner of the tournament won because they were planking.
So far all the videos i've seen are a select few matches from one plank. Is he the only person who uses this strategy to its fullest? Currently all this does is scream "PICK METAKNIGHT". The entire game engine is stacked for metaknight, I don't see why you expected hanging off the ledge to be any different. This happened because they designed the game to satisfy a person for a few months. They have your $50 for the game, they don't care whether you are capable of enjoying the game for 8 years, 2 years, or 2 months.
Also, if someone is camping the ledge for an advantage, it is because they are in the lead. In almost every form of competition. The first team to score gets an advantage. They no longer need to score to win the game. They can play very conservatively because they could never score a point the entire game and win, because all they have to do is shut down the opponents offense. This is the same everywhere, not just brawl. This tactic makes it very hard to hit the opponent, but not impossible.
Once I was facing a metaknight as snake and he did this ledgegrabbing strategy. He used the tornado to rack me up to about 20% (I suck against the tornado >.<). Then just grabbed the ledge renewing his invincibility frames. So did I charge the edge like he wanted? No, I went to the other edge and started chucking grenades. Almost all of them just exploded on his invincibility frames, but eventually I got one to just drop over the edge, explode right below him, and catch him in the explosion.
Now I run towards him to follow up now that hes above the ledge. Do I attack? No, in brawl there is no hitstun. He has control of his character almost instantly after being hit. I shield, and he nairs against my shield. After that I catch him in my forward tilt. He recovers back to the edge. Now he is at 30% no lives lost, and I am at 20% no lives lost. We are now 3 minutes into the match and I am winning because he was planking. Metaknight tears me apart because of his speed, so he started to fight normally and almost 2-stocked me (I got a nice uptilt in the end).
Just remember this if someone decides to ledgestall against you:
1. Time is on your side.
2. Range is your friend.
3. If he is only 10% ahead of you, make your desperate attempt with about 10-20 seconds to go, not when he can easily take it back.
4. If he is 60% ahead of you, you probably would have lost whether he ledgestalls or not. Start trying to take it back, but you better get lucky.
This metaknight didn't even end up winning the tournament. He lost to another metaknight who was much better than him.
I lost that match, but it showed me how planking is not some broken strategy. It is very good against characters without range. But it is nowhere near as broken as it is being made out to be. It just isn't very exciting to watch, and as i've been saying for a while.
"Tournaments are to decide who is the better smash player, not to make cool looking youtube videos."
edit: tl;dr version:
1. Ledgestalling isnt that great.
2. You have 8 minutes to hit him again.
3. Use range.
4. Make your attempt to raise his percentage above yours at the last minute.
