The Wobbling Ban: What You Need To Know

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about Ice Climbers’ place within Super Smash Bros. Melee. After Daniel “ChuDat” Rodriguez’s meteoric rise to 11th place on the 2017 SSBMRank and a similar climb from Bananas this year to 19th, Ice Climbers have rarely in Melee’s history been more prominent in the metagame. But with this prominence comes community discussion. Here’s what you need to know about the current wobbling ban discussion.

Nobody really knows how this new wobbling ban debate came about. For those not in the know, wobbling is an infinite combo that Ice Climbers can use to take a stock off a single grab. It’s the most devastating punish in the game and has been controversial as far back as the MLG era in 2006, where ChuDat would use it all along the MLG circuit.

Throughout 2007-2013, tournaments were back and forth as to whether wobbling would be banned. In 2007, while Pound 2 had wobbling banned, FC Diamond had wobbling legal. In 2009, wobbling was illegal at Epita Smash Arena 3 and Revival of Melee 2 while legal at Mango Juice and Genesis. In 2011, The Big House banned wobbling while it was legal at Revival of Melee 4 and Genesis 2 the same year. It’s a myth that wobbling was banned by consensus until 2013, although there is some truth in that 2013 was a year of change for wobbling.

Wobbling was legal at Kings of Cali 2, NorCal Regionals and Zenith in 2013, as well as EVO, of course. EVO 2013 certainly put wobbling into the spotlight, as Wobbles, for whom the technique is named, used it to defeat multiple gods on his way to 2nd, the best placement for Ice Climbers at a major since ChuDat at Pound 2. From this point on, the only major tournament to continue to ban wobbling was The Big House, which banned it until The Big House 5 in 2015.

Discussion of a wobbling ban is not new at all. In fact, it’s probably one of the oldest in Melee that’s still a divisive issue. What’s the difference now?

First a quick summary of the arguments. On the pro-ban side:

• Wobbling hurts viewership
• Wobbling is the only true infinite in the game; every other punish involves DI and Smash DI
• Wobbling takes a whole stock and is easily doable even by very new players
• Wobbling dominates low levels of the game due to its ease of use
• Ice Climbers players make tons of upsets due to the strength of wobbling
• Ice Climbers players can do well without wobbling, as Jeremy “Fly Amanita” Westfahl did years ago
• Handoffs are an effective stand-in for wobbling and don’t significantly cripple the character

On the anti-ban side:

• There is no evidence that wobbling hurts viewership, and even if it did, Ice Climbers are not a common enough character that wobbling would be the sole cause
• Many strategies are broken at low levels, like wobbling, but players learn to adapt to them as they play more and become more skilled at the game
• While wobbling is a devastating punish, getting a wobble going at high levels is very difficult and requires an intimate knowledge of many setups
• Upsets happen with many different characters, not just Ice Climbers, and those that do happen could be explained by matchup inexperience as opposed to the power of wobbling
• Some Ice Climbers players will probably quit or otherwise feel unwelcome or targeted if wobbling is banned
• Ice Climbers are unviable even with wobbling, and removing wobbling would make them not worth playing
• Handoffs are completely up to chance unless the ICs player is near a ledge, which increases the variance of Ice Climbers matches

What constitutes a wobble isn’t 100% defined just yet. In Washington, a wobble was defined as 8 pummels, while in Texas, a wobble was defined as either 4 tilts or two blizzards per grab. MD/VA’s Facebook poll included a litany of options, including limits on the number of pummels, limits on percent, a limit of one wobble per game, and interestingly, a memory card hack that patches out wobbling but affects grab break mechanics universally. Enforcement could potentially be an issue in offstream sets or sets involving players from different regions with different definitions for a wobble.

So far, a number of states have banned wobbling, either for a trial period or permanently. Washington has decided on a trial wobbling ban from March 1st until July 1st. Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Colorado, Kentucky, Connecticut and Alabama have all banned wobbling as well, but permanently. Tennessee has a ban in some parts of the state, but not others. The most notable bans yet are those in Maryland/Virginia (aka MD/VA) and Texas. Both MD/VA and Texas have high level Ice Climbers players in addition to being very large and strong scenes. As for Canada, Alberta and British Columbia have elected to ban wobbling as well. Get On My Level 2019 in Canada will be the first major North American tournament to ban wobbling this tme around. Among other major regions, SoCal recently had a poll which, despite meeting a majority of players, didn’t meet the 55% threshold that the vote required to ban wobbling.

It’s not certain what this will mean for Ice Climbers players. We could see a return to the pre-documentary era of Melee, where any individual tournament could have wobbling banned. We could see a total ban on wobbling, or we could even see a scaling back of wobbling bans. Given the speed at which this development has occurred, it’s anyone’s guess as to where it will go. Players such as Tyler “Sharkz” Bass from North Carolina have expressed that they feel that taking a step back from Melee is the right approach given a wobbling ban, because they don’t feel that they should have to play what feels like a new character. On the other hand, perhaps some new players will emerge who wouldn’t have played Melee otherwise due to the threat of wobbling.

One thing is clear: this isn’t the last we’re going to hear of wobbling.

Editor’s Note: What’s your opinion on wobbling? Let me know in the comments!

 

if wobbling was banned it would mean that new icies would have to put actual effort into learning the character, just like all the others. personally would enjoy that because as there would be no icies main making into the top 100 because he mashed the a button and slightly tilted his stick downward of left/right (depends on the direction) (i know there's more to icies than that but that's the main thing)

 

I am personally on the side that the ban of Wobbling will pretty much will neuter the character in competitive play. ICs barely show up competitive play anymore, especially due to a lot of their top players being inactive (Fly, Wobbles, and Dizz) or switched to someone else (Nintendude). Handoffs, while flashy and can be devastating, is not guaranteed, getting rid of a lot of the reward on an already high-risk character (gives the opponent more opportunities to separate them). Fly managed without wobbling, but IC counterplay has greatly improved since his prime.

It does bring some good to ban it as well. Melee needs all the viewership it needs to compete with the titan that is Ultimate. It is frustrating to deal with at times as well.

Right now, banning wobbling does seem to not be too bad, but we must be prepared to practically not see the character anymore after the ban.

The main argument for banning wobbling was never that it's boring or hurts viewership, at least for me. The argument is that giving players access to an easy to execute infinite in a fighting game is absolutely ridiculous and never should have been legal in the first place. People only put up with it cause icies are not a good character otherwise. The argument that because it's not as effective at top level play, getting rid of it will make the character worse is meaningless. Most people playing melee are not top level players, and at the mid to low level, icies are way more dominant then they are at the top level, not to mention the previous statement that just giving people access to an infinite is dumb. The only reason puffs sing stall is banned for example, is because you can't get a consistent kill from it like you can with wobbling. Same with the freeze glitch (that and it sometimes can't be reversed). But where exactly is the cut off for that? Can you sing stall the last few seconds of a match to get a time out? Can you do that with a wobble? Infinites in fighting games, in any capacity, should be banned. I don't care how good the character is, how easy or hard the infinite is to perform, having access to a broken tool like that, ESPECIALLY when it's as easy to perform as it is with icies, is bad for good competition.

 

This came about because of Armada's absence from Melee. What we need is another Peach, not a ban.

 

It technically should have ended in 2008.

I am having trouble understanding what you mean by this. Why should people technically have dropped Melee in 2008? I get that it probably has something to do with SSBB coming out but I do not see why that means that technically people should drop Melee. Technically speaking people can play whichever Smash game they have access to which certainly includes Melee for many people.

 

The number of powerful punishes in SSBM is massive, from Fox and Falcos shine combos, to marths ken combo, to sheik techchasing, peach throw combos, captain falcons entire existence, to Jigglypuff's rest setups. Why specifically wobbling? Ice climbers feeds on mistakes and have other desyncs, so banning wobbling will just make icies harder without solving the core issue. A partial wobbling ban, such as a max wobble percent of 110 makes it so you can survive, but still rewards the icies player for getting a grab would be sufficeint.

 

Exactly!!!

 

The main argument for banning wobbling was never that it's boring or hurts viewership, at least for me. The argument is that giving players access to an easy to execute infinite in a fighting game is absolutely ridiculous and never should have been legal in the first place. People only put up with it cause icies are not a good character otherwise. The argument that because it's not as effective at top level play, getting rid of it will make the character worse is meaningless. Most people playing melee are not top level players, and at the mid to low level, icies are way more dominant then they are at the top level, not to mention the previous statement that just giving people access to an infinite is dumb. The only reason puffs sing stall is banned for example, is because you can't get a consistent kill from it like you can with wobbling. Same with the freeze glitch (that and it sometimes can't be reversed). But where exactly is the cut off for that? Can you sing stall the last few seconds of a match to get a time out? Can you do that with a wobble? Infinites in fighting games, in any capacity, should be banned. I don't care how good the character is, how easy or hard the infinite is to perform, having access to a broken tool like that, ESPECIALLY when it's as easy to perform as it is with icies, is bad for good competition.

We need to balance at the top level an example as although fox is hard, he is still the best you wanting to ban wobbling is like whining lmao, git gud lmao

 

The top 7 characters of the game invalidate like half of the cast.
Lets nerf an otherwise mid tier character.

 

The top 7 characters of the game invalidate like half of the cast.
Lets nerf an otherwise mid tier character.

Exactly, Ics arent perfect with or without wobbling, they just need careful spacing and platform camping to destroy them.

 

I think it should not be banned because it isn't entirely ban worthy. Lets take the Meta-Knight invisibility glitch in Brawl for example. If this was legal, the Meta-Knight player would just have to do the trick and they win. Wobbling, on the other hand, requires a grab. Melee is such a fast game to the point where one can move unpredictably enough to avoid the grab attempts and even punish it depending on the character. There are also some characters which can space Ice-Climbers out enough to where, if used right, Ice-Climbers can't come near them.