Meta SSBU Stagelist Discussion

[Sean²]

Realistically what do we get out of that? Smashville (already legal anyway) and IF FoD ever got fixed maybe that too but we already have BF and YS, do we even WANT a 3rd triangle triplat?


And if being dynamic justifies FoD, are we turning Dreamland on too?

You know what I really want? The blast zones on WarioWare fixed. Most people would be fine with that small stage if the blast zones weren't also crazy small.

It removes any argument that Yoshi's Brawl is too similar to Smashville, because Smashville's platform can move as it always has. Town & City also regains moving platforms. If shy guys no longer drop food, then you get Randall on Yoshi's Melee. Another argument that people are using to make it too similar to BF.

So what we realistically get out of that, are more stages without having to make multiple rulesets for hazards off and hazards on should you want "hazards". or just sticking 100% with hazards off. It lowers the chance for human error and raises the chance that stages won't be arbitrarily banned because someone thinks they're too similar to an already legal stage.

I'm okay with WarioWare as is. It's not broken enough to be "fixed". Especially with the prevalence of PS2 in the current meta.

 

[Tesh]

"The arguments against some of these stages just completely dies "

My point is that no one is even arguing against SV or FoD based on hazards being off or on or toggled. Everyone is fine with SV being legal and everyone knows FoD has to be off because it lags the game. I wouldn't say T&C is "effectively FD" any more than Kalos is. The platforms matter a lot for how you handle recoveries, juggles and even neutral in matchups where people need a place to charge moves or air campers like MK.

Just like FoD, YS with hazards on would be interesting IF they also fixed problems with the stage. I'm just pointing out that while a hazard toggle seems like a no brainer, it doesn't really increase our viable stagelist because the stages we don't play on are broken anyway and the improvable stages are already legal.

Dynamic doesn't have to just mean moving platforms. Hazards make a stage dynamic. But we can disregard my DL comments. Do we want 3 BF triplats if FoD were fixed?

I don't think anyone arguing SV and YI being too similar actually cares about their similarities. Its just a cover for hating slopes. Its not an argument against SV, its and argument against YI.

You could argue WW being fine all you want, but we all know its not touching the stage of a major ever again. It actually has a unique layout, nice tracks and people might like it if the blast zones weren't so extreme. Right now its just a stage that MAYBE can be legal SOMEWHERE so it can be banned in every serious set.

 

[Lore]

"we all know it's never touching the stage of a major ever again"

Please bless us more with your wisdom, o bearer of objective truths. We are truly humbled.

Or, you know, don't assume "we all know" something when half the thread disagrees, if not more.

 

[ATH_]

"The arguments against some of these stages just completely dies "

My point is that no one is even arguing against SV or FoD based on hazards being off or on or toggled. Everyone is fine with SV being legal and everyone knows FoD has to be off because it lags the game. I wouldn't say T&C is "effectively FD" any more than Kalos is. The platforms matter a lot for how you handle recoveries, juggles and even neutral in matchups where people need a place to charge moves or air campers like MK.

Just like FoD, YS with hazards on would be interesting IF they also fixed problems with the stage. I'm just pointing out that while a hazard toggle seems like a no brainer, it doesn't really increase our viable stagelist because the stages we don't play on are broken anyway and the improvable stages are already legal.

Dynamic doesn't have to just mean moving platforms. Hazards make a stage dynamic. But we can disregard my DL comments. Do we want 3 BF triplats if FoD were fixed?

I don't think anyone arguing SV and YI being too similar actually cares about their similarities. Its just a cover for hating slopes. Its not an argument against SV, its and argument against YI.

You could argue WW being fine all you want, but we all know its not touching the stage of a major ever again. It actually has a unique layout, nice tracks and people might like it if the blast zones weren't so extreme. Right now its just a stage that MAYBE can be legal SOMEWHERE so it can be banned in every serious set.

You're right, if they put a toggle in right this instant, we would get... Dreamland > Yoshi's Story? Probably? We would get better SV, better T&C too, but additions purely would be only possibly Dreamland. Also, you're right that T&C is "effectively FD" the same way Kalos is, that's literally what I was talking about. I've said it before, but what I mean when I quote "effectively FD" is a quote from Salem/M2K where FD/Kalos/T&C are "effectively FD" for top tiers such as Pichu and Wolf. It's part of the reason they're so dominant right now.

When speaking about Hazards On, a lot of it is speaking in hypotheticals. IF FoD gets fixed, IF Yoshi's Story shy guys go away, IF the toggle gets added. It's subjective to say whether or not those things will happen, just as it's subjective to say one is going too far when speaking about hypothetical changes to the current system. I, for one, believe that FoD will get fixed.

I keep having to say this, Fountain of Dreams is not a triangle-triplat the same way Battlefield is. Play the stage, see how different it is. Top players discussing stages before the game released discussed this very topic and notable players, including ZeRo, concluded that Fountain of Dreams and Battlefield could exist as starters simultaneously due to their differences. That's not proof by any means, this is all subjective of course, but it's relevant.

I definitely agree about the Yoshi's Island problem. The mentality of "island is just worse smashville" is so destructive.

What major was WW in?

 

[Lore]

Side note, if Fountain really was just another triplat, I doubt it would have been so prevalent in Melee events.

 

[TheYungLink]

Yet another Thought From A Casual coming through:

Seeing that people are still talking about a hazard toggle from the stage select screen, I'm hoping that some future update, like the upcoming 3.0, either allows for some kind of hazard toggle menu for each stage like I initially wanted (so we could turn on the moving platforms for stuff like Smashville and Wily Castle while turning off stuff like the balloons and Yellow Devil), which is asking for much, or just putting a toggle on the stage select screen to make choosing stages more interesting. I doubt it's happening, but it would make me happy because the somewhat small stage list we have (yes, I know it's still bigger than any of the previous Smash games) could expand a fair bit.

 

[Tesh]

Side note, if Fountain really was just another triplat, I doubt it would have been so prevalent in Melee events.

Pretty sure melee just has to take what it can get, which is why they play on Ps1 too.

You're right, if they put a toggle in right this instant, we would get... Dreamland > Yoshi's Story? Probably? We would get better SV, better T&C too, but additions purely would be only possibly Dreamland. Also, you're right that T&C is "effectively FD" the same way Kalos is, that's literally what I was talking about. I've said it before, but what I mean when I quote "effectively FD" is a quote from Salem/M2K where FD/Kalos/T&C are "effectively FD" for top tiers such as Pichu and Wolf. It's part of the reason they're so dominant right now.

When speaking about Hazards On, a lot of it is speaking in hypotheticals. IF FoD gets fixed, IF Yoshi's Story shy guys go away, IF the toggle gets added. It's subjective to say whether or not those things will happen, just as it's subjective to say one is going too far when speaking about hypothetical changes to the current system. I, for one, believe that FoD will get fixed.

I keep having to say this, Fountain of Dreams is not a triangle-triplat the same way Battlefield is. Play the stage, see how different it is. Top players discussing stages before the game released discussed this very topic and notable players, including ZeRo, concluded that Fountain of Dreams and Battlefield could exist as starters simultaneously due to their differences. That's not proof by any means, this is all subjective of course, but it's relevant.

I definitely agree about the Yoshi's Island problem. The mentality of "island is just worse smashville" is so destructive.

What major was WW in?

My bad, I assumed that maybe it was legal very close to release somewhere, but stagelists are quickly creeping down in size. No major TO is going to add WW as it is, no matter how much logic and optimism M2K spits. Nothing will be added besides potentially DLC stages (these will probably be bonkers though) or if a stage is heavily improved. Most of the community is already over WW, tournament tested or not.

 

[ATH_]

Pretty sure melee just has to take what it can get, which is why they play on Ps1 too.

My bad, I assumed that maybe it was legal very close to release somewhere, but stagelists are quickly creeping down in size. No major TO is going to add WW as it is, no matter how much logic and optimism M2K spits. Nothing will be added besides potentially DLC stages (these will probably be bonkers though) or if a stage is heavily improved. Most of the community is already over WW, tournament tested or not.

Most of the community? Well... sure, you can say that? That isn't a reason though. That's not evidence or proof. I can say a lot of things that are probable but in a place like this it's not a reason to just suddenly discount WW as a viable stage.

There's lots of people who want WW too. You can see that in this thread, including (I assume?) yourself? Twitter polls and comments aren't relevant in terms of popularity either.

Here's a thought, if something posted on a twitter stage discussion would result in a warning or infraction here, then it's not relevant. Nearly 90% of the people arguing against Siege and WW on twitter are all regurgitating the same words with no reasons. It's simple mob mentality, and we've seen that the loud crowd can be wrong in previous games.

Yes, a major may not be running WW, but why shouldn't one? I hope a TO comes to this thread and reads some of the stuff we've written about WW and Siege.

 

[Sean²]

"The arguments against some of these stages just completely dies "

My point is that no one is even arguing against SV or FoD based on hazards being off or on or toggled. Everyone is fine with SV being legal and everyone knows FoD has to be off because it lags the game. I wouldn't say T&C is "effectively FD" any more than Kalos is. The platforms matter a lot for how you handle recoveries, juggles and even neutral in matchups where people need a place to charge moves or air campers like MK.

Just like FoD, YS with hazards on would be interesting IF they also fixed problems with the stage. I'm just pointing out that while a hazard toggle seems like a no brainer, it doesn't really increase our viable stagelist because the stages we don't play on are broken anyway and the improvable stages are already legal.

Dynamic doesn't have to just mean moving platforms. Hazards make a stage dynamic. But we can disregard my DL comments. Do we want 3 BF triplats if FoD were fixed?

I don't think anyone arguing SV and YI being too similar actually cares about their similarities. Its just a cover for hating slopes. Its not an argument against SV, its and argument against YI.

You could argue WW being fine all you want, but we all know its not touching the stage of a major ever again. It actually has a unique layout, nice tracks and people might like it if the blast zones weren't so extreme. Right now its just a stage that MAYBE can be legal SOMEWHERE so it can be banned in every serious set.

What I was saying, was that it kills arguments attempting to use any validity that that something is too similar just to get rid of stages that someone out there may not like a lot. The side AGAINST Yoshi's Brawl would no longer have an argument besides "lmao slopes are jank". No one is trying to get Smashville banned.

If FOD were fixed, I'd say yes. I think the main platform (and if we're talking any hazards on, the floating platforms raising and lowering) creates enough of a separation from BF to make it legal. It can help walljump characters. But I feel like it's borderline regardless.

Yoshi's Story feels different enough that anyone arguing to ban it because it's just another triplat can already be discredited, mostly due to the differences in both the floating platform and main platform. Right now it's generally legal and should stay that way. I wish we could have Randall but it's just not realistic with the shyguys dropping food with items off for whatever reason. But someone on the last page was arguing for both Yoshi's stages to be banned, for the aforementioned reasons - hence why I mentioned what life would be like with a hypothetical stage hazard toggle on the stage select screen. Right now we don't have that, so it was just my wishful thinking.

And if WW is dead and gone, bring back Castle Siege. Love that stage, but it's already seemingly been tossed in the dumpster. Why? The reason they'll give you is because of the right side wall. But if you watch Genesis matches where it was featured, it barely makes an appearance at all. It's mostly because people don't like the slope or the size. (also probably didn't help that both TK and D1 both said the stage sucked in front of however many thousand people were watching the stream).

Or nuke Kalos or Town & City if we are to remain hazardless on a 10 stage list for all eternity. Just my little slice of subjectiveness. But I'm not a major TO, I'm just a guy who thinks hazardless Rainbow Cruise could be a viable counterpick.

 

[Tesh]

The majority being wrong never stops them from getting their way. Democracies are built on people voting on things they don't know anything about.

I...agree about rainbow cruise. I've heard there are infinite wall combos, but I'll need to see it to believe it.

 

[Munomario777]

Kinda unrelated to WW and etc, but thinking of shrinking my stagelist a bit for next month

Spoiler

Keeping siege and MKU since they're probably the best of the "weird" stages I had before.

cuts:
- warioware
- frigate
- skyloft
- halberd
- wuhu island

swaps:
- FD and town

changes:
- no "you can only nominate 1 weird stage at a time" system
- P4P1 instead of P3P1

 

[Frihetsanka]

You may not like it, but the reality of the matter is that, at least with how things are looking right now, there are only ten stages with any real chance of being legal. Mixed hazards seems pretty dead too. WarioWare is dead because of the tiny side blastzones. The game is available now, I suggest people lab every stage they think might be viable and try to abuse it and see why people think they're ban-worthy. Try to really abuse them.

 

[ATH_]

Kinda unrelated to WW and etc, but thinking of shrinking my stagelist a bit for next month

Spoiler

View attachment 192576

Keeping siege and MKU since they're probably the best of the "weird" stages I had before.

cuts:
- warioware
- frigate
- skyloft
- halberd
- wuhu island

swaps:
- FD and town

changes:
- no "you can only nominate 1 weird stage at a time" system
- P4P1 instead of P3P1

Looks great! I've been considering using Town > FD as well, actually. Do you have any particular reason for removing WW? Not for debate, I'd just like to hear what convinced you to get rid of it.

Is MKU really safe to use without WW? I suppose we'll find out.

Also, RIP Frigate. The dream is dead. Still gonna play it in friendlies though. Love the stage.

 

[Munomario777]

WW just isn't a very good stage tbhtbh, the small blastzones change the game a ton and I personally don't find it fun to play on at all (a popular opinion).

I don't think MKU needs WW to be good. I have siege in there to kind of balance it out – basically adding one big stage and one small stage to The Balanced Ten.

 

[ATH_]

WW just isn't a very good stage tbhtbh, the small blastzones change the game a ton and I personally don't find it fun to play on at all (a popular opinion).

I don't think MKU needs WW to be good. I have siege in there to kind of balance it out – basically adding one big stage and one small stage to The Balanced Ten.

It's interesting to see that everyone seems to agree that The Balanced Ten are conclusively the most balanced stage. Personally, I think Genesis 6's ruleset was excellence, and that the 51% who banned Siege only means it wasn't tested. People hate it, doesn't mean it's bad.

This feels like a remixed Genesis 6 ruleset, and I like that. Great job on the reworked stage list.

Gonna lab out WW and MKU myself soon. We'll see if I can get some good data in relation to those two.

 

[Sean²]

The majority being wrong never stops them from getting their way. Democracies are built on people voting on things they don't know anything about.

I...agree about rainbow cruise. I've heard there are infinite wall combos, but I'll need to see it to believe it.

Ness is the only one I know of. He can PSI Magnet you to 999%. But he's gotta manage to get you in that situation first, which is...not very easy. I tried against someone, but couldn't seem to reliably get them in the perfect spot against the wall. They'd almost have to miss a tech directly in front of the wall, and you have to be in the position to jab lock into PSI Magnet. But I'm not a Ness expert so I don't know if someone better could do it more easily.

But in a tournament setting, if you're fighting Ness, it's just gotta be one of your bans.

 

[Lore]

My bad, I assumed that maybe it was legal very close to release somewhere, but stagelists are quickly creeping down in size. No major TO is going to add WW as it is, no matter how much logic and optimism M2K spits. Nothing will be added besides potentially DLC stages (these will probably be bonkers though) or if a stage is heavily improved. Most of the community is already over WW, tournament tested or not.

The majority being wrong never stops them from getting their way. Democracies are built on people voting on things they don't know anything about.

You may not like it, but the reality of the matter is that, at least with how things are looking right now, there are only ten stages with any real chance of being legal.

Oh boy, then we might as well roll over and die. The mythical TOs will never add this! The community is over this debate, despite being split!

Throwing out statements as "most of the community is bla bla bla" is intellectually dishonest and void of any value. I'm sure glad that we have you two here as our experts on community opinion; your list of sources is astounding, and you clearly aren't pulling these opinions out of your butt.

Your arrogance is such a great addition to this thread, not to mention the sheer edge from the Democracy comment. Get back to your high school civics class and out of here with that vapid opinion.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Oh boy, then we might as well roll over and die. The mythical TOs will never add this! The community is over this debate, despite being split!

You add nothing to the thread and you've attacked several people for disagreeing with you. Chill. How much time have you spent discussing and analyzing stages? We'll see in a few months whose right and whose wrong about which stages have a realistic chance of being legal, but I do have to ask: Do you actually think any stages aside from "the ten" have a realistic chance of being legal? In that case, which stages?

 

[MarioManTAW]

I keep having to say this, Fountain of Dreams is not a triangle-triplat the same way Battlefield is. Play the stage, see how different it is. Top players discussing stages before the game released discussed this very topic and notable players, including ZeRo, concluded that Fountain of Dreams and Battlefield could exist as starters simultaneously due to their differences. That's not proof by any means, this is all subjective of course, but it's relevant.

How so? With hazards off (assuming that's what is in use, as in almost all tournaments right now), there seem to be very few major differences (identical blastzones, only slightly different platform placement/size, partial walls).

 

[Frihetsanka]

How so? With hazards off (assuming that's what is in use, as in almost all tournaments right now), there seem to be very few major differences (identical blastzones, only slightly different platform placement/size, partial walls).

ATH_ actually was discussing the hypothetical possibility of a hazard toggle, in which case Fountain of Dreams would be less redundant. My stance is that it's somewhat unlikely that we'll get a hazard toggle, but if we do then we'll re-evaluate certain stages.

 

[Sean²]

You add nothing to the thread and you've attacked several people for disagreeing with you. Chill. How much time have you spent discussing and analyzing stages? We'll see in a few months whose right and whose wrong about which stages have a realistic chance of being legal, but I do have to ask: Do you actually think any stages aside from "the ten" have a realistic chance of being legal? In that case, which stages?

I know it’s not directed toward me, but Castle Siege. 51% ban at Genesis is still only half of the time. If you watch any of the CS games that were streamed, the right side wall had no effect on the outcome, really. The consensus for it going away are just that people dislike it. Whether it be the small size, or the slope, or what have you. Mid level players hate it for some reason. I’m hoping someone like VGBC, who’s not afraid of their players throwing a fit and not showing up or something, can see there is no non-subjective reason to ban it.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I know it’s not directed toward me, but Castle Siege. 51% ban at Genesis is still only half of the time. If you watch any of the CS games that were streamed, the right side wall had no effect on the outcome, really. The consensus for it going away are just that people dislike it. Whether it be the small size, or the slope, or what have you. Mid level players hate it for some reason. I’m hoping someone like VGBC, who’s not afraid of their players throwing a fit and not showing up or something, can see there is no non-subjective reason to ban it.

First off, I don't think we should primarily base stage legality on ban rate, since it's hard to tell whether stages are banned because they're actually bad or because people just don't like them. Castle Siege is a "borderline" stage, one that has a higher chance than most other stages of remaining legal. Even then, I would estimate that the chances are very low: Castle Siege has a bunch of problems. The higher ground allows for some janky stuff that isn't possible on other stages (such as Samus/Dark Samus using Charge Shot to cover the ground and easily edgeguard, or on-stage having several projectile based character use projectiles at an angle that's hard to deal with). The slant is also, by far, the most impactful slant in the game, and the stage arguably has no real mid-stage. It's also asymmetrical.

Anyway, my guesstimate is that the stage has less of a 3% chance of remaining legal. It doesn't help that it's arguably too small for doubles and people generally want the same stages in doubles and singles (though this isn't a very compelling argument, I'll admit).

 

[Lore]

You add nothing to the thread and you've attacked several people for disagreeing with you. Chill. How much time have you spent discussing and analyzing stages? We'll see in a few months whose right and whose wrong about which stages have a realistic chance of being legal, but I do have to ask: Do you actually think any stages aside from "the ten" have a realistic chance of being legal? In that case, which stages?

I have done plenty of discussion, and I absolutely discount most of your own contributions. They come from a position of arrogance, where you make sweeping statements with zero sources other than your own subjective opinion.

I absolutely have the right to disagree with someone who tries to say (paraphrased) "there's no chance of this! The community is against it!" with zero real backing. You've directly told people to (direct quote) "stop talking about stages that have next to no realistic chance of staying around" and dictate the course of the thread, trying to spearhead your opinion as the one truth.

I despise narcissistic statements like that, and I will firmly oppose them in any discussion. They come from no place other than stroking your own ego.


For the record, I believe that Warioware and Castle Siege both have reasonable chances of being run in major events. They have yet to be properly tested in an event minus a few outliers, and the fact that they are being discussed at all leads me to believe that there is a chance that a TO will test them.

 

[Sean²]

The higher ground allows for some janky stuff that isn't possible on other stages (such as Samus/Dark Samus using Charge Shot to cover the ground and easily edgeguard, or on-stage having several projectile based character use projectiles at an angle that's hard to deal with). The slant is also, by far, the most impactful slant in the game, and the stage arguably has no real mid-stage. It's also asymmetrical.

Nothing wrong with asymmetrical stages. Asymmetrical stages had been standard counterpicks for a long time.

You just ban the stage against characters it benefits. Most broad, flat stages already benefit the top 10-15 characters in the current meta. Are characters like Samus having major impact right now? No, not really. You can’t ban flat stages because all the legal stages, barring Yoshi’s Brawl and Lylat, are flat on the majority of the stage. You can abuse Pichu’s loop combos on a majority of the flat stages, and he’s one of the ones running away with the meta right now.

This stage really only benefits characters who can abuse the slope, like you mentioned, and big characters who can take up lots of space. Heavies are having steadily declining results. Bowser and DK are great characters, maybe best they’ve ever been, but have issues keeping up with ones that can run away from them - aka, a majority of the top tiers. We’re shaping another meta where top tiers can easily dominate, I think partly due to the stage selection. All of our current starters and counterpicks would have all been starters in the younger Melee and Brawl days. And we don’t really even have to worry about a Brawl MK level character abusing super low ceilings to ban things based on character results. There was one major tournament where CS was legal and now it’s seemingly agreed that it will be gone moving forward, and no one really knows why. The only thing I can speculate is that people just don’t like it.

Really, I just don’t want the game to get stale like Smash 4 did, and I think a broader stage selection will help.

Maybe I’m just being too selfish.

 

[Frihetsanka]

There was one major tournament where CS was legal and now it’s seemingly agreed that it will be gone moving forward, and no one really knows why. The only thing I can speculate is that people just don’t like it.

You know, I think this is a pretty important point: Lots of discussions is being had on Discord, such as the PGStats public Discord, and also in non-public Discords, but we don't really make a great job at making our findings or arguments public, neither here nor on Reddit or Twitter. So people come to a conclusions after lots of testing and discussions, but the reasons are not really released to the public much, leaving people who weren't part of the stagelist discussions wondering why certain stages were banned. Those of us who have been involved in stagelist discussions for months know why these stages are banned, but the average player might have to guess. That's a problem with communication, I suppose, and the top TOs don't currently do a great job at conveying the reasons certain stages are banned.

Really, I just don’t want the game to get stale like Smash 4 did, and I think a broader stage selection will help.

Even if we end up with only 5 stages the stage list is going to be better than Smash 4's, and the meta will likely be more varied unless patches or DLC mess it up (like Bayonetta and Cloud did in Smash 4). I don't think having a large stage list is going to help much against the game getting stale though.

Realistically, barring DLC, we're looking at 5-10 stages, which is better than what Smash 4, Brawl, Melee, and Smash 64 had anyway, and not much worse than Project M, a game designed with competitive play in mind (so it's no wonder that game has more viable, non-redundant stages).

 

[earthboundspacefree]

Warioware seems unlikely to be added in any serious setting, and castle seige is borderline. Of course, I disagree with that conclusion (and wish there was a little more variance in attempted ruleset - not overboard, just something), but that doesn’t change the fact that it seems highly likely at least one of these two is dead in the water. Once this community decides something, it seems like it’s stuck.

On the subject of WW, I don’t understand the issue completely - yes people die significantly earlier, but this is an issue that occurs on the character selection screen (pichu dies approximately 50% earlier than K Rool). There’s an inherent risk/reward that comes with that, and stages are just another instance of risk/reward. If you’re THAT worried about dying THAT much earlier, strike it. That’s all it takes, and the stage your opponen5 CPs still only gives a slight advantage.

2 other potential solutions to the 10 stage stagelist:

A) only keep one of FD/Kalos/Town - they add 3 large stages that are almost identical in function, and if you want to strike this type of stage, tough luck because you can guaranteed get taken to one

B) have it so that striking FD also strikes these two stages, thus leading to more fair counterpicking

In either of these situations, I would swap YI with FD (from starter to cp)

This leaves:

Bigish stages:
PS2
Those 3
Unova
BF

Normal stages:
Lylat (ironic that by the numbers it’s the most normal stage)


Smallish stages:
Smashville
YI
Yoshi story

This looks much better than 2 extra stages in the large category, and that way you don’t add perceived “Jank” stages, and don’t ban too many stages. You could also keep seige to further balance it out. For starters, you could take the neutral stage, and two from each of the big/small categories (which would be done with swapping fd w/ YI). That would be SV/YI/Lylat/BF/PS2

After giving it more thought, I think one of these two options may be better than the one I posted earlier, or at least way more practical

 

[ATH_]

Discussion has pretty clearly derailed here to semantics. Let's try to stay on topic here, we're discussing reasoning behind stage lists and bans. Seems to have boiled into a big fight over not much, really. Come on y'all, we're way better than personal attacks.

I myself am going to put some of my own theory to the test next time I get the chance. Going to lab out MKU and WarioWare and see what the actual differences are in how much quicker/slower you die, how simple an edgeguard has to be to net a kill on both stages, etc. Reminder that MKU has a 250 box, which is within our standard range. The base-terrain is simply massive, but that doesn't immediately discount it from the realm of possibility.

Warioware seems unlikely to be added in any serious setting, and castle seige is borderline. Of course, I hard disagree with that conclusion (and wish there was a little more variance in attempted ruleset - not overboard, just something), but that doesn’t change the fact that it seems highly likely at least one of these two is dead in the water. Once this community decides something, it seems like it’s stuck.

On the subject of WW, I don’t understand the issue completely - yes people die significantly earlier, but this is an issue that occurs on the character selection screen (pichu dies approximately 50% earlier than K Rool). There’s an inherent risk/reward that comes with that, and stages are just another instance of risk/reward. If you’re THAT worried about dying THAT much earlier, strike it. That’s all it takes, and the stage your opponen5 CPs still only gives a slight advantage.

2 other potential solutions to the 10 stage stagelist:

A) only keep one of FD/Kalos/Town - they add 3 large stages that are almost identical in function, and if you want to strike this type of stage, tough luck because you can guaranteed get taken to one

B) have it so that striking FD also strikes these two stages, thus leading to more fair counterpicking

In either of these situations, I would swap YI with FD (from starter to cp)

This leaves:

Bigish stages:
PS2
Those 3
Unova
BF (kinda in between big and normal)

Normal stages:
Lylat
Yoshi story

Smallish stages:
Smashville
YI

This looks much better than 2 extra stages in the large category, and that way you don’t add perceived “Jank” stages, and don’t ban too many stages

The issue is not having a 10 stage list. 10 stages is a fine number, it's not like we're desperate to ban more.

We have "The Balanced Ten" because the community outcry against WarioWare and Castle Siege has grown more powerful. People complain about slopes, but have yet to really give any conclusive reasoning. It's all speculative and over exaggeration to try and influence people more into thinking slopes are some inherently bad thing.

The current true issue is that you either have 9/10 stages and a balanced list, or you have 5. There's no in-between because getting rid of both Yoshi stages leads a huge imbalance with Kalos/T&C. You have to get rid of 5 whole stages to make the list balanced again.

My personal solution to this pending problem is: If it happens, we switch to Hazards On. Even if it gets us one more stage, our list will be far better. There's potential for more than one stage too. Better Smashville, better T&C (that isn't "effectively FD" for Pichu/Wolf-like characters), Fountain of Dreams if it gets fixed, Dream Land, Yoshi's Island, Yoshi's Story, Duck Hunt, and Pokemon Stadium 1 are all potential stages we could use. Not that we'll use all of them, but there's more options there. Even if it was just a 7 stage list, 7 would be way better than 5.

Though, if you're trying to make a 9 stage list from The Balanced Ten and you want to get rid of one of the FD/Kalos/T&C stages, I'd nominate simply getting rid of Kalos or creating an echo rule around it with FD. If you counterpick to FD, you can choose to go to Kalos instead. If you ban FD, Kalos is also banned.

Nothing wrong with asymmetrical stages. Asymmetrical stages had been standard counterpicks for a long time.

You just ban the stage against characters it benefits. Most broad, flat stages already benefit the top 10-15 characters in the current meta. Are characters like Samus having major impact right now? No, not really. You can’t ban flat stages because all the legal stages, barring Yoshi’s Brawl and Lylat, are flat on the majority of the stage. You can abuse Pichu’s loop combos on a majority of the flat stages, and he’s one of the ones running away with the meta right now.

This stage really only benefits characters who can abuse the slope, like you mentioned, and big characters who can take up lots of space. Heavies are having steadily declining results. Bowser and DK are great characters, maybe best they’ve ever been, but have issues keeping up with ones that can run away from them - aka, a majority of the top tiers. We’re shaping another meta where top tiers can easily dominate, I think partly due to the stage selection. All of our current starters and counterpicks would have all been starters in the younger Melee and Brawl days. And we don’t really even have to worry about a Brawl MK level character abusing super low ceilings to ban things based on character results. There was one major tournament where CS was legal and now it’s seemingly agreed that it will be gone moving forward, and no one really knows why. The only thing I can speculate is that people just don’t like it.

Really, I just don’t want the game to get stale like Smash 4 did, and I think a broader stage selection will help.

Maybe I’m just being too selfish.

Nothing selfish about wanting the game to not get stale. Plenty of people agree with you, as do I. The only thing we can do from here is discuss and test. Run tournaments and gather data. See what people think of stages when they play on them, and gather reasons for and against stages to make a conclusion.

First off, I don't think we should primarily base stage legality on ban rate, since it's hard to tell whether stages are banned because they're actually bad or because people just don't like them. Castle Siege is a "borderline" stage, one that has a higher chance than most other stages of remaining legal. Even then, I would estimate that the chances are very low: Castle Siege has a bunch of problems. The higher ground allows for some janky stuff that isn't possible on other stages (such as Samus/Dark Samus using Charge Shot to cover the ground and easily edgeguard, or on-stage having several projectile based character use projectiles at an angle that's hard to deal with). The slant is also, by far, the most impactful slant in the game, and the stage arguably has no real mid-stage. It's also asymmetrical.

Anyway, my guesstimate is that the stage has less of a 3% chance of remaining legal. It doesn't help that it's arguably too small for doubles and people generally want the same stages in doubles and singles (though this isn't a very compelling argument, I'll admit).

Oh my gosh some people are starting to use my own wording in debate! How sweet. c:

Kidding, of course, it should be more obvious that the banrate =/= how good the stage is. Sadly, people on twitter say otherwise. Including supposed reliable TO sources. Sigh.

 

[Frihetsanka]

On the subject of WW, I don’t understand the issue completely - yes people die significantly earlier, but this is an issue that occurs on the character selection screen (pichu dies approximately 50% earlier than K Rool).

WarioWare creates new kill setups that don't really work on any other legal stage; the issue isn't hard Smash reads killing early, but true kill confirms and general juggling killing extremely early. There's no really "large" stage to counter-act this either, characters don't die significantly later on PS2, but they die significantly earlier on WarioWare. The stage is also pretty uneven when it comes to horizontal vs vertical killing, there's not really any stage where you die early vertically, but on WarioWare the ceiling is higher than any other legal stage while the sides are tiny. This probably matters less in Ultimate compared to Smash 4 since fewer characters kill vertically, but it's still a factor. Defenders of WarioWare could hope that Bandai-Namco patch it and makes the side blastzones larger, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[MarioManTAW]

I think I agree with the sentiment that we should give more stages a bit of a chance. As such, my ruleset that I plan on using for a tournament tomorrow has a number of stages that I think could have some viability, but that are generally excluded from most lists now. I am also considering using P4P1, having seen the potential benefits of the format. All this may change before tomorrow following testing with some of my players.

Starter Stages
Battlefield
Smashville
Pokémon Stadium
Final Destination
Lylat Cruise

Counterpick Stages
Castle Siege
WarioWare
Kalos Pokémon League
Town & City
Mushroom Kingdom U
Tomodachi Life
Wuhu Island

Alternate Stages
(Battlefield) Any Battlefield form stage
(Battlefield) Dream Land
(Battlefield) Yoshi’s Story
(Battlefield) Midgar
(Smashville) Yoshi’s Island
(Pokémon Stadium) Pokémon Stadium 2
(Pokémon Stadium) Unova Pokémon League
(Final Destination) Any Omega form stage
(Final Destination) Wily Castle
(Final Destination) PictoChat 2

Notes:
-Yes, I know Tomodachi Life is probably crazy and it might likely be gone from next tournament (if it even makes it to this one), but I still think it could have potential.
-I finally decided to add Lylat, as after playing the stage (and the 2.0.0 patch removing some of the glitches with the stage), I think it's not that bad. Hopefully my players will come to the same conclusion.
-I'm giving a bit more of the spotlight to the "weird" stages and leaving some of the more "normal" ones that are similar to other stages as alternate stages, treating them the same as the similar stage. I think several of these stages are great and deserve to stick around. I can even appreciate the arguments for some of them being separate stages (both Yoshi stages, Unova). However, in favor of variety and testing (and hopefully simplicity to an extent), these are locked behind other stages for the time being.
-I still think PS1 > PS2.
-I also plan to upload VODs if anyone is interested to see how a tournament with this ruleset goes. (I uploaded for my last tournament too, but my players are boring and mostly went to Omega stages, so very few games were played on "weird" stages. Hopefully the new format will encourage more variety.)

 

[Tesh]

Oh boy, then we might as well roll over and die. The mythical TOs will never add this! The community is over this debate, despite being split!

Throwing out statements as "most of the community is bla bla bla" is intellectually dishonest and void of any value. I'm sure glad that we have you two here as our experts on community opinion; your list of sources is astounding, and you clearly aren't pulling these opinions out of your butt.

Your arrogance is such a great addition to this thread, not to mention the sheer edge from the Democracy comment. Get back to your high school civics class and out of here with that vapid opinion.

Sorry I guess I got derailed a bit by the "wishlist" talk of adding a hazard toggle. My point was that Warioware could be a good stage if it were improved via a patch. It turns BnB damage setups into kill setups and most people don't seem comfortable with that.

The community is split on this? Where? I can think of 1 notable player on the side of liberal stagelists and so many dozens that want to skim the list down to something middle of the road. And on the other extreme, top players that want slopes and moving platforms completely gone.


Most people aren't going to be informed on things before they form an opinion. Thats just how it is. At the end of the day, even if you kinda sorta technically prove warioware or great plateau tower are valid stages to compete on, people will still vote on how they feel.


Now on the subject of what may be hopeful (imho), if patch 3.0 is good, there may be some proof that the devs will listen to the community about small changes that could save stages. Instead of arguing that the stages people hate are technically okay, it might be better to show exactly what needs "fixing" on them.

 

[ATH_]

Sorry I guess I got derailed a bit by the "wishlist" talk of adding a hazard toggle. My point was that Warioware could be a good stage if it were improved via a patch. It turns BnB damage setups into kill setups and most people don't seem comfortable with that.

The community is split on this? Where? I can think of 1 notable player on the side of liberal stagelists and so many dozens that want to skim the list down to something middle of the road. And on the other extreme, top players that want slopes and moving platforms completely gone.


Most people aren't going to be informed on things before they form an opinion. Thats just how it is. At the end of the day, even if you kinda sorta technically prove warioware or great plateau tower are valid stages to compete on, people will still vote on how they feel.


Now on the subject of what may be hopeful (imho), if patch 3.0 is good, there may be some proof that the devs will listen to the community about small changes that could save stages. Instead of arguing that the stages people hate are technically okay, it might be better to show exactly what needs "fixing" on them.

This is a solid point I hadn't yet considered. Even if you could somehow prove beyond all doubt that a stage is perfectly viable, people will still run on their emotions from previous analyses.

So what options do we have? Well, either a majority of TOs band together or we hope for patches/new stages.

We can always run our own tournaments, but the mass opinion will not change even with data unless major TOs change their minds and run their stages anyway.

 

[Akiak]

The 10 stage list (BF FD PS2 SV LC YIB YS UPL KPL TNC) is not as balanced as the original Genesis 6 list (with CS).

At the end of the day what really matters is not the stage widths, or blastzones, or anything else, but rather: which types of characters does this stage benefit? Which types of characters will want to go to this stage?

FD's width is 160. That doesn't make it an average stage! FD is actually the no.1 pick for any projectile character playing against a slow or non-projectile opponent. I actually went and asked the Olimar discord this first-hand; while they felt that Olimar likes most stages in the game (yikes) generally they agreed that his best stages were (ranked): 1. FD 2. KPL 3. TNC 4. PS2 (PS2 isn't too far off from TNC) (this is matchup-dependant of course, but I specifically wanted to know about his best stages when playing against the 'opposite' archetype e.g. Incineroar)

M2K was recently in the PGStats discord and he made some points that I wasn't really considering beforehand. For example, if a stage has a large ledge-to-blastzone, that hurts characters with bad recoveries (such as heavies). You can find all of that data here, btw.

With that in mind, I tried ranking all the stages from -3 to +3 based on how much they help projectile/zoning/'campy' characters (+) as opposed to the opposite (rushdown/non-projectile/heavies) (-):

BF: 0 (M2K actually said BF is really campy, but idk)
FD: +3
PS2: +2
SV: -1 (yes, it's smaller, but the platform is a bit insignificant due to it's size and height, and also ledge-to-blastzone is high)
LC: -0.5 (mainly for the smaller ledge-to-blastzone)
YIB: -1.8
YS: -2.9
UPL: 0
KPL: +2.9
TNC: +2
(WW: -3)

Without WW the total tally is +3.7 (!), with WW it's +0.7

Feel free to argue with any of these values, obviously they're not meant to be exact, but it gives you a quick idea of why the G6 list was actually so good.

I'd really like to see G6 list with WW instead of CS, but I understand that WW might attract a lot of bans due to unpopularity, making it often a 'wasted' ban (like CS was at G6). The way you resolve this is by running pXp1. If your opponent nominates WW, you can ban it if you dislike it. But otherwise, if they weren't planning on going there, you don't have anything to worry about.

The other potential problem with WW is that it might make certain characters who kill off the sides too strong. This is however just a theory.
Anyways if that were the case, it can be resolved by running character-first for games 2-5. If there are certain characters that are very strong on WW, you'll know beforehand if your opponent is choosing them, and can ban/not-ban accordingly.

I also feel the need to mention that these two modifications to the ruleset are just generally better than the current system for a variety of reasons (basically they make the counterpick advantage much more consistent rather than exploitable or dependant on outside factors or guessing games)

This isn't about "trying to buff heavies who aren't viable anyways", it's about not actively favouring certain types of characters (such as Olimar, etc.) over everyone else.

 

[Tesh]

Running your own event with a non-standard ruleset just leads to a lot of backlash anyway. People act as if they were forced at gunpoint to play on your jank stages.

People are very concerned with homogenizing rulesets across regions to encourage travel as well. Especially with concern to Japan.

 

[Mooer]

To start off this post I'll say some things we already know: current stage lists are small but are nowhere near balanced (e.g., Genesis 6, Frostbite); heavy characters are being shafted and that is not okay; fair stages are being shunned on Twitter without proper reason and that's just plain ignorant.
We can do better.

I would be happy to have a large and liberal stage list but I also understand how difficult it can be to cultivate a balanced list of 10+ stages, not to mention how hard it can be to get TOs/players on board. For this post I will solely be focusing on what I think could develop into the ideal small conservative stage list. Admittedly I'll be doing a bit of mental bargaining. Hopefully soon I'll have the time to propose a larger stage list of my own once I've done more testing on the controversial stages (side note: should we start a google doc or something to start labbing these things out collectively?). For now, this will focus on what I think we could push into the competitive scene successfully within the near future. Change takes time, so here is my push in the right direction (hopefully).

Taking the Frostbite list as reference: BF, FD, PS2, SV, Lylat starters + Kalos, T&C, YS, YI counterpicks
I propose the following ideas/changes:

1. PS2 needs to go, too big. Replace it with PS1.
2. FD needs to be a counterpick, too polarizing. Replace with T&C.
3. Kalos needs to go. FD + T&C are enough for open stages.

Hazards stay off: until there is an easy swap button on the stage select screen this is how it will have to be for tournaments to run smoothly.

Slants should be considered part of the game. They are an aspect of stage choice. Players must learn, adapt, and overcome their struggles with slants.

The striking system remains unchanged - I'm not convinced increasing the number of strikes will actually help (open to info though). While more strikes could theoretically give lower tier characters an edge when striking, if they lose game 1 then they may actually end up at a larger disadvantage because the high tier will strike even more of the stages they could use to succeed. I think increasing bans requires a lot of thought and consideration for the stage list balance.

No group stage strikes. The stages we include shouldn't be similar enough to be grouped together in the first place. Having the same number of platforms is NOT a justification for banning stages. All aspects of a stage and its relation to the list need to be considered.

After all that I ended up with the following list as a concise balanced base for building upon:

Starters

1. BF
2. PS1
3. Lylat
4. SV
5. T&C

Counterpicks

1. FD
2. YI
3. YS

This is probably the smallest list I could ever endorse. In my opinion, the starters are more balanced this way. With PS2 and Kalos gone, heavies have a better chance at flourishing without the need to include the the so-called 'controversial' stages. I think we could add to these 8 stages with stage pairs. For example if we desperately want Kalos back, then we need to add CS too. If we want to have PS2 over PS1, then we need to leave Kalos off the list and include Unova (side note: could Unova have a better chance of being accepted than CS?).

I think this list is MUCH better at not favoring one type of character over another. That's all for now. As said earlier, hopefully I'll find the time soon to flesh out my points here with more data as well as pull together data for a much larger list. I'd love to hear constructive criticisms and I'd be happy to clarify choices if necessary. Just trying to help the discussion!

 

[ATH_]

To start off this post I'll say some things we already know: current stage lists are small but are nowhere near balanced (e.g., Genesis 6, Frostbite); heavy characters are being shafted and that is not okay; fair stages are being shunned on Twitter without proper reason and that's just plain ignorant. We can do better.

I would be happy to have a large and liberal stage list but I also understand how difficult it can be to cultivate a balanced list of 10+ stages, not to mention how hard it can be to get TOs/players on board. For this post I will solely be focusing on what I think could develop into the ideal small conservative stage list. Admittedly I'll be doing a bit of mental bargaining. Hopefully soon I'll have the time to propose a larger stage list of my own once I've done more testing on the controversial stages (side note: should we start a google doc or something to start labbing these things out collectively?). For now, this will focus on what I think we could push into the competitive scene successfully within the near future. Change takes time, so here is my push in the right direction (hopefully).

Taking the Frostbite list as reference: BF, FD, PS2, SV, Lylat starters + Kalos, T&C, YS, YI counterpicks
I propose the following ideas/changes:

1. PS2 needs to go, too big. Replace it with PS1.
2. FD needs to be a counterpick, too polarizing. Replace with T&C.
3. Kalos needs to go. FD + T&C are enough for open stages.

Hazards stay off: until there is an easy swap button on the stage select screen this is how it will have to be for tournaments to run smoothly.

Slants should be considered part of the game. They are an aspect of stage choice. Players must learn, adapt, and overcome their struggles with slants.

The striking system remains unchanged - I'm not convinced increasing the number of strikes will actually help (open to info though). While more strikes could theoretically give lower tier characters an edge when striking, if they lose game 1 then they may actually end up at a larger disadvantage because the high tier will strike even more of the stages they could use to succeed. I think increasing bans requires a lot of thought and consideration for the stage list balance.

No group stage strikes. The stages we include shouldn't be similar enough to be grouped together in the first place. Having the same number of platforms is NOT a justification for banning stages. All aspects of a stage and its relation to the list need to be considered.

After all that I ended up with the following list as a concise balanced base for building upon:

Starters

1. BF
2. PS1
3. Lylat
4. SV
5. T&C

Counterpicks

1. FD
2. YI
3. YS

This is probably the smallest list I could ever endorse. In my opinion, the starters are more balanced this way. With PS2 and Kalos gone, heavies have a better chance at flourishing without the need to include the the so-called 'controversial' stages. I think we could add to these 8 stages with stage pairs. For example if we desperately want Kalos back, then we need to add CS too. If we want to have PS2 over PS1, then we need to leave Kalos off the list and include Unova (side note: could Unova have a better chance of being accepted than CS?).

I think this list is MUCH better at not favoring one type of character over another. That's all for now. As said earlier, hopefully I'll find the time soon to flesh out my points here with more data as well as pull together data for a much larger list. I'd love to hear constructive criticisms and I'd be happy to clarify choices if necessary. Just trying to help the discussion!

Great post! I'd personally use Unova and allow Kalos as an echo to FD, but this is great both ways. I agree with just about everything here. If you want a conservative list, this is what you shoot for.

 

[Mooer]

Great post! I'd personally use Unova and allow Kalos as an echo to FD, but this is great both ways. I agree with just about everything here. If you want a conservative list, this is what you shoot for.

I hadn't actually considered swapping FD for Kalos, I actually really like that idea and could help with stage balance even further. Of course, it will be difficult to convince the masses to not include FD on a stage list.. so as you say, having it as an 'echo' could work if implementing it in a tournament setting is feasible. Thanks!

 

[Shieldlesscap]

I think I agree with the sentiment that we should give more stages a bit of a chance. As such, my ruleset that I plan on using for a tournament tomorrow has a number of stages that I think could have some viability, but that are generally excluded from most lists now. I am also considering using P4P1, having seen the potential benefits of the format. All this may change before tomorrow following testing with some of my players.

Starter Stages
Battlefield
Smashville
Pokémon Stadium
Final Destination
Lylat Cruise

Counterpick Stages
Castle Siege
WarioWare
Kalos Pokémon League
Town & City
Mushroom Kingdom U
Tomodachi Life
Wuhu Island

Alternate Stages
(Battlefield) Any Battlefield form stage
(Battlefield) Dream Land
(Battlefield) Yoshi’s Story
(Battlefield) Midgar
(Smashville) Yoshi’s Island
(Pokémon Stadium) Pokémon Stadium 2
(Pokémon Stadium) Unova Pokémon League
(Final Destination) Any Omega form stage
(Final Destination) Wily Castle
(Final Destination) PictoChat 2

Notes:
-Yes, I know Tomodachi Life is probably crazy and it might likely be gone from next tournament (if it even makes it to this one), but I still think it could have potential.
-I finally decided to add Lylat, as after playing the stage (and the 2.0.0 patch removing some of the glitches with the stage), I think it's not that bad. Hopefully my players will come to the same conclusion.
-I'm giving a bit more of the spotlight to the "weird" stages and leaving some of the more "normal" ones that are similar to other stages as alternate stages, treating them the same as the similar stage. I think several of these stages are great and deserve to stick around. I can even appreciate the arguments for some of them being separate stages (both Yoshi stages, Unova). However, in favor of variety and testing (and hopefully simplicity to an extent), these are locked behind other stages for the time being.
-I still think PS1 > PS2.
-I also plan to upload VODs if anyone is interested to see how a tournament with this ruleset goes. (I uploaded for my last tournament too, but my players are boring and mostly went to Omega stages, so very few games were played on "weird" stages. Hopefully the new format will encourage more variety.)

I like this but a couple things I'd personally do:
- Yoshi's Story and Island should be separate because of the slopes, and in Yoshi's Island's case there's at least one confirmed tech that only works because of the slopes (it works off ledges in story as well but on YI it work's on the whole stage), as well as the walls which could make some impact.
- Unova League should probably be a separate counterpick because of the stage being noticeably smaller and the platforms being more spaced out.
- I'm going to respect the inclusion of Tomodachi Life and Mushroom Kingdom U (The latter of which could work in doubles but not singles imo), but if you're going to do that, why not also include Skyloft and possibly Kongo Jungle and Frigate Orpheon?

 

[ATH_]

I like this but a couple things I'd personally do:
- Yoshi's Story and Island should be separate because of the slopes, and in Yoshi's Island's case there's at least one confirmed tech that only works because of the slopes (it works off ledges in story as well but on YI it work's on the whole stage), as well as the walls which could make some impact.
- Unova League should probably be a separate counterpick because of the stage being noticeably smaller and the platforms being more spaced out.
- I'm going to respect the inclusion of Tomodachi Life and Mushroom Kingdom U (The latter of which could work in doubles but not singles imo), but if you're going to do that, why not also include Skyloft and possibly Kongo Jungle and Frigate Orpheon?

I think the point is to test one stage at a time. Overflowing a list with stages that probably will be banned for the sake of data will have players shying away.

I'd say testing one at a time is great idea, if that is the intention.

 

[Krysco]

I find it odd how any stage with slants is considered 'jank' but VoiD has some videos where he explains/shows the issues with them in his opinion:
https://youtu.be/6KcvOAnaiko?t=76 tl;dw he doesn't like how certain characters can crouch on slants, making them harder to hit going as far to outright admit that he'd crouch with Pichu on the slants of Lylat and never move until the stage is banned.
https://youtu.be/GI56hk4nBIk?t=16 an actual match on Lylat where his Roy doesn't grab the ledge and instead goes under it and he then says 'this stage is legal at Genesis? Are you kidding?'
https://youtu.be/rDVQmESBXbg?t=214 Warioware clip where his Roy kills a Zelda with what I assume is a combo (she dies to a tipper fair at 50% offstage).

I swore there was a clip I'd seen before of VoiD's Pichu crouching on the edge of YIB and whoever he was playing, they either had a mic on or they were in the same room as him and they couldn't hit him with a few attacks and they both commented on it but I couldn't find it even after watching all of VoiD's vids.

I find it strange how Melee has stages with slants (Yoshi's Story and transformations in PS1), Brawl had stages with slants (YIB and LC) and Sm4sh also had LC and yet now slants are a problem. I suppose there could be the argument of the other games not having any better choices but I don't recall ever hearing people complain specifically about slants in the other games. Is there something specific to Ultimate that makes slants a problem or perhaps have they always been one and they were just minor enough to not be brought up?

As for WW, I feel it can be compared to Yoshi's Story in Melee which also has tiny borders compared to the other stages but again, I could see the argument be made that Melee really doesn't have other choices available to it. Plus stocks in Melee can be taken very quickly regardless of stage since edgeguarding and gimps are so potent in that game. I suppose that's the big issue with WW in Ultimate? On any other stage you hardly have to fear being combo'd literally to death but on WW it becomes a threat and that's too drastic of a change for a stage to be legal?

 

[Sean²]

Kongo Jungle

I've always liked this stage, but it actually screws over many recoveries in this game. You have to be directly at the edge to snap, otherwise you can just fall right through and die. Magnet hands aren't as prevalent in this game, so this is a decent portion of the cast. The ledge is also somewhat veiled by the front part of the stage and is extremely misleading. If you're going to push for a sharkable stage, I'd say Skyloft would probably be the only realistic one to aim for. You can clearly see the ledges on that stage.

Tomodachi Life

Wouldn't this stage promote some hardcore circle camping?

I find it odd how any stage with slants is considered 'jank' but VoiD has some videos where he explains/shows the issues with them in his opinion:
https://youtu.be/6KcvOAnaiko?t=76 tl;dw he doesn't like how certain characters can crouch on slants, making them harder to hit going as far to outright admit that he'd crouch with Pichu on the slants of Lylat and never move until the stage is banned.
https://youtu.be/GI56hk4nBIk?t=16 an actual match on Lylat where his Roy doesn't grab the ledge and instead goes under it and he then says 'this stage is legal at Genesis? Are you kidding?'
https://youtu.be/rDVQmESBXbg?t=214 Warioware clip where his Roy kills a Zelda with what I assume is a combo (she dies to a tipper fair at 50% offstage).

I swore there was a clip I'd seen before of VoiD's Pichu crouching on the edge of YIB and whoever he was playing, they either had a mic on or they were in the same room as him and they couldn't hit him with a few attacks and they both commented on it but I couldn't find it even after watching all of VoiD's vids.

I find it strange how Melee has stages with slants (Yoshi's Story and transformations in PS1), Brawl had stages with slants (YIB and LC) and Sm4sh also had LC and yet now slants are a problem. I suppose there could be the argument of the other games not having any better choices but I don't recall ever hearing people complain specifically about slants in the other games. Is there something specific to Ultimate that makes slants a problem or perhaps have they always been one and they were just minor enough to not be brought up?

As for WW, I feel it can be compared to Yoshi's Story in Melee which also has tiny borders compared to the other stages but again, I could see the argument be made that Melee really doesn't have other choices available to it. Plus stocks in Melee can be taken very quickly regardless of stage since edgeguarding and gimps are so potent in that game. I suppose that's the big issue with WW in Ultimate? On any other stage you hardly have to fear being combo'd literally to death but on WW it becomes a threat and that's too drastic of a change for a stage to be legal?

Slopes have been a contention point since at least Brawl, albeit a very small one. It was usually just used as a supporting argument to back up a real concern - like Yoshi's having the side platforms appear randomly and saving people, or Lylat tilting/bad ledges. Usually it would just delegate the stages as a counterpick, due to there already being a small amount of viable stages back then. I don't recall anyone requesting a ban only because of slopes.

I still think people are overreacting to them in Ultimate. People, for the most part, don't like them much, and some claim they'll go to great lengths to see them banned. I think it's mostly just due to being accustomed to playing on flat stages for so many years, since both Melee and Smash 4 whittled down their stagelists to mainly flat, symmetrical stages. M2K is a bit of a relic from another time (lol) - he played in the Melee meta when they still had stuff like Rainbow Cruise and Mute City as legal counterpicks. I guess that's why I kind of agree with him. They had way more hazards to deal with at almost every tournament, so from that point of view, it would seem like most newer players being unable to handle something fairly miniscule within the two months kind of off-putting.

Void's statements and reactions aren't from an objective standpoint, either. I doubt you'd see him do that in tournament. Also it looked to me like Roy was just a tiny bit too low to grab ledge anyway - I feel like he would have done the same on BF or FD.

On another note I find it ironic that in the same video he got a 0-death loop string the moment the platforms left T&C. I understand wanting to be able to perform the things you practiced correctly as close to 100% of the time as possible, but it doesn't necessarily mean something else should be banned because of it.