Tournament Stage Discussion

[Nika]

Disclaimer: Everything in this post is based on my owon personal experience/preferences. We have a lot of discussion and disagreement, so don't take my word for any of this - read the whole thread!

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Of the legal stages, which ones do we think are generally best for Lucina? Of course your actual choice will depend on the opponent, and we can get into character-specific discussion too, but it's good to lay out some general preferences.

I'd rank the starters as follows:

1 (tie). Battlefield/Dream Land
3. Town & City
4. Smashville
5. Final Destination

As for counterpicks, Lylat Cruise is either our best or second-best stage overall, while Duck Hunt is probably our worst or second-worst. With only one stage ban, I usually ban FD, but I'd ban Duck Hunt instead vs. certain characters, including Kirby and Pikachu.

Some considerations:

- Platforms are good. Lucina has trouble landing, and platforms help with that. They also let you use up B with more impunity, an essential combo breaker and in general a surprisingly useful tool in neutral. Finally, platforms just give you more avenues of approach and retreat, especially vs. projectile-heavy characters.

- Low ceilings are good. Uthrow and usmash are great kill options, so we want low ceilings. Uthrow is especially important against light characters - including many top tiers like Rosalina, Sheik, Fox, and ZSS - and against cautious players who it's hard to land a smash attack on. One caveat though - Lucina is fairly light herself!

- Narrow, vertical stages are better than wide, horizontal stages. Keeping the opponent above you is a great way to rack up damage. Also, Lucina isn't great at chasing down campers or projectile users, so giving them less space to run away from you is ideal. In fact, this arguably makes Duck Hunt even worse than FD vs. some less obvious characters, including Villager, ROB, and Sonic.

- Weird angles are good. Related to the previous point, Lucina has a nice big arc on almost all of her attacks, except Shield Breaker. That means slopes and angles don't really bother us much, but they often interfere with opponents' attack patterns. I used to love Castle Siege for this (and for its verticality), but now that that's gone we can get the same advantage from Lylat Cruise.

- Battlefield vs. Dream Land. Tough call. I slightly prefer BF, partly because you can up B straight to the middle platform from the ground (the one on DL is just too high) and I find BF a tiny bit better for going offstage. However, DL has the lower ceiling. Worth figuring out your personal preference, since you'll often want to counterpick to one of these after dropping a game.

What do you think? Anything you particularly agree or disagree with? Got anything to add?

 

[Tomoya]

I would prefer Smashville first, you gotta be able to practice and rely less on the platforms for easy combos and follow ups. Because 99.9% of Lucina/Marth players are horrible and are worst when it comes to the lack of platform. You gotta have this knowledge in case your opponent bans the stage and you'll be left at a disadvantage. Learn your every option rather than stick to the regular Lucina/Marth mold. Be able to mix it up correctly and you can find more stages as neutral rather a disadvantage. Also battlefield has jank in the up b when you try to recover mid edge. It can shorten your recovery and cause you to lose a stock. Also dreamland 64, has wind boxes that can easily cause you to pineapple under the stage or even a over shot of the up b sends you under the stage

 

[Nika]

I don't understand your logic. Are you saying Smashville is actually a better stage than BF/DL, or just that you should practice Smashville because it's likely to end up being picked? Obviously you should practice all the stages, even FD, but you should still have preferences and try to get the best stage possible - particularly with 1 ban, it's easy to end up on BF or DL.

 

[Tomoya]

DL and BF both have stage jank that could potentially cost your game or your set. I've played BF against a Shiek and my set didn't end on a missed tech but rather a messed up recovery due to the stage structure. DL is infamous for ending a Lucina/Marth quickly. I'm not saying these are bad maps, but they are maps with risk. IMO it's best to be unorthodox and choose a stage they wouldn't expect for you to pick

 

[Tomoya]

Whatever lol you seem to know what you're doing. Just careful with recovery jank and wind boxes

 

[Nika]

No no, that's great input! That's exactly the kind of discussion we should be having I just didn't understand what you were saying at first, thanks for clearing it up.

 

[ZeroKizuna]

I've personally used Omega stages as secondary counterpicks if my opponent chooses to strike Lylat. So far, Omega Wily's Castle and Omega 75m feel as if they have shorter blastzones horizontally. Though, there's no research from my end to prove that they do. Just a gut feeling.

 

[SuperScope]

I think smash ville is her best and dreamland or lylat is her worst. Reason is Lucina needs to stay grounded. She needs the smashville platform to help mixup recovery. I think bf and dl are just as hard to get down as fd except you can live longer on bf, but that doesn't matter if you can't mixup your recovery from edge. Also the balloon on smashville helps unstale moves and ducks on duck hunt help do the same.

By the way up throw and up smash are not moves you should plan with picking stage. Up throw is a last resort if you can't kill and won't kill until really high percent if the opponent knows to di it. Up smash is just too slow. It's like a move you should only use if you have a super hard read like waiting for a roll in but even then it's better to f smash/ shield break at high percent, grab or dancing blade and mid low percent. I recommend up tilt instead of upsmash because it's a stupid good kill move unstale. Up tilt also reaches the platforms and so can ftilt.

Of course personal preference trumps all.

 

[MT Zehvor]

(Probably noobish opinion inbound)

I think it really depends on the character you're playing against. This is always worth taking into account, and OP mentioned it, but I think it's so important with Lucina, it's really difficult to choose one that's even generally better. For example, I would much rather a higher ceiling than a lower ceiling against either Sheik or ZSS, simply because of their ability to kill off the top notoriously easily. Against someone like Ike, who can benefit greatly from hopping onto a platform and then double jumping to chase down off a d-throw, I'm not sure platforms are something I'd want. Against Villager, I'd probably prefer a stage with a higher ceiling and smaller horizontal boundaries; Villagers are rarely going to be caught with an Up-Smash.

All that to say, I'm not sure there really is a "generally good" stage for Lucina. It feels like it's so dependent on who you're playing that what I go with could change from character to character.

 

[SuperScope]

(Probably noobish opinion inbound)

I think it really depends on the character you're playing against. This is always worth taking into account, and OP mentioned it, but I think it's so important with Lucina, it's really difficult to choose one that's even generally better. For example, I would much rather a higher ceiling than a lower ceiling against either Sheik or ZSS, not simply because of their ability to kill off the top notoriously easily. Against someone like Ike, who can benefit greatly from hopping onto a platform and then double jumping to chase down off a d-throw, I'm not sure platforms are something I'd want. Against Villager, I'd probably prefer a stage with a higher ceiling and smaller horizontal boundaries; Villagers are rarely going to be caught with an Up-Smash.

All that to say, I'm not sure there really is a "generally good" stage for Lucina. It feels like it's so dependent on who you're playing that what I go with could change from character to character.

I agree. Let me add bowser new up throw up air which will totally body you on most stages let alone tnc.

Lucina is pretty neutral with no real advantages or disadvantages relative to the rest of the cast. It's better to reduce your opponents advantages than try to increase your own.

 

[ZeroKizuna]

I agree. Let me add bowser new up throw up air which will totally body you on most stages let alone tnc.

Lucina is pretty neutral with no real advantages or disadvantages relative to the rest of the cast. It's better to reduce your opponents advantages than try to increase your own.

And that's how I've always done my strikes and counterpicks.

 

[Tomoya]

Just remember to learn every matchup and different play styles that can be implemented into each character. At my tourney which consist of an average of 50-60 people, I play many friendly matches as captain falcon so I can get a taste of a person's habits and level of fundamentals. I then decide which stage is a better pick for them. Cause there's times you can face a campy WFT or an aggressive villager like BC|Dojo. So you gotta be able to decide which stage is best outta tourney experience, learn from your mistakes as best as you can and be eager to learn or discover new tech.