Stage Analysis & Discussion Thread

[ParanoidDrone]

I'd add Rosalina to the list for Halberd then. Uair juggles are silly.

 

[Piford]

I'd add Rosalina to the list for Halberd then. Uair juggles are silly.

Rosalina on Halberd is an odd case. She does have those silly juggle up-air juggles, but she's also floaty and extremely light so she's very prone to vertical KOs. She's more of a case by case basis that varies a lot. Halberd could actually be a rather neutral stage for Rosalina in many matchups where characters have strong vertical KO moves. If my analysis is wrong, then by all means I'll add her as you should know more as a Rosalina main than I do.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Rosalina on Halberd is an odd case. She does have those silly juggle up-air juggles, but she's also floaty and extremely light so she's very prone to vertical KOs. She's more of a case by case basis that varies a lot. Halberd could actually be a rather neutral stage for Rosalina in many matchups where characters have strong vertical KO moves. If my analysis is wrong, then by all means I'll add her as you should know more as a Rosalina main than I do.

I'm mostly basing my opinion on the Dabuz vs Will sets where he got several kills vs. DK at like 50%.

 

[warriorman222]

Against. NO WAY am I banning Final Destination if I'm playing as Little Mac.

Yeah, banning FD when you're using Mac is the equivalent of breaking your controller, shouting obscenities at the TOs, and storming out right after you lose that set.

 

[Piford]

I'm mostly basing my opinion on the Dabuz vs Will sets where he got several kills vs. DK at like 50%.

Yeah but DK is a rather large character with sub par air mobility and a decently high fall speed if I recall correctly, pretty prone to getting up air comboed. In some matchups it's probably a necessity to ban it, but in others it might not be worth it.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

Almost always strike - when playing against.

Smashville - Ness, Sonic, Sheik, Diddy, Pikachu

Halberd - R.O.B., Diddy, Zero Suit Samus

Battlefield - Donkey Kong, Shulk, Zero Suit Samus, Luigi

Final Destination - Samus, Link, Duck Hunt, Diddy Kong, Sonic, Little Mac

Lylat Cruise - Zero Suit Samus, Donkey Kong

Delfino Plaza - Diddy Kong, R.O.B., Jigglypuff

Duck Hunt - Duck Hunt, Sonic, Villager

Town and City - Sheik, Ness

Castle Siege - Can't really think of characters that really benefit that much

Anything to add, or anything I messed up on?

Samus doesn't really like FD at all.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

You should always strike Castle Siege against Sonic. That's a big one, probably bigger than most of what's on your list. I personally can't see why I wouldn't let Delfino happen versus Diddy or Battlefield against any of those characters except DK as a Rosalina main.

In general though, I think it's usually best to play to your strengths instead of enemy weaknesses with strikes; you know your own character better than you know theirs, and if you have a strong gameplan, the stage will work with you more than with your opponent. I always just envision how the match-up will go and what my character needs to do to win, and I think about which stages will make that easy versus which will make that hard. If I'm in doubt, I just strike FD, SV, and T&C in that order and then try to figure some more stuff out if I have strikes left (well, my locals have Windy Hill Zone legal so I am very sure not to let that happen as well...). Actually I just strike FD first no matter what, and the only characters I would specifically fear on stages other than FD are DK on Battlefield or Sonic on Castle Siege. Anything else they want to do using stages to their advantage I trust Rosalina can do better, and I trust my stage knowledge is deeper than that of most other players so I'm not going to be surprised by any gimmicks they have cooked up.

 

[Pazx]

Almost always strike - when playing against.

Smashville - Ness, Sonic, Sheik, Diddy, Pikachu

Halberd - R.O.B., Diddy, Zero Suit Samus

Battlefield - Donkey Kong, Shulk, Zero Suit Samus, Luigi

Final Destination - Samus, Link, Duck Hunt, Diddy Kong, Sonic, Little Mac

Lylat Cruise - Zero Suit Samus, Donkey Kong

Delfino Plaza - Diddy Kong, R.O.B., Jigglypuff

Duck Hunt - Duck Hunt, Sonic, Villager

Town and City - Sheik, Ness

Castle Siege - Can't really think of characters that really benefit that much

Anything to add, or anything I messed up on?

Town and Diddy. Also, Ness is bonkers on CS, nobody expects the statues to help his projectile game. Mii Brawler is a definite for Smashville.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Almost always strike - when playing against.

Smashville - Ness, Sonic, Sheik, Diddy, Pikachu

Halberd - R.O.B., Diddy, Zero Suit Samus

Battlefield - Donkey Kong, Shulk, Zero Suit Samus, Luigi

Final Destination - Samus, Link, Duck Hunt, Diddy Kong, Sonic, Little Mac

Lylat Cruise - Zero Suit Samus, Donkey Kong

Delfino Plaza - Diddy Kong, R.O.B., Jigglypuff

Duck Hunt - Duck Hunt, Sonic, Villager

Town and City - Sheik, Ness

Castle Siege - Can't really think of characters that really benefit that much

Anything to add, or anything I messed up on?

Lylat is not that great for ZSS. It's decent, but not great. Definitely strike Delfino against her, though, and T&C is pretty great as well. Pikachu loves Lylat.

 

[Firefoxx]

Robin mains are rare these days, but Lylat is their best stage in this pool. Elwind can sweetspot the ledge w/ 100% accuracy if you aim under the wing, to the outside of the engines, and hold towards the ledge. Plus the platform layout helps prevent strong aerial approaches while they use Arcfire, Levin Sword, and Thunder (especially Speed Thunder) to control space. Plus LS uair platform landing traps are a thing that Robin loves.

Falcon likes platforms. Real hard hitting analysis I know, but Falcon is Falcon.

Since their strength is 'can do everything pretty well' Pit/too can pick stage based off what their opponent doesn't like. Pit gets more out of Halbred and Delfino then too does. If they can control the stage really well on CS2 it sets up really strong edgeguards on the CS3 transition, but I'm not sure that's enough to say they love the stage overall. They can sweetspot Lylat, so that's not the counterpick death sentence people seem to think it is. Its not fun, but shouldn't be the reason they lose either.

 

[Piford]

You should always strike Castle Siege against Sonic. That's a big one, probably bigger than most of what's on your list. I personally can't see why I wouldn't let Delfino happen versus Diddy or Battlefield against any of those characters except DK as a Rosalina main.

In general though, I think it's usually best to play to your strengths instead of enemy weaknesses with strikes; you know your own character better than you know theirs, and if you have a strong gameplan, the stage will work with you more than with your opponent. I always just envision how the match-up will go and what my character needs to do to win, and I think about which stages will make that easy versus which will make that hard. If I'm in doubt, I just strike FD, SV, and T&C in that order and then try to figure some more stuff out if I have strikes left (well, my locals have Windy Hill Zone legal so I am very sure not to let that happen as well...). Actually I just strike FD first no matter what, and the only characters I would specifically fear on stages other than FD are DK on Battlefield or Sonic on Castle Siege. Anything else they want to do using stages to their advantage I trust Rosalina can do better, and I trust my stage knowledge is deeper than that of most other players so I'm not going to be surprised by any gimmicks they have cooked up.

Thanks for the input, the main reason I'd say Delfino against Diddy is because of the shrinking blastzones. Since Diddy can so easily get a kill, it really helps him out.

I think I'll just not make that list based off what you said plus me clearly not knowing enough about the subject.

Town and Diddy. Also, Ness is bonkers on CS, nobody expects the statues to help his projectile game. Mii Brawler is a definite for Smashville.

I did have Diddy on Town and City, but that would be like 5 stages for Diddy Kong.

 

[Firefoxx]

I mean, you could make a strong argument that the only two stages in this pool you wouldn't consider banning against Diddy are Lylat and Castle Siege. Maybe Duck Hunt. He's kind of a nightmare to ban against.

Edit: Or, put a different way, in 9 stage FLSS Diddy has to 'settle' for FD, BF, T&C or DH. His 5th best stage is better than anyone else's 5th best stage.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

On Smashlabs, we're having a discussion about Kongo Jungle 64, and the question came up "is it legal in the US". I know it's not on the EVO or APEX stagelists, but do any regions have it legal despite that?

 

[ぱみゅ]

I will use it for a couple events I'll have, but I was dubious about it.
It is potentially exploitable, but a) I don't thin anyone in my region has intention to actually abuse it, and b) I had a list of 12 stages that are good and I couldn't think of a better thirteenth option as it is the least bad or disliked stage of the borderline bunch.

 

[Jaxas]

On Smashlabs, we're having a discussion about Kongo Jungle 64, and the question came up "is it legal in the US". I know it's not on the EVO or APEX stagelists, but do any regions have it legal despite that?

It's legal here in Salem (and a decent portion of Oregon, from what I've seen).

 

[J_the_Man]

I don't get why Kongo Jungle is debatable when most rulesets have an anti-stalling clauses in them, of which barrel stalling would easily fall under that definition. Other than the barrel cannon, I don't know what else is exploitable, since the reduced size makes it hard to camp above your opponent.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Ottawa (and hopefully the rest of Ontario) still has Kongo Jungle legal.

I agree that it shouldn't be banned anywhere. Claiming that legal stages should have normalized blastzones is a really odd argument, and I don't think it holds any water. The only potential problem with Kongo is camping with the barrel, but no one has ever shown that it is actually possible to perform.

Doing some testing on it, it's pretty clear that the barrel doesn't always give you a survivable angle before it shoots you out automatically if you're intent on stalling under the stage. If you shoot yourself back on stage, then you are NOT stalling. If the opponent can make a read on you when you are obviously telegraphing that you want to make your way back under the stage, then they have options.

If someone could make a video of themselves stalling with the barrel for 1 minute and 30 seconds in training mode without shooting themselves through the stage, I will eat my words completely and it would be clear that it's a problem. Do it for 30 seconds and I'll be very impressed. But I really think it's not possible to exploit this like people are claiming.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Anti-stalling rules, bar Ledge Grab limits, are not easy to enforce or to prove.
In major events it is nearly impossible to moderate every setup to make sure these rules don't get broken.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Anti-stalling rules, bar Ledge Grab limits, are not easy to enforce or to prove.
In major events it is nearly impossible to moderate every setup to make sure these rules don't get broken.

Not to mention Edge Grab limit cannot be enforced even with unlimited resources. If either player presses start, all post-game stats are skipped. So if someone accidentally does so "accidentally" does so, then the information is lost completely.

 

[Jaxas]

Ottawa (and hopefully the rest of Ontario) still has Kongo Jungle legal.

I agree that it shouldn't be banned anywhere. Claiming that legal stages should have normalized blastzones is a really odd argument, and I don't think it holds any water. The only potential problem with Kongo is camping with the barrel, but no one has ever shown that it is actually possible to perform.

Doing some testing on it, it's pretty clear that the barrel doesn't always give you a survivable angle before it shoots you out automatically if you're intent on stalling under the stage. If you shoot yourself back on stage, then you are NOT stalling. If the opponent can make a read on you when you are obviously telegraphing that you want to make your way back under the stage, then they have options.

If someone could make a video of themselves stalling with the barrel for 1 minute and 30 seconds in training mode without shooting themselves through the stage, I will eat my words completely and it would be clear that it's a problem. Do it for 30 seconds and I'll be very impressed. But I really think it's not possible to exploit this like people are claiming.

Most characters don't provide an issue, but Villager or Jigglypuff are the potentially-abusive candidates.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Most characters don't provide an issue, but Villager or Jigglypuff are the potentially-abusive candidates.

Without an upB, Jigglypuff actually has a very hard time abusing this, because she can't use any of the downwards angles and survive. Pit and Rosalina with strong, directional upB's are actually much better candidates than Jigglypuff.

Even with Villager, I'm not sure if the correct angles would come up every time either. I have a detailed write up about how to properly stall, but it's fairly wordy and not sure if people would want to read it all. I'll post it on request though.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Not to mention Edge Grab limit cannot be enforced even with unlimited resources. If either player presses start, all post-game stats are skipped. So if someone accidentally does so "accidentally" does so, then the information is lost completely.

I kinda forgot that if a (GC) Controller is unplugged, even if another one is plugged in the same slot, it will not register the same and thus, it won't show results anymore.

 

[Piford]

I agree that it shouldn't be banned anywhere. Claiming that legal stages should have normalized blastzones is a really odd argument, and I don't think it holds any water. The only potential problem with Kongo is camping with the barrel, but no one has ever shown that it is actually possible to perform.

Standardized Blastzones would be nice because it would then make all counter picking rely on understanding the aspects of the stage, rather than who has the best vertical kill move or horizontal recovery. It's not a reason to ban a stage, but it would be nice.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Standardized Blastzones would be nice because it would then make all counter picking rely on understanding the aspects of the stage, rather than who has the best vertical kill move or horizontal recovery. It's not a reason to ban a stage, but it would be nice.

yeah for sure. But as long as there is an difference at all, people will still pick for that reason, even if it doesn't make sense. Town and City will be picked for its 3% lower blastzones, even if the platform layout doesn't make sense for that character. Apparently not even all Omega stages have exactly the same sized upper blastzones (though they're not detectable in the context of a real match), so there's no escaping this.

Hopefully people will start counterpicking stages for more substantial reasons sooner rather than later.

 

[Piford]

yeah for sure. But as long as there is an difference at all, people will still pick for that reason, even if it doesn't make sense. Town and City will be picked for its 3% lower blastzones, even if the platform layout doesn't make sense for that character. Apparently not even all Omega stages have exactly the same sized upper blastzones (though they're not detectable in the context of a real match), so there's no escaping this.

Hopefully people will start counterpicking stages for more substantial reasons sooner rather than later.

I'm pretty sure at high level play, when people actually counterpick stages (as in they know what they are doing), they probably are looking into platform layouts more than blastzones, with the possible exception of Halberd with the low ceiling, and Delfino with the shrinking blastzones.

 

[Champ Gold]

Hey, quick question is Arena Ferox Legal or a Counterpick?

 

[webbedspace]

It has caves of life in some transformations, so it's usually (but not universally) banned.

 

[Jaxas]

It has caves of life in some transformations, so it's usually (but not universally) banned.

What? No, it's usually a counterpick because the caves of life (while definitely there) are temporary

 

[thehard]

You might as well just FLoSS for the 3DS version.

On another note, what keeps Jungle Hijinx out of tournaments?

 

[Omegaphoenix]

Two planes of combat create, pardon my french, "janky" situations. I find play to be interesting there, but the two planes of battle create good camping setups, and while barrel explosions and stage collapses help prevent camping, it's still pretty doable, especially in the back

 

[Pazx]

IIRC knockback works differently in the background (I think moves have more knockback but the blast zones are so far away that all it does is ruin combos). Honestly not the worst stage but I don't see anyone pushing for it.

 

[Piford]

I think the main problem with jungle hijinx are the two pillars on the left in the back. They're pretty powerful camping spots.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Jungle Hijinx's exploding barrel mechanic does an awfully poor job of actually stopping you from just running away and trying to stay on the "wrong" plane. If you manage to get out of sync with the other player, the mechanic will make it just as hard to chase you as it makes it hard for you to run away. The geography itself is extremely camp friendly anyway so if you need to wait out your barrel timer it's not exactly hard... I actually can't see any reason, from a playing to win perspective, a winning player would even consider attacking his opponent on this stage.

When I saw all of the new stages in this game, after Palutena's Temple, I actually considered this the most obviously broken stage. Yeah, it took me (slightly) more time to conclude that Great Cave Offensive's lava mechanics in no way really redeem the core problems than it took me to conclude that Jungle Hijinx on a fundamental level is a broken stage. If this stage is anything but completely awful, it is outside of my imagination.

 

[19_]

People may of not heard but during the last Xanadu Coney was talking about how he was sad that wuhu island glitch video caused Wuhu to be banned. TKbreezy also mentioned that he did not like seeing Kongo banned ether.

That being said Tk also said he does not like the idea of multiple travel stages but little does he know that nerfs villager's ledge stall tactic.

This just based off memory though I know the vod is up on vgbc's twitch but I'm not looking through 2+ hours of footage to find it.

Does anyone know were that stage striking app is because that thing sound amazing.

 

[thehard]

People may of not heard but during the last Xanadu Coney was talking about how he was sad that wuhu island glitch video caused Wuhu to be banned. TKbreezy also mentioned that he did not like seeing Kongo banned ether.

That being said Tk also said he does not like the idea of multiple travel stages but little does he know that nerfs villager's ledge stall tactic.

This just based off memory though I know the vod is up on vgbc's twitch but I'm not looking through 2+ hours of footage to find it.

Does anyone know were that stage striking app is because that thing sound amazing.

http://telaviv.github.io/stage-select/

 

[Piford]

People may of not heard but during the last Xanadu Coney was talking about how he was sad that wuhu island glitch video caused Wuhu to be banned. TKbreezy also mentioned that he did not like seeing Kongo banned ether.

That being said Tk also said he does not like the idea of multiple travel stages but little does he know that nerfs villager's ledge stall tactic.

This just based off memory though I know the vod is up on vgbc's twitch but I'm not looking through 2+ hours of footage to find it.

Does anyone know were that stage striking app is because that thing sound amazing.

I still don't get the idea that multiple traveling stages is bad, like I am I allowed to not like the idea of multiple stationary stages being legal?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I still don't get the idea that multiple traveling stages is bad, like I am I allowed to not like the idea of multiple stationary stages being legal?

No no see that would violate the idea that BF/FD/SV is the competitive core of the game and that would just be silly now wouldn't it. There is no logic in this community. At all. Ban whatever the **** you want, who cares what metric you follow.

 

[ぱみゅ]

http://telaviv.github.io/stage-select/

We'd need a mobile and/ or flexible version, that thing is amazing.

 

[Teshie U]

Not to mention Edge Grab limit cannot be enforced even with unlimited resources. If either player presses start, all post-game stats are skipped. So if someone accidentally does so "accidentally" does so, then the information is lost completely.

Actually after someone presses start you have maybe a second or less where you can press B to cancel it and bring your own stats back up. If someone was breaking a rule related to the stats, you would be ready to prevent this.

However, if someone no contests, that stats will not be shown at all.

We don't need a LGL for this game anyway. The only time ledge camping becomes a problem is when a character can move under the stage faster than its opponent can move above the stage to punish (entirely possible in a couple of matchups vs sonic or diddy kong).

Kongo Jungle definitely emphasizes the issues this game has with safe airdodges and ledge options though. That plus the large blastzones, removal of stage spikes and how the high platforms and barrel make edgeguarding less effective all help make matches there last much much longer imo.

 

[webbedspace]

Halberd isn't even a real traveling stage. It has one (1) touring platform structure and one (1) landing destination. (The opening walk-off is not even relevant.) Saying it's closer to Skyloft/Wuhu than Battlefield/Smashville in any aspect other than "you can sometimes shark through the main platform" is a bit misleading.