In both Scenario 1 and Scenario 2, you pull out ahead (more so in Scenario 1) because of the restraints I have to strike simply because I have an additional stage to strike in Lylat Cruise.
Okay, first of all, he pulls out ahead, but
still behind, because a far more reasonable list would involve a good 4-8 more stages. You still get Battlefield. Yeah, you have an additional stage to strike.
So what? Your character has a relative disadvantage on a lot of stages and you're not getting a free counterpick round one. Deal with it.
Second of all, you have the order wrong. It's not 1-1-1-1, it's 1-2-1. So if you strike Lylat first, then I have to strike two; if you strike first and don't strike Lylat, I have to guess that you would strike it with your last strike and that you don't actually like it. This is part of why striking with 5, 9, or 13 is so much better than 3, 7, or 11, respectively.
Smashville in either of these cases was striked by you to further your potential stage advantage, even though out of the options available, Smashville was likely the fairest of the stages for either of us to play on.
And yet, when the starter list is expanded, suddenly, SV gets struck. In fact, it gets struck pretty darn fast. Clearly, it's not the most neutral stage for this matchup - if it were, your opponent wouldn't have struck it, and you would have ended up there. How is this not clear? If you're striking from a starter list and a stage gets struck by your opponent, it's because he thought you had an advantage there! It is not the most neutral stage, in other words. Now maybe it is the most neutral stage. Maybe if we keep adding stages, we add other things Diddy has to strike so that SV is back on the table and
is more neutral. Maybe. But we can't just assume that. That's why FLSS is so great - we can actually
check. FWIW, I
really doubt that adding more stages makes Diddy strike SV much later.
As Overswarm pointed out in his video, that's the point of stage striking. To ensure a consensus can be met between players on what is the best stage to play on. In these circumstances, this failed to happen because there were more stages that favored you than myself.
Yeah. This is because Diddy is better at adapting to different stage types than Sheik is! And that is a legitimate advantage his character's design grants him, and
not something we can just strip away at a whim.
When we look at Scenario 3 and 4, using the exact same reasoning for stage choice used in Scenario's 1 and 2, we wind up on Smashville, further emphasizing my point that if we were to make choices based on what stage we mutually agree is the fairest to play on first, it would be Smashville.
No! In fact, it completely destroys your own argument! Let's try a slightly more obvious example, where everyone understands the stages and matchups involved. Metaknight vs. Ice Climbers. Same lists.
Example 1: FD/BF/SV.
MK strikes FD; ICs strike BF, we end up at Smashville.
Example 2: FD/BF/SV/YI/LC
MK strikes FD; ICs strike YI and LC; MK strikes SV; we end up at Battlefield.
Same example... Except here, we know damn well that Smashville is
not neutral for the MK/ICs matchup. In fact, it's the IC's go-to counterpick, since MK will be banning FD. Is this making the list unbalanced in favor of MK? No! The opposite is arbitrarily fixing the matchup in IC's favor by excluding legitimate stages from the striking procedure, thus ensuring that they get their best stages!
What you're doing here is assuming out of the gate that SV is the most balanced stage. You've crafted your conclusion
completely backwards. In reality, the most balanced stage for the Sheik/Diddy matchup might be Battlefield. Or it might be Lylat. Or it might be ****ing Skyloft. We don't know;
we find out by striking. The fact that, as soon as we give people more than one strike, SV goes out the window, is a very strong indication that SV is
not the most balanced stage for the matchup. And if one character has a disadvantage on all but a tiny handful of stages, that means the matchup is bad. We don't give characters their best stages on round one just to make the matchup better. ICs should
not be getting their second-best stage in round one in almost every matchup. I don't know if SV is one of Shiek's best stages. If it isn't, it won't get struck in large stagelists. If it is, then it doesn't belong in round one and
should get struck in the matchup.
So let me ask you a question. Why Lylat Cruise or Duck Hunt? If it doesn't matter what we throw on to our stage list given that bans can't be wasted, since banning what we don't like isn't a waste, how about we put Norfair on there. Doesn't matter if everyone bans it, because it won't be a wasted ban, right?
Because we've already determined that Norfair is not a legitimate competitive stage. Now, if we're talking instead about, I dunno,
Wuhu, then the same argument applies. We could just as easily go to Wuhu Island if neither player saw it as a priority to strike it. If someone did see it as a priority, then clearly, it's not the most balanced stage in the matchup. But by adding more stages, we more clearly come to the consensus. And hell, maybe they decide not to strike Wuhu, or Lylat. Maybe that's the most balanced stage in the matchup? I'm not gonna strike Lylat unless I'm fighting a Pikachu (that's strike
and ban - that stage is pretty ****ing crazy for Pika). Why should I get less strikes because your character doesn't like a stage? Why
shouldn't you have to strike stages that are bad for you,
like everyone else?
I'll be honest. FLSS with the 13 that AA proposed is a pretty great thing for Zero Suit Samus, because she's pretty great on a lot of stages, and really has some advantages with non-standard layouts. I can strike FD, SV, Kongo Jungle, and Wuhu Island, and I'm pretty much happy with whatever else. Knock Skyloft off that list, and I've got a stage I enjoy playing on. But this is a legitimate advantage of my character. Out of the competitively viable stages,
my character performs well on most of them. This is an advantage built in to the design of the character, and by artificially limiting the starter list, you're not "reintroducing balance", you're skewing it.
![[Deuce]](/data/avatars/l/34/34711.jpg?1423154415){kind=avatar}
Joey Cuellar @EvilMrWizard 
