Young Meta, Conservative Rulesets...Did I Miss Something?

[WritersBlah]

So Smash 4 has been out for the masses to play for almost four months now. Top characters are coming into the competitive limelight () and rulesets are becoming more solidified. Only...the stagelists aren't. What? Why? I sincerely can't remember any previous time in the Smash community where stagelists were so variable depending on where you lived. But the big elephant in the room is that for some reason, Smash 4's playerbase has taken a very aggressive "banned until proven competitively viable" attitude since the very beginning of this game's release. Maybe my mind is just very alien or I'm not hardcore enough, but when did this ever happen in the past? When Melee was starting up in its grassroots stage, pretty much every stage was used in tournament play, as well as items (!!), and obviously, many stages proved that they heavily skewed the tide of a competitive match, so stages had to be banned. After 14 years of a constantly evolving meta, the stagelist has grown exponentially smaller. Now note that I don't consider this a bad thing because the reasons for banning were plainly visible from watching recorded tournament matches.

Now, I'm not too savvy on how Brawl's stagelist became what it is today, but it is interesting to note that Brawl has the largest selection of legal stages out of all the Smash games, which I can only assume meant Brawl's community went through similar trials and tribulations as Melee. But now, this brings us to Smash 4 (and to a lesser extent, Project M). From the very beginning, I was ready to experiment in tournament matches in all kinds of stages. Only...that never ended up happening. Stagelists for tourneys were extraordinarily small (only 5 legal stages for Smash 3DS?) and when I asked around as to why, I was told that these were meant just to get players' feet wet, choosing safe stages that were surefire to not have any problems. I was skeptical, but I didn't make too huge a fuss about it.

Come four months later, and things have not gotten any better. In fact, I dare say things have gotten worse. Because with major international tournaments like APEX, EVO, and CEO using these minimalist stagelists, now players have no incentive to learn the stages they said "needed experimentation," because outside of a few small tourneys whose participants only consisted of people who were legitimately concerned about this issue, they never received any proper experimentation. Now large-scale tourney rulesets will just solidify the minimalist rulesets people have been using this entire time, and nothing will change. I want to give a huge shout-out to @Amazing Ampharos for convincing EVO to adopt custom movesets as the primary ruleset for the tournament, because that's a huge step in finally developing Smash 4 as an identity, but the stage predicament is still wide-spread and rampant.

So, after that long tirade, my final question is: how did this happen in the first place? What was so different about the release of Smash 4 that caused it to have a tiny stagelist from the start, unlike Melee or Brawl?

 

[webbedspace]

The answer is that the early Brawl community was tiny compared to today, and the early Melee community was microscopic. More people means more veterans' traditions to uphold, more disparate viewpoints to please, and a bigger perceived loss when people are alienated. Pared-down stage lists are designed to appease enough people to minimise complaint. Simple as that.

Or, in fewer words: It's Just Politics.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

In EVO's defense, part of their licensing agreement is that every stage has to be pre-approved by Nintendo. They do not have streaming rights for some of the music, and apparently even minimizing the music usage in My Music can't completely fix the issue. So, they had to get that finalized early and aren't in a position to change much on that front. They can move stages from the starter list to the counterpick list or vice versa, but they can't add stages that haven't been pre-approved.

Overall, I'm mostly with you, though. Cutting out stages that are proven to be genuinely problematic is one thing, but I'm not a fan of having a minimalist approach out of the gate. Generally speaking, anyway. I ranted for a while on the Suicide Clause in another thread for similar reasons: no sense in carrying over community-imposed rules from one game to another when the justification for said rule in the original game doesn't even exist in the new game.

If there's one thing that I'm grateful to the EVO organizers for, it's that they're very aware that smaller tournaments tend to have a "follow the leader" attitude more often than not. If they hadn't pushed for customs adoption, then there definitely wouldn't even be a tenth of the experimentation that's currently happening on that front.

 

[MidnightAsaph]

People don't understand the critera for banning. They think "I don't like it" is a viable issue.

 

[Teshie U]

Brawl community banned alot of stages because of Metaknight. If Smash 4 follows the trend, we might lose any stage with a low ceiling?

Stagelists did vary alot in early Brawl too though.

 

[Neoleo21]

Brawl community banned alot of stages because of Metaknight. If Smash 4 follows the trend, we might lose any stage with a low ceiling?

Stagelists did vary alot in early Brawl too though.

If what you said happens then we'll need wuhu in the stage lists.

 

[cardboardowl]

I'm all for more stages. Sure stages alter match ups, but isn't that the point? give your character an advantage after you lost?

 

[Raijinken]

A lot of the people in charge want to appeal to their more regular (and often more conservative) players, and thus adopt rulesets already heavily resembling those of past games, rather than experiment more with new picking policies, stagelists, etc.

It's unfortunate, but with each successive game comes more past experience of what's "fair" and what's probably not. So even though, for instance, chaingrabs aren't an issue any more, without bothering to really research (or, for the benefit of those who didn't know that chaingrabs aren't the only reason to ban walkoffs), people just assumed walkoffs are bad and banned them all. People don't search for answers they think they already know.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Brawl community banned alot of stages because of Metaknight. If Smash 4 follows the trend, we might lose any stage with a low ceiling?

Stagelists did vary alot in early Brawl too though.

So, Halberd then. It's the only stage in the current list that has an appreciably low ceiling. (Some like T&C are also lower, but only enough to kill like 3% earlier, it's hardly significant.)

 

[Pazzo.]

I'm all for a more liberal stagelist.

We just need to play on said stages to get he needed attention. :/

 

[cheesemonk66]

I think that its a mixture of "ban culture" and experience. What I mean by experience is that people who have been playing smash a while see new stages that might be similar to older ones that were bad and they automatically assume that they are plagued by the same issues and won't even give them a chance. The other part of experience would be people who are so used to playing on the simple Omega style stages that they wouldn't like if another element such as stages entered into the game. This segues well into "ban culture" which is what I like to call the community preferring to ban everything rather than learn how to account for those things. The fact is smash is a new game and has a lot of time to evolve and I just don't see stages included in this development because no one has the time to deal with learning new stages when they've been used to dealing with a smaller listing.

 

[Raijinken]

It's too bad we still don't have a way to transfer custom stages, that could result in some nice stage diversity. We play customs plus a fairly wide default list in my group, and it's quite fun.

 

[thehard]

I think post-EVO would be a good time to get a Smash 4 Back Room/Thinkers Union going, to help alleviate this issue. No point in pushing for, say, Skyloft now if no upcoming major is running it (as much as I'd like to people want to practice no more and no less than what they need), but when EVO is done and there's a relative "downtime", that would be a good time to strike. Gotta educate the masses.

 

[popsofctown]

The portion of the playerbase that prefers powerful counterpick stages is a shrinking minority. It's a shrinking minority that should have status quo edge on their side, but as they become more outnumbered TOs are just kinda cheating and banning powerful stages to suit the preference of the majority without suitable justification.

Thanks to For Glory mode, even newbies are going to prefer weaker stages.

 

[TheHypnotoad]

This thread is kind of preaching to the choir. I think a majority of people here want a larger stage list (specifically, one that includes Skyloft, Kongo Jungle 64, Pokemon Stadium 2, and Wuhu Island).

 

[popsofctown]

To be clear, I don't want a large stagelist, I'm one of those fogeys that wants to play on battlefield and smashville. I just realize I can't totally justify it.

I still think changing stage procedures is a good idea..

 

[deepseadiva]

This thread is kind of preaching to the choir. I think a majority of people here want a larger stage list (specifically, one that includes Skyloft, Kongo Jungle 64, Pokemon Stadium 2, and Wuhu Island).

Definitely. There is a better question than "What was so different about the release of Smash 4?" We KNOW why it was different for Smash 4 than early Melee.

That is, at this point, 4 games into the series, people have a solidified concept about how they want to play competitive Smash. We joke a lot about No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination, but that's honestly exactly what we want. And that's all of us, even the kooky standard item play people. We all want the same thing and that's a valid test of skill.

We want to remove as many obscuring elements as possible to get a fair and clean fight. Some people don't think about it, or even want to think about what elements are being discarded. People just want to get to the damn game as soon as possible.

Experimentation is slow, and a hassle. Who wants to do that? Let's just play Smashville.

And yea that's braindead, but it's valid. The test of skill still happens and the game lives. But theres definitely a distinction between brainless pandering, like stage lists that neglect interesting, useful, important stages, and then actually HARMFUL copypasted rules from past games, ie suicide clause that should not exist in the Smash 4.

Tournament organizers needs to be putting more thought into their rulesets. Laziness is what that is, and that translates to thoughtlessness, which is always obvious. I'm not going to refer to people who do this with a respectable term like "conservative".

LAZY is what that is. THOUGHTLESS is what that is.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Would it be more beneficial to push for a larger stage list (let's go with the big 13 for now) or FLSS first? Both would be the ideal but they're not so intertwined that having one without the other is impossible. With that in mind, introducing them piecemeal and independent of each other may (or may not, IDK) produce better results. And it's possible that one or the other is more palatable.

Thoughts?

Definitely. There is a better question than "What was so different about the release of Smash 4?" We KNOW why it was different for Smash 4 than early Melee.

That is, people have a solidified concept about what they want to play competitive Smash. We joke a lot about No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination, but that's honestly exactly what we want. And that's all of us, even the kooky standard item play people. We all want the same thing and that's a valid test of skill.

We want to remove as many obscuring elements as possible to get a fair and clean fight. Some people don't think about it, or even want to think about what elements are being discarded. People just want to get to the damn game as soon as possible.

Experimentation is slow, and a hassle. Who wants to do that? Let's just play Smashville.

And yea that's braindead, but it's valid. The test of skill still happens and the game lives. But theres definitely a distinction between brainless pandering, like stage lists that neglect interesting, useful, important stages, and then actually HARMFUL copypasted rules from past games, ie suicide clause that should not exist in the Smash 4.

Tournament organizers needs to be putting more thought into their rulesets. Laziness is what that is, and that translates to thoughtlessness, which is always obvious. Lazy people should not be leading.

Then there's people like me who are willing to put up with a surprising amount of what others would call jank and bull****. I would happily play GF on Gamer or Kalos Pokemon League. (Assuming I made it to GF in the first place, lol.)

Maybe I'm not fully in the competitive mindset. Maybe I'm just not taking it seriously enough. Maybe I'm biased since odds are I know more about how the more hazardous stages work than your average player, and thus I'd be at an advantage.

 

[deepseadiva]

Jank removal is fine. Nobody wants jank.

But the standard for what is considered janky is starting to get unrealistic, especially in a Smash game of all things.

"Op, the stage moves: BANNED."

Like WHATTT???????

 

[popsofctown]

I think with triple flossing on a large list, stage conservatives would strike the stages that they don't want to learn, and stage liberals would strike the stages that actually disadvantage them, resulting in a match on a stage that doesn't have very unique mechanics but strategically favors the stage liberal. Then over time stage conservatives would learn the wonky stages so that they endure that disadvantage less because Darwinism and stuff.

Stages with RNG and earlier kill behavior should still be banned because no one should be forced to use their strike to remove variance when fighting a weaker player. But other than that, "I don't like this stage" should be funnelled into a player's striking process instead of a TO's ruleset process, and always should have been.

 

[thehard]

A lot of it comes down to preconceived notions of what is "competitive" and what isn't. And it seems that a lot of people who make the jump from casual to competitive play don't understand that hazards, walkoffs, RNG and even normal "goofy" stages like Duck Hunt can totally be viable for competitive play. It pains me that some really good stages have to struggle to maintain legality from day 1 because they have some form of these elements.

On another note, I know I personally never questioned the neutral/counterpick distinction until I realized there were alternatives. "Final Destination is obviously the most balanced stage..."

 

[Raijinken]

I think with triple flossing on a large list, stage conservatives would strike the stages that they don't want to learn, and stage liberals would strike the stages that actually disadvantage them, resulting in a match on a stage that doesn't have very unique mechanics but strategically favors the stage liberal. Then over time stage conservatives would learn the wonky stages so that they endure that disadvantage less because Darwinism and stuff.

Stages with RNG and earlier kill behavior should still be banned because no one should be forced to use their strike to remove variance when fighting a weaker player. But other than that, "I don't like this stage" should be funnelled into a player's striking process instead of a TO's ruleset process, and always should have been.

Does temporary walkoff/low ceiling stuff like Delfino count as that, though, or is that restricted to things like Gamer and Kalos hazards? It's hard to define what constitutes that sort of RNG. Heck, (correct me if I'm wrong), Smashville has influential RNG with the balloon that can come by and screw up a PK Thunder. There has to be a distinct line to draw somewhere...

 

[thehard]

Dream Land should be banned in Melee because the tree's wind is an intrusive element that disrupts the flow of the match.

 

[popsofctown]

Does temporary walkoff/low ceiling stuff like Delfino count as that, though, or is that restricted to things like Gamer and Kalos hazards? It's hard to define what constitutes that sort of RNG. Heck, (correct me if I'm wrong), Smashville has influential RNG with the balloon that can come by and screw up a PK Thunder. There has to be a distinct line to draw somewhere...

Diddy dittos on Halberd would probably be the only ceiling low enough to have a demonstrable, obvious source of variance. Halberd coincidentally has the claw anyway.

You can make a case that Skyloft, Castle Siege, Delfino, Smashville, or Lylat tends to kill people earlier and make 3 stock games feel like 2 stock games, but those are dependent on how the players position themselves and how they learn to handle transformations, so you would need a bulk of (tournament) data to support banning stages like those for match shortening variance.

When I say "shortening" I don't mean time, since players might camp certain transformations and the game's match time might be longer, but I mean that players are consistently killing eachother at dramatically lower %s on BOTH sides of matchups, so they have less meaningful interactions, so the stage is offering weaker players the option to "counterpick a lower stock count".

Because of the amount of data you would need I don't think you would want to ban a stage like Delfino for killing people early until like a year into the game's lifecycle because you need to prove that's happening. Just because it seems like it does doesn't mean it does. But if after a year you have a consistent data trend that shows one stage constitently behaves with more variance than the others, I don't care if the data comes up and says that about Battlefield, it's a good move to ban the stage so that stronger players don't have to consume strikes against weaker players.


Really I guess I shouldn't mention RNG at all since with this particular game, Smash 4, there's no stage or almost no stage that has RNG and that RNG is the only thing that makes it unacceptable. Even BPC has turned against Halberd for its low ceiling, and the Smashville Balloon, PS2 transformation orders, and traveling stage flight paths don't seem strong enough to create variance in match outcomes.

 

[stancosmos]

A lot of the people in charge want to appeal to their more regular (and often more conservative) players, and thus adopt rulesets already heavily resembling those of past games, rather than experiment more with new picking policies, stagelists, etc.

It's unfortunate, but with each successive game comes more past experience of what's "fair" and what's probably not. So even though, for instance, chaingrabs aren't an issue any more, without bothering to really research (or, for the benefit of those who didn't know that chaingrabs aren't the only reason to ban walkoffs), people just assumed walkoffs are bad and banned them all. People don't search for answers they think they already know.

I agree with all of this. Although personally i'm glad walkoffs arent allowed, I'm slowly transitioning to a shiek main and gimping is how i get most of my kills. Shieks minor knockback makes it so difficult to kill out of the top of the screen.

 

[Raijinken]

I agree with all of this. Although personally i'm glad walkoffs arent allowed, I'm slowly transitioning to a shiek main and gimping is how i get most of my kills. Shieks minor knockback makes it so difficult to kill out of the top of the screen.

I mean, once it was actually explained to me (It's a matter of advantage: If you're a stock up, you can keep taking that 50/50 until you fail, with little risk), I was more understanding of the walkoff ban. But that's the thing: Certain things make sense but their reasoning isn't widespread. Other things aren't as justified, they're just assumed.

 

[T0MMY]

I love playing on all the stages; absolutely thrilled to pieces using Gamer, Great Cave Offensive, and other ridiculous stages. But I can't justify using most of these for high level competition.

When the best competitors are battling it out so the world can see who the stronger character is, an honest matchup, and a clear and fair winner then there's no room for environmental damage, random item spawn, stage transformations and/or janky BS to mess with this holy ritual of competition; Not sure if the world should care if it's not fallaciously perfect to each and every casual stream monster out there.
The competitive community deserves at least its fundamental competitive respect.

 

[Delzethin]

Could another big factor be a lack of information for newcomers? Maybe if there was a way to explain what stage elements were okay, which were questionable but depended on context, and which were auto-bans, then more of the newbies would be jumping in with an informed standpoint than one skewed by false assumptions (FD is clearly the most balanced stage gais or it wouldn't be the only one used in For Glory).

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

When the best competitors are battling it out so the world can see who the stronger character is, an honest matchup, and a clear and fair winner then there's no room for environmental damage, random item spawn, stage transformations and/or janky BS to mess with this holy ritual of competition; Not sure if the world should care if it's not fallaciously perfect to each and every casual stream monster out there.
The competitive community deserves at least its fundamental competitive respect.

It's one thing if people say, "I just don't like this". But saying "this is not competitive"? That's just wrong. So long as the better player still wins and the competition is not trivial, then it's competitive. Environmental damage? If it's non-random, then players can play around it and adapt, gaining advantages through smart play. Transformations are even more blatantly obvious. Look, would you lose to a better player on Smashville? Obviously. Would you lose to a better player on Delfino? The answer doesn't change. Until it does, we shouldn't worry. We should instead worry about artificially neutering the game's balance and removing elements for no good reason.

 

[T0MMY]

It's one thing if people say, "I just don't like this". But saying "this is not competitive"? That's just wrong. So long as the better player still wins and the competition is not trivial, then it's competitive.

I disagree and see it completely opposite.
There are standards and if people simply say "I just don't like this" they get the response "get better, scrub" from the competitive players (playing to win).

There's a well-defined area of competition and all else appears to fit into an anything-goes casual scene.

Example: "I don't like you spamming fireballs with Mario"

This strat falls clearly within the area of competition (if fireballs win the game, use it) and simply saying you don't like it is in opposition to this definition thereby seen from the competitive players as "scrubby".

We are in the Competitive Discussion board, what do you think is going to be the response to "I just don't like this"? ;^D

 

[Sixfortyfive]

T0MMY, do you even read the posts you respond to?

I can't tell whether you're missing the point or just ignoring it on purpose.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I disagree and see it completely opposite.
There are standards and if people simply say "I just don't like this" they get the response "get better, scrub" from the competitive players (playing to win).

There's a well-defined area of competition and all else appears to fit into an anything-goes casual scene.

Example: "I don't like you spamming fireballs with Mario"

This strat falls clearly within the area of competition (if fireballs win the game, use it) and simply saying you don't like it is in opposition to this definition thereby seen from the competitive players as "scrubby".

We are in the Competitive Discussion board, what do you think is going to be the response to "I just don't like this"? ;^D

Ideally? "Get better, scrub". Now here's what one of the leading German TOs told me on my facebook wall:

If I/he (Or a whole region) prefers to play the game that way, that is a pretty damn good reason if you ask me.

And you know what? Technically, he's not wrong. If everyone wants to play the game a certain way, then they'll get their way one way or another. Or they'll stop playing, and then the game is dead, and nobody wants that. Sure, I could legalize Mario Circuit, Yoshi's Island, and Orbital Gate Assault in my tournaments, but then nobody would show up and it'd just be me sitting there with my WiiU. I think it's stupid, and I'm well within my rights to say I disagree, but it's not wrong, because the way he formulated it, it's entirely subjective save for a few facts which are undeniable.

But the claim that somehow stages that transform or strike back are uncompetitive is untenable. On a fundamental level, it is simply not reasonable.

Look, if you can't handle stage transitions, get better. If your game plan relies on the stage not moving and not doing anything interesting, it's a bad plan, because Smash Bros contains an awful lot of moving parts. It has since the beginning. And there's nothing wrong with that. Playing around your environment is an integral part of Smash Bros. It's built into the game's design on a fundamental level. Unless the stage is randomizing competition or trivializing it to a significant degree through some broken strategy, you cannot reasonably say that it is uncompetitive. Stages that move, transform, change gravity, affect the way you play, etc. are part of the game, just as much as Mario's Fireballs. We remove them when they become uncompetitive. But they don't become uncompetitive just by not being Final Destination.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Could another big factor be a lack of information for newcomers? Maybe if there was a way to explain what stage elements were okay, which were questionable but depended on context, and which were auto-bans, then more of the newbies would be jumping in with an informed standpoint than one skewed by false assumptions (FD is clearly the most balanced stage gais or it wouldn't be the only one used in For Glory).

That's why I'm doing my stage threads. Not quite in the way you describe as explaining what stages are and aren't okay, but basic dissemination of knowledge.

 

[T0MMY]

T0MMY, do you even read the posts you respond to?

Yes, every word. Analyzed with tender care and personalized charm.
[/quote]

Ideally? "Get better, scrub". Now here's what one of the leading German TOs told me on my facebook wall:

If I/he (Or a whole region) prefers to play the game that way, that is a pretty damn good reason if you ask me.

And you know what? Technically, he's not wrong.

Well, it's an opinion. It's not about being right or wrong with opinions because that's not how opinions function. It's about agreeing or disagreeing with them. You may say it's not wrong because you agree with it. Whereas anyone who disagrees with it would say it is wrong. That's the silly thing about opinions.
But if you are speaking about technicalities of right/wrong then I would say he's actually technically wrong on the technicality of fallacy (the fallacy called argument ad populum).

But does any of this mean I, as a TO, would tell my attendees I wasn't going to use their unanimously decided rules because it was just an appeal to the masses? No way!
Luckily this is just hypothetical pondering and really doesn't happen in practicality so it's just kind of a big tangent which pretty much ends here (phew, I don't have to host tournaments to a huge group of scrubs, thankfully).

note:

Sure, I could legalize Mario Circuit, Yoshi's Island, and Orbital Gate Assault in my tournaments, but then nobody would show up and it'd just be me sitting there with my WiiU.

But the claim that somehow stages that transform or strike back are uncompetitive is untenable. On a fundamental level, it is simply not reasonable.

I disagree, in the case that competition is defined as player vs player then player vs player vs environment is certainly not untenable. In fact if it were as you say then there really would be no worthy discussion here.

Look, if you can't handle stage transitions, get better.

I actually agree. But please don't take what I said out of context.
The stage transitions I was speaking of was in addition to random spawned items, environmental damage, and "janky BS". If a stage transition causes a game breaking glitch it could very well reasonably be banned. I'm sure you see the context now.

If your game plan relies on the stage not moving and not doing anything interesting, it's a bad plan, because Smash Bros contains an awful lot of moving parts.

Correction: It can contain moving elements.
The Stage can also be static. Coincidentally the static stages are usually the more favored for competition.

But they don't become uncompetitive just by not being Final Destination

Yeah, nobody was arguing this.

My whole angle isn't with the Stages themselves but with the process by which the Stages are determined. For instance my opponent has a lot of fun circle camping me on a giant Stage until the time runs out or the giant fish eat me or the giant bombs blow me up whereas I came to the tournament for a clean and fair competition (as advertised) and refuse to play in that kind of environment. Who gets the decision where we play?
Well, really depends where the competition takes place, The Competitive Arena or the Casual Scene.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I want a more open stage list personally. I think it changes the metagame and allows for more variety. We should first allow the metagame to develop before we talk banning stages.

Stages like dk 64 norfair Luigi mansion ps2 skyloft pilot wings mario circuit (wiiu) etc etc etc should all be legal. Delfino was way worse in brawl i don't remember it being banned.

 

[Pyr]

I want a more open stage list personally. I think it changes the metagame and allows for more variety. We should first allow the metagame to develop before we talk banning stages.

Stages like dk 64 norfair Luigi mansion ps2 skyloft pilot wings mario circuit (wiiu) etc etc etc should all be legal. Delfino was way worse in brawl i don't remember it being banned.

Luigi's should absolutely not be legal for the same reason every other stage that has teachable, large walls/ceilings should be: People live forever on them.

DK is exploitable for some characters and makes some matchups literally impossible for characters to win.

Norfair has some kinda brutal hazards, but I'm indifferent.

PS2 is debatable. On one hand, it's a transforming stage. On the other, **** literally all of it's transformations.

Skyloft is another stage where you can live forever on.

Pilot wings should be CP. It's not to bad.

Mario Circuit, meh. Just meh.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

To anyone saying Pilotwings is playable: no. Stop. Watch this video, then get back to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD9m_zYPexM

It's really completely broken. Camping under a platform next to a solid wall is an overpowered position. We've known this since Melee. The other plane just has straight-up circle camping - if that ROB tried to approach the charizard, the charizard could jump up through the stage and run to the other engine. The stage is just broken, for many of the same reasons Venom was broken in Melee.

Luigi's Mansion has the problems of really annoying, persistent cave-of-life effects. It effectively breaks the stage in tournament play, because the most important factor is "how well can you tech". It mitigates every other skill in the player's arsenal in favor of that one. That's degenerate and worth banning.

Kongo Jungle 64 is debatable. Does anyone have a video of Barrel Camping? If not, we should wait until we have a good example of it. @Amazing Ampharos seems to think it's not a problem, and I trust his judgment; particularly because I need an odd number of stages and can't think of another decent 13th.

PS2 is a no-brainer. Nothing is broken. Nothing is degenerate. Every single transformation can be adapted to. Full stop. If you don't suck, you can figure out how to play on that stage.

Pyr is wrong about Skyloft; @ Pyr you probably mean Skyworld. That stage is broken for many of the same reasons as Luigi's, but Skyloft is a pretty straightforward Delfino clone.

Norfair is... Iffy. The hazards really do cover most of the stage, and the jets of lava from the background are a little bit unannounced, and often show up while out of the camera, making it very hard to adapt to them. Then there's the additional problem of characters like Pikachu being able to just run all over the stage without much stopping them. I dunno, I'd like to see it legal in some tournaments so we can get some data, but I can't push it through in my region.

Mario Circuit has one game-breaking glitch involving the ceiling. The problem with this is, it's hard to get consistently and if you play campy around the time it shows up (and you can see when it's going to show up once you learn where it is, because you always go around the track in the same direction), there's no reason to get hit by it. I think we should treat it like the boat glitch on Wuhu - if you get murdered, that's on you. Other than that, it's a solid counterpick with a bunch of really unique, interesting elements.

 

[Pyr]

Pyr is wrong about Skyloft; @ Pyr you probably mean Skyworld. That stage is broken for many of the same reasons as Luigi's, but Skyloft is a pretty straightforward Delfino clone.

Crap. My bad. I retract my comment about it. Skyloft isn't bad at all.

 

[DeLux]

I need an odd number of stages and can't think of another decent 13th.

BF
CS
DH
DP
FD
KJ64
LC
PS2
SV
SL
TC
WHZ
WI
1 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 1 strikes
1 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 1 bans
Double blind characters all games (before striking game 1 and loser picking stage game 2+)
Double blind customs after characters (caveat being you have to declare which customs before the game starts if asked)

Been running that and the diversity in the scene is absurd in characters and stages

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Luigi's should absolutely not be legal for the same reason every other stage that has teachable, large walls/ceilings should be: People live forever on them.

DK is exploitable for some characters and makes some matchups literally impossible for characters to win.

Norfair has some kinda brutal hazards, but I'm indifferent.

PS2 is debatable. On one hand, it's a transforming stage. On the other, **** literally all of it's transformations.

Skyloft is another stage where you can live forever on.

Pilot wings should be CP. It's not to bad.

Mario Circuit, meh. Just meh.

If your character loses on a stage you ban that stage. I don't see how d character can't win on a stage makes a stage ban worthy. That's the point of a counter pick lol.

Pilot wings is a transforming stage that wall isn't permanent. Also I didn't watch the whole video but tge rob missed attacks on the charizard and can even shark him. Your reasoning for banning this could be applied to Delfino as well. Camping next to a wall and such. That's hardly something that's insurmountable.

There's nothing really degenerative about LM's it'd be a good cp for some characters and others would have to ban it. You live a bit longer big deal.

Norfair is fine as well. Yeah there's hazards but they not that bad. It was also legal for parts of brawls life span. You can play around the hazards on this stage.

The metagame will stagnate if the stage list lacks variety.