What's the point of FLSS if it's going to turn out mostly the same way regardless? Let's take our current stage list. Who is seriously going to let you start on one of the counterpick stages we currently have? Stages like Delfino, Castle Siege, and Halberd are extremely polarizing. There are very few matchups, if any, where these stages are actually neutral due to features like a campable sections, low ceilings, and temporary walkoffs. I'm not convinced that adding FLSS would make a significant difference in terms of the actual overall stage variety we would get. Almost all matches will start on Smashville or Battlefield or Dreamland, w/e, regardless. These hypotheticals are meaningless because they don't represent a variety of actual scenarios.
The problem with that argument is that while FLSS will still go to Smashville a lot, it opens more options. Even if 90% of matches still go to Smashville round 1, there will be times when the most neutral stage is something like Skyloft, and then they should be able to go there, instead of going to Smashville because. FLSS doesn't hurt the players who only want Smashville, all it does is open more options to those who may not be very good on the "neutral' stages.
Already addressed the first part, but I just want to say... It's actually very valid to defend tradition. It's the status quo, and the burden of proof is on the side trying to change the status quo. Now, you've actually provided some reasons, which I'll address, but do not try to shift the burden of proof here.
I'm not trying to shift proof. I'm just refuting the argument that tradition should be defended because its tradition. Tradition needs to stand on its own merits, not simply because it existed for a while.
Favoring specific stages means nothing. It doesn't matter whatsoever if we artificially promote certain stages via the starter/cp distinction, although I really don't think that's the case. What tends to happen is that players will ban the polarizing counterpicks, so we see them a bit less. This doesn't have to mean that we're artificially promoting them -- it could just mean that they're better stages for competition and more widely preferred. And yes, there are varying levels of stages that are actually appropriate for competition. Think about it this way: we would never ban Smashville, FD, Battlefield/Miiverse, or Dreamland 64. We would most likely never ban Town & City or Lylat Cruise (extremely conservative regions might ban these stages). We could potentially ban Duck Hunt, although most likely not because it's generally regarded as fine (conservative regions may ban this stage). There is actually a significant following for and decent chance that we might ban Halberd, Delfino Plaza, and/or Castle Siege (conservative regions will likely ban these stages). That speaks to the relative competitiveness of the legal stages. Just because a stage is legal does not mean that it is necessarily as good as the other stages. Some stages are barely legal, while others are clearly legal and competitive stages. This is why I don't subscribe to the 'all stages are created equal' belief.
The big problem with Starter CP is that it perpetuates the idea that game 1 is a sacred cow, that cannot be polluted with lesser stages. That way, it encourages players to only learn starter stages, as they are counterpickable as well. Why learn a CP stage when you'll never play on it? They never learn those CP stages, so when one player decides to CP to an actual CP stage, the other players immediately call 'jank' on crap they should know about the stage.
This idea that top tiers benefit from the starter stages has to do with the fact that they are good characters. Sheik is good on literally every single currently legal stage. Battlefield(/Miiverse) gives her platforms to work with and little room for opponents to evade her. FD makes it more difficult to get around her camping and makes it more difficult for foes to evade her combos/setups. Smashville provides extensions on combos and a place to sort of camp against certain characters with the moving platform. Town & City gives her even more effective platform camping potential in addition to sharking and earlier up air kills due to the low ceiling. Dreamland 64 gives her a Battlefield-like layout with very slightly less accessible platforms for certain characters, more space to work with, and slightly earlier up air kills than Battlefield due to the lower ceiling. Lylat Cruise gives her a lot of platforms to work with and a bit more ease gimping due to how the stage messes with recoveries, even after it was patched. Duck Hunt gives her an FD-like layout in addition to the tree, which can be a really potent camping tool in certain matchups. Halberd gives her super early up air kills. Castle Siege gives her a pretty nice advantage overall...especially the second transformation, which is an absolutely broken transformation for Sheik. Delfino gives her early confirms on transformations, temporary walkoffs to get early kills with her incredible horizontal combos, and campable transformations (she has one of the most solid camping games). Sheik's traits allow her to abuse almost any type of stage because she has so many different options and variety of setups to work with. I'm not going to go through every top tier, but the idea is that top tiers are just good characters and that's why we see them as having this perceived advantage via specific stages when they have the versatility/options to work well in pretty much any stage layout. If you really want to start on Halberd vs Sheik...by all means, I support your endeavor and I'll dthrow uair for a kill at 80%. I fail to see how having a starter/cp distinction actually boosts top tiers, who are just good characters.
The top tiers do tend to perform better on a multitude of stages. That is true, I'm willing to give you that. Sheik is incredible. But, just because they benefit on many stages doesn't mean that the stages don't effect them. Smashville has ultimate backthrow cheese, fair strings, and early kills on moves with high base knockback. I wouldn't want to take a Ness or Sheik there. But because of the small striking list, they get a guaranteed stage they will love. I would rather take them somewhere else, but I live in a 3 stage starter list area, and trust me, taking Sheik to Smashville is getting old, but I have to, and she then gets her options. Again, this isn't a thought experiment. The ice grabbers back in brawl got good because of a small stage listing, which banned all the stages that hurt them. Without Meta Knight, they would have been a mid tier at best.
Also, FLSS does not take 10 seconds. It takes the time to set up random stage select and go through each and every stage (selecting each of your strikes). That's not 10 seconds, more like 30 seconds minimum or more unless you both already know where you want to go, in which case FLSS is wasting time.[/quote]
Yes, that is a way to do it, but personally, if you and your opponent know how to stage strike, its not difficult. If every system has a list of stages, not an unreasonable demand honestly, its super fast. Even with using RSS, its still not a time drain like you claim. There are far worse problems that should be looked at for fixing time problems. More setups, actually DQing late players, among other things. This isn't a good argument. At all.
Edit:
*Mic drop*
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
