Grim Tuesday
Smash Legend
"Speaking frankly, this stage throws all the basic rules of Smash out the window!" - Masahiro Sakurai
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This thread's purpose is to inform people about the mechanics and to clear up common misconceptions of the stage: Mario Bros.
For those who don't know which stage I am talking about (probably a few of you, considering the stage is universally banned and their are a plethora of banned Mario stages) here is a picture of the lay-out:
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This thread's purpose is to inform people about the mechanics and to clear up common misconceptions of the stage: Mario Bros.
For those who don't know which stage I am talking about (probably a few of you, considering the stage is universally banned and their are a plethora of banned Mario stages) here is a picture of the lay-out:
Some things to take note of:
- The pipes are non-solid and do not directly affect the game.
- Every opening along the sides of the stage are walk-off blast-zones, their is also an upper blast-zone. There is no lower blast-zone.
- While you can't pass through the blue platforms, most upward attacks (with the exception of projectiles) can go through them (commonly known as 'Sharking'). If you jump into one of the platforms from below, it will cause any opponents or hazards directly above to perform a slight hop (flipping over the hazards in the process, more on that later).
- The POW Block in the lower-center of the stage can be stood on like an ordinary platform. Jumping into or attacking this block will cause the same effect as jumping from below into a platform, only on a stage-wide scale. Hitting the POW block 3 times will cause it to disappear (it will re-appear exactly 30 seconds later).
- The camera is fixed on a view of the whole stage.
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Now then, onto the hazards. There are 3 different types of hazards on this stage (7 including sub-varieties). These hazards are Shellcreepers (Turtles), Sidesteppers (Crabs) and Fireballs.
A Shellcreeper on the left, and a Sidestepper on the right.
Now then, onto the hazards. There are 3 different types of hazards on this stage (7 including sub-varieties). These hazards are Shellcreepers (Turtles), Sidesteppers (Crabs) and Fireballs.
A Shellcreeper on the left, and a Sidestepper on the right.
Shellcreepers:
- Shellcreepers come in 3 varieties: Green Shellcreepers, Purple Shellcreepers and Red Shellcreepers.
- Green Shellcreepers: Deal 11% damage and walk at a slow speed. They change into Purple Shellcreepers after being flipped. They deal a low amount of knockback, have low priority and high traction.
- Purple Shellcreepers: Deal 13% damage and walk at a medium speed. They change into Red Shellcreepers after being flipped. They deal a medium amount of knockback, have medium priority and medium traction.
- Red Shellcreepers: Deal 15% damage and walk at a fast speed. They do not change after being flipped. They deal a high amount of knockback, have high priority, and low traction.
- Shellcreepers take 1 hit to be flipped.
Sidesteppers:
- Sidesteppers also come in 3 varieties: Red Sidesteppers, Blue Sidesteppers and Pink Sidesteppers.
- Red Sidesteppers: Deal 13% damage and walk at a medium speed. They change into Blue Sidesteppers after being flipped. They deal a medium amount of knockback.
- Blue Sidesteppers: Deal 15% damage and walk at a fast speed. They change into Pink Sidesteppers after being flipped. They deal a high amount of knockback.
- Pink Sidesteppers: Deal 17% damage and walk at a very fast speed. They do not change after being flipped. They deal a very high amount of knockback.
- Sidesteppers take 2 hits to be flipped. A Sidestepper who has already been hit once will have an angrier facial expression that one that hasn't.
Shellcreepers & Sidesteppers:
- You can pick up a flipped Shellcreeper/Sidestepper as an item. It will always deal 16% damage for a Normal Throw, and 18% for a Smash Throw (regardless of colour). They have the same traction/knockback/etc... as the stray ones, however.
- A Shellcreeper/Sidestepper will change colour if it is flipped over and allowed to get back up by itself (a flipped Shellcreeper/Sidestepper will flip itself back over after 10 seconds of being knocked down. This 10 second time period is NOT reset by picking up the flipped hazard).
- If a Shellcreeper/Sidestepper runs into another Shellcreeper/Sidestepper (flipped or un-flipped), or a player, it will change direction.
- Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers always spawn from the pipes at the top of the screen, and exit through the pipes at the bottom. The bottom pipes warp Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers back to the top pipes. This means that standing behind any of the pipes will prevent a stray Shellcreeper from ever hitting you.
- In-between the edge of the stage and the side blast-zones, there is a "warp-zone". Any Shellcreeper/Sidestepper that goes through this zone (except when thrown) will warp to the exact opposite warp-zone and continue moving. It is possible to stand in-between the warp-zone and blast-zone as most characters and thus be completely invulnerable to stray Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers (though this is very difficult).
- There may only be a combined maximum of 4 Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers on screen at a time.
- Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers will not spawn until 10 seconds after the match has started, they then appear in 10 second intervals.
- If a Shellcreeper/Sidestepper is destroyed, another will take it's place almost immediately (within 5 seconds).
Fireballs:
- Fireballs always appear in one of eight places (just above each of the platforms and the ground on the left side, and ditto for the right side).
- Fireballs cannot be destroyed.
- They deal 20% damage on contact and have scaling knockback (low at around 0%, medium at around 50% and high at around 100%).
- There can only ever be one Fireball on screen at a time.
- They materialize and dematerialize in about 1.5 seconds (Note that they are unable to damage players while appearing/disappearing).
- After spawning, they travel in a wave-motion horizontally to the opposite spawn point, and then disappear.
- The spawn point is about equal vertically with the wheel on the top pipes.
- The time that Fireballs spawn appears to be entirely random.
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In this section I'll be talking about legalization, which is one of the reasons I the main reason I made this thread in the first place.. This stage, as I have already mentioned, is banned universally. Some may say that this is proof about how bad the stage is competitively, but I disagree.
I believe that very few people (yes, including the BBR) have given this stage a fair chance, this section will hopefully explain to people why we should NEVER judge a book by it's cover, as I go over the most common arguments against this stage's legalization and refute them.
1. "The central platform allows for degenerate circle camping strategies".
This would be completely true, if not for the hazards. Through clever manipulation of Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers even a character with general poor mobility such as Peach will be able to catch up to and attack the circling player.
Also note that most characters with decent to good range can shark through the platforms.
2. "The walk-off sides allows for degenerate walk-off camping strategies/buffs and nerfs characters heavily depending on if they can/can be chain-grabbed".
Again, the hazards prevent this from being an issue. The stage layout and abundance of powerful, shield-poking projectiles make camping the side blast-zones more likely to get you killed than force an approach/time the opponent out.
Chain-grabs will almost always be interrupted by the hazards without the other player having to do anything, and in the very rare situations where there aren't any hazards to interrupt the chain-grab, the player can always carry a Shellcreeper/Sidestepper with them from another part of the stage when they want to approach and place it on the ground before-hand.
3. "The lack of a lower blast-zone is degenerate/buffs and nerfs characters heavily depending on their aerial/off-stage game".
Characters with great off-stage games don't have their KO'ing ability reduced as they can use the hazards instead. Characters with poor off-stage games won't live to stupid percents for the same reason.
4. "Certain characters [most commonly: Fox] are too powerful on this stage".
Quite the contrary, from my play-testing with a wide variety of players and characters, I can safely say that this is one of the most balanced stages for match-ups, if not the most balanced (note that I don't mean balanced in the sense that every match-up is closer to what it should be assuming no advantages from stages, I mean more balanced in the sense that every match-up is very close to 50:50).
I will tackle Fox specifically, as he is the most commonly brought up character when it comes to who is over-powered on this stage. I already covered above why Circle Stalling is not an issue on this stage, but many people believe that Fox's reflector changes this, as he can prevent any attempts to hit him with thrown hazards by using it.
This is not the case for a few reasons:
a) Fox can only reflect THROWN hazards with his Reflector, walking ones will still hit him. In this section I'll be talking about legalization, which is one of the reasons I the main reason I made this thread in the first place.. This stage, as I have already mentioned, is banned universally. Some may say that this is proof about how bad the stage is competitively, but I disagree.
I believe that very few people (yes, including the BBR) have given this stage a fair chance, this section will hopefully explain to people why we should NEVER judge a book by it's cover, as I go over the most common arguments against this stage's legalization and refute them.
1. "The central platform allows for degenerate circle camping strategies".
This would be completely true, if not for the hazards. Through clever manipulation of Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers even a character with general poor mobility such as Peach will be able to catch up to and attack the circling player.
Also note that most characters with decent to good range can shark through the platforms.
2. "The walk-off sides allows for degenerate walk-off camping strategies/buffs and nerfs characters heavily depending on if they can/can be chain-grabbed".
Again, the hazards prevent this from being an issue. The stage layout and abundance of powerful, shield-poking projectiles make camping the side blast-zones more likely to get you killed than force an approach/time the opponent out.
Chain-grabs will almost always be interrupted by the hazards without the other player having to do anything, and in the very rare situations where there aren't any hazards to interrupt the chain-grab, the player can always carry a Shellcreeper/Sidestepper with them from another part of the stage when they want to approach and place it on the ground before-hand.
3. "The lack of a lower blast-zone is degenerate/buffs and nerfs characters heavily depending on their aerial/off-stage game".
Characters with great off-stage games don't have their KO'ing ability reduced as they can use the hazards instead. Characters with poor off-stage games won't live to stupid percents for the same reason.
4. "Certain characters [most commonly: Fox] are too powerful on this stage".
Quite the contrary, from my play-testing with a wide variety of players and characters, I can safely say that this is one of the most balanced stages for match-ups, if not the most balanced (note that I don't mean balanced in the sense that every match-up is closer to what it should be assuming no advantages from stages, I mean more balanced in the sense that every match-up is very close to 50:50).
I will tackle Fox specifically, as he is the most commonly brought up character when it comes to who is over-powered on this stage. I already covered above why Circle Stalling is not an issue on this stage, but many people believe that Fox's reflector changes this, as he can prevent any attempts to hit him with thrown hazards by using it.
This is not the case for a few reasons:
b) He can still be sharked.
c) Fox must remain stationary when using his Reflector.
By abusing these 3 facts, a player can very simply set-up the hazards to make avoiding them AND the player nigh impossible for the Fox player. If you believe that you can prove me wrong on this point, PM me and we can have a game over Wi-Fi.
5. "The hazards are random and too powerful".
As I showed above, the only random parts of the stage are:
a) Which top pipe the Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers will come out of. Players are given enough warning to make this point moot.5. "The hazards are random and too powerful".
As I showed above, the only random parts of the stage are:
b) Where and when the fireball will spawn. Again, players have enough time to react.
c) Whether Shellcreepers or Sidesteppers will appear from the pipes. They don't have enough differences when it comes down to it for this to matter.
The hazards are NOT too powerful unless you actually get hit by them. Which shouldn't happen unless your opponent out-played you. They can be air-dodged, spot-dodged, rolled past, perfect shielded, caught and attacked on reaction if you are paying enough attention (and if you do happen to get hit by one, you have multiple opportunities to tech in a lot of situations). Not to mention that you can place them yourself to get them out of the way if you so desire.
6. "The game is over-centralized around the hazards".
Yes, to an extent, but it does not turn the game into 'Super Turtle Bros. Brawl' as many people suggest. If two players used only the hazards to attack, it would lead to a stale-mate in every match-up. Attacking with the AID of the hazards is a far more potent strategy.
Also note that centralizing the game around these hazards is by no means a bad thing anyway. They, unlike many other items in the game, take reasonable skill to use (because of their walking, upgrading, flipping and warping mechanics) and actually add a unique style of depth to the game that no other stage is close to mirroring.
7. "The game is over-centralized around teching due to to the multiple ceilings (commonly known as a "Cave of Life").
Characters can live to quite high percents, yes. Although not to the extent that teching becomes the only skill players need. The hazards help greatly in KO'ing high-percentage opponents, as do the walk-off edges.
8. "The Fixed Camera makes it difficult to focus on combat"
Nope, it doesn't. Every attack by every character is perfectly visible on the stage, even though the camera doesn't zoom in. It is actually very helpful, as it allows players to monitor the hazards without having to get close to them.
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In conclusion, I very much hope this stage is considered for competitive play, now that our community is escaping that "scrubby" mentality. If I have made any mistakes, please point them out to me!
Thanks for reading!
6. "The game is over-centralized around the hazards".
Yes, to an extent, but it does not turn the game into 'Super Turtle Bros. Brawl' as many people suggest. If two players used only the hazards to attack, it would lead to a stale-mate in every match-up. Attacking with the AID of the hazards is a far more potent strategy.
Also note that centralizing the game around these hazards is by no means a bad thing anyway. They, unlike many other items in the game, take reasonable skill to use (because of their walking, upgrading, flipping and warping mechanics) and actually add a unique style of depth to the game that no other stage is close to mirroring.
7. "The game is over-centralized around teching due to to the multiple ceilings (commonly known as a "Cave of Life").
Characters can live to quite high percents, yes. Although not to the extent that teching becomes the only skill players need. The hazards help greatly in KO'ing high-percentage opponents, as do the walk-off edges.
8. "The Fixed Camera makes it difficult to focus on combat"
Nope, it doesn't. Every attack by every character is perfectly visible on the stage, even though the camera doesn't zoom in. It is actually very helpful, as it allows players to monitor the hazards without having to get close to them.
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In conclusion, I very much hope this stage is considered for competitive play, now that our community is escaping that "scrubby" mentality. If I have made any mistakes, please point them out to me!
Thanks for reading!