Why is DK64 banned from singles?

[TobiasXK]

i don't have any real problems with the current stageset, but i do think it's silly to look at the issue with the attitude of "they're banned, they've been banned forever; who cares, whatever".

that kind of thing should be revisited on occasion, and there really should be some formal system to determine/explain stage legality.

like i can arbitrarily explain it by saying that competition is supposed to test a core skillset and that skillset consists of movement-based neutral game, combo/escape, and edgeguard/recovery. and stage features that marginalize or interfere with those core skills or otherwise alter the gameplay in a way that match outcome isn't determined majorly by those core skills are undesirable.

so walk-off blastlines pretty much kill edgeguard/recovery. so does the ability to survive infinitely by teching on Hyrule Temple. lack of ledges and the ability to recover through the main stage floor dramatically change edgeguard/recovery in a way that creates almost a new required skill that isn't represented in the rest of the stages (the river in Jungle Japes also kind of does this). moving camera stages dramatically alter and kind of destroy the idea of a movement-based neutral game; in addition, players have to prioritize dealing with the stage to avoid SDing over comboing or edgeguarding. that second bit is also the problem with powerful random stage hazards—and especially exploitable ones

you also want fairness in a set, so there shouldn't be super high variance in expected matchup results over a bo3 or bo5 based on counterpick stages. so you get rid of stages with excessively close or inconsistent (Venom) blastlines.

that leaves basically the current stageset (though, my criteria *arguably* doesn't knock out Kongo Jungle 64; i'm not going to take a position on that here). so cool, pretty much nothing changes. but at least there's specific and consistent criteria to get that point and it's not just "some dudes 6 years ago thought this was a good idea and nobody likes those stages anymore anyways."

 

[Bones0]

i don't have any real problems with the current stageset, but i do think it's silly to look at the issue with the attitude of "they're banned, they've been banned forever; who cares, whatever".

that kind of thing should be revisited on occasion, and there really should be some formal system to determine/explain stage legality.

Reevaluating what we've banned is perfectly fine on occasion, but the problem is people who don't consistently come to SmashBoards decide that the once in blue moon time they are posting is that occasion. What they fail to realize is that the stage list and ruleset have been brought up multiple times this year with MLG's announcement of Anaheim, MLG's qualifiers, pre-Apex, post-Apex, etc. Every major event that occurs people bring up the ruleset which is why it's tiring for most people on the forums.

I also agree with you that formal parameters for what is considered legal should be agreed upon, but the fact is people can't agree on them. Some people don't think the randomness inherent in stages like Brinstar, Mute City, and Corneria negatively impact gameplay while others do. I think retroactively constructing formal reasons for why those stages were banned is sort of dishonest when the reality is there were some players with influence over the stage lists that really DID just decide "I don't like how good X character is on this stage" or "I hate getting killed by stage hazard Y".

My position that I've been telling people is this:

If you honestly want the ruleset to change, the only way it's going to catch on is if you get people to start playing that ruleset in friendlies. If you can't convince someone to play KJ64 in a mere 15% of your friendlies, how on Earth are you going to convince them to play on it in tournament? The stage list has been narrowed down to the current 6 stages because, for as long as I've been in this community at least, players have only ever played friendlies with these 6 stages. It was only a matter of time the rest of them got taken out when there is very few people actually practicing on them. It's annoying seeing people complain on the forums about stage Z being banned when they don't even play on that stage themselves.

 

[Wobbly Headed Bob]

you know what those videos of people camping are not enough of a reason to ban a stage. if it was then after armada vs hbox matches nearly all the stages should be banned. that being said we don't need another counterpick where the space animals will be way to powerful, how about instead we bring back a stage like brinstar or mute city (mute b/c space animals need a bad stage if ps is legal)

You don't know what you're saying? Did you ever see Armada vs Hungrybox at Kongo Jungle 64? That was absolutely atrocious. At least in the other stages there is a game to watch.

 

[JKJ]

I don't know if I've said this already, but I believe that Pokemon Stadium is just as janky as Brinstar or Mute City. I think that if Pokemon is legal, those both must be. Essentially, what we are doing but banning the others but not PS is saying that spacies are allowed to have a strong counterpick but floaties and mid-weights are not. I don't get the logic. "Brinstar is too good for Puff, ban it" is a legitimate argument but "Pokemon is too good for spacies, and gives Fox a potential infinite, ban it" is not? Why are we allowing a stage that's only playable ~half the time to be legal?

Note: This is all coming from a dual Fox/Falco main. It's too good for us, Fox more than Falco. The only reason it's still legal is because the MBR is dominated by spacie mains.

 

[Bones0]

I don't know if I've said this already, but I believe that Pokemon Stadium is just as janky as Brinstar or Mute City. I think that if Pokemon is legal, those both must be. Essentially, what we are doing but banning the others but not PS is saying that spacies are allowed to have a strong counterpick but floaties and mid-weights are not. I don't get the logic. "Brinstar is too good for Puff, ban it" is a legitimate argument but "Pokemon is too good for spacies, and gives Fox a potential infinite, ban it" is not? Why are we allowing a stage that's only playable ~half the time to be legal?

Note: This is all coming from a dual Fox/Falco main. It's too good for us, Fox more than Falco. The only reason it's still legal is because the MBR is dominated by spacie mains.

That's ridiculous. Unlike BS and MC, PS doesn't deal actual damage to players. Everyone always loves to talk about how Fox has an infinite but it gets blown so out of proportion.
1. The majority of the time people get the rock transformation, neither player approaches. The same can happen on fire, but the right side is playable so if they do fight, it's almost always over there.
2. If Fox drillshines, they can SDI the drill and almost always get out.
3. If Fox only waveshines, I think they can still SDI behind, but either way Fox isn't going to rack up some ridiculous amount of damage. At least not compared to what other characters can also do in the pit. Peach dsmash has dealt way more damage than waveshines infinites.

Seriously, how many infinites have you ever seen happen on PS? I think I've seen maybe 3 EVER that lasted long enough to deal more than a single waveshine usmash would deal. Comparing this super niche phenomenon that is quite easily avoided to lava almost entirely engulfing all but a single plat multiple times a game is ridiculous. I'm not blind to the jankness of PS (I once thought it should be banned myself), but I think the loss of a unique 2-plat stage would be a much worse detriment to the game than occasionally waiting for 20 seconds or playing with a few temporary walls/bumps.

 

[JKJ]

That's ridiculous. Unlike BS and MC, PS doesn't deal actual damage to players. Everyone always loves to talk about how Fox has an infinite but it gets blown so out of proportion.
1. The majority of the time people get the rock transformation, neither player approaches. The same can happen on fire, but the right side is playable so if they do fight, it's almost always over there.
2. If Fox drillshines, they can SDI the drill and almost always get out.
3. If Fox only waveshines, I think they can still SDI behind, but either way Fox isn't going to rack up some ridiculous amount of damage. At least not compared to what other characters can also do in the pit. Peach dsmash has dealt way more damage than waveshines infinites.

Seriously, how many infinites have you ever seen happen on PS? I think I've seen maybe 3 EVER that lasted long enough to deal more than a single waveshine usmash would deal. Comparing this super niche phenomenon that is quite easily avoided to lava almost entirely engulfing all but a single plat multiple times a game is ridiculous. I'm not blind to the jankness of PS (I once thought it should be banned myself), but I think the loss of a unique 2-plat stage would be a much worse detriment to the game than occasionally waiting for 20 seconds or playing with a few temporary walls/bumps.

I get that the neutral transformation is a good stage, but if any of the transformations were permanent stages, they would be banned, no? Except for maybe the forest transformation. The jankiness of the stage, I would say, though it doesn't deal damage, hurts the neutral game, momentum, flow of the game, and tips it heavily in spacies' favor. I feel like Pokemon does for spacies what BS or MC does for Jiggs or Peach: It makes the non-counterpicking opponent fear the stage and the advantage it gives the opponent. Though it doesn't deal damage, it extends life (windmill) shortens life (low ceiling) and can break up combos, stage control, etc. because of the transformations.

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

2. If Fox drillshines, they can SDI the drill and almost always get out.
3. If Fox only waveshines, I think they can still SDI behind, but either way Fox isn't going to rack up some ridiculous amount of damage. At least not compared to what other characters can also do in the pit. Peach dsmash has dealt way more damage than waveshines infinites.

4. fox's shorthop-shine infinite is easy and inescapeable