The Official 64BR Recommended Ruleset

Competitive Recommended Ruleset

Competition Rules

Competition format is Double Elimination.
If possible, brackets are to be generated with a Random Number Generator (RNG). It is recommended Tournament Organisers have a consensus from players before any seeding/byes are placed in-bracket.

All sets with the exception of the below are best-of-3.
Winners Semis, Losers Quarters and Losers Semis are best-of-5.
Winners Finals, Losers Finals and Grand Finals are best-of-7.
Online matches are best-of-5, with Winners Finals, Losers Finals and Grand Finals best-of-7.

Set size is ultimately up to the Tournament Organiser, but these are general guidelines.

Game Settings

Mode: STOCK
Stocks: 5
Handicap: OFF
Team Attack: ON
Stage Select: ON
Damage: 100%
Item Switch: NONE
All Characters Available

Stages

The Starter Stage List consists of Congo Jungle, Hyrule Castle and Dream Land.
The Counterpick Stage List consists of Peach's Castle.

First match of all sets is selected by a 3-stage striking system with the Starter Stage List. An impartial observer/tournament organiser flips a coin to decide who strikes first. Rock-paper-scissors is alright too, but it's technically a skill irrelevant to smash. If this is impossible (online), whoever strikes first will be pre-decided by an RNG.

The 64 Recommended Ruleset uses the stage striking system. In this system, players take turns striking stages from the Starter Stage List until only one remains; these stages are not banned and can be counterpicked later in the set.

Gameshark stages? LOL NO. Up to your TO.

Characters

All characters are legal.

Black DK (Right-C), Dark Samus (Down-C) and Dark Falcon (Right-C) are discouraged if Congo Jungle is the stage for visibility reasons. The opposing player may reset the match without penalty if they wish for a colour change. Taking or dealing any damage nullifies this right.

Low Tiers are all characters in B tier and below: Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Jigglypuff, Ness, Luigi, Samus and Link.

Set Procedure

• Players select characters for first match. Double Blind Picks may be called.
• Players strike stages.
• The first match is played.
• The loser of the previous match selects the next match's stage from the Starter Stage and Counterpick Stage Lists.
• The winner of the previous match selects their character.
• The loser of the previous match selects their character.
• The next match is played.
• Above four steps are repeated if necessary.

General Guidelines for Console/Offline

• Console is strongly recommended over using a Wii (frame skipping) or laptop, though laptops and Wiis aren't discouraged, particularly if there are special requests. A lagless laptop in particular is usable, as it has no frame skipping or input delay, but console is still strongly recommended.
• The (U) version (NTSC) of Super Smash Brothers is recommended over (E) (PAL), (A) (PAL) and (J) NTSC.
• If there are requests to play using Gamecube controllers, a Wii with the Virtual Console version of Super Smash Bros. can be used. Alternatively, suitable PC adapters may be used.
• If there are requests to play using a keyboard/non-Nintendo/third-party controllers, a laptop set-up is recommended. Each controller user is responsible for bringing relevant adapters and drivers (on a USB stick), and to calibrate their own controllers.
• Tournament organisers should discuss and organise these arrangements beforehand.
  
• It is recommended a 8/10 minute time limit is put in place for all matches, especially Hyrule. This may be difficult to enforce.
• Draws are decided first by stock, then by percentage.
  
• Disrupting your opponent physically or intending to disrupt their play will result in a warning. Repeated action will result in disqualification from the tournament. Observers who physically disrupt players are to be dealt with as the Tournament Organiser sees fit. Disqualification is recommended if possible.
• Pausing is discouraged, and should only be done at the end of a stock, if at all. At other times, the pauser loses their current stock. If the pause causes the opponent to lose their stock, the pauser loses two stocks.
• Extreme stalling is disallowed. Any reported case of such will result in a warning, followed by automatic forfeit of the match. If this is reported again, automatic forfeit is enforced without a warning. If there is no movement from either player, the player with fewer stocks/loser percentage is considered to be stalling.
• Pausing and resetting (A+B+Z+R) should not be done unless both players have given consent prior. It is strongly recommended all tournament matches are left to finish, without any resets, even for the sake of saving time. This clearly shows who would have (and did) win a match. If resets do occur and there is a valid dispute, the person who reset forfeits.
• Mages DQ is enforced. When a match is called, both players must promptly arrive. If a player is 2 minutes late, they receive a warning. At 4 minutes late, they lose the first game of the set and forfeit counterpick rights. At 6 minutes late, they forfeit the entire set.
• Pool play should preceded brackets play if the number of participants is suitably large. This is left to the Tournament Organiser's discretion, given 64 has low dedicated attendance rates.
• It is recommended that drugs*, including alcohol, are prohibited at tournaments for the sake of both the venue and the participants. Legal issues are possible, and use of drugs in the vicinity of the venue by participants should be heavily discouraged or prohibited completely. Relevant Federal and State regulations on drugs obviously apply.

* Healthcare drugs such as insulin supplements (diabetes), Epi-pens (anaphalactics) or asthmatic inhalers (asthmatics) are exempt, given usage is by those suffering from the relevant conditions.

General Guidelines for Online

It is difficult to formally define a desynch, but when both players report that the opponent is doing something odd (attacking air, jumping off and completely failing to recover, etc), it can be considered a desynch. Input from players still goes through, so standing still and not moving at all is generally not a desynch (pausing to type, etc, are exceptions). Pausing the game is recommended over desynching, though neither is recommended (obviously).

• Tournament Organisers are responsible for drawing brackets, publicly showing brackets/rules and disqualification. The Smash 64 Competitive Events section is recommended for posting tournament threads. This includes deciding who will strike stages first via RNG.
• Matches are to be played with P2P Kaillera clients. Recommended emulators include Project64k, Project64k Vista Edition and variants of Mupen64k, such as Mupen Beta++.
• If a match is played on server, observers must ensure they will not cause lag or an increase in frame delay, and may not communicate with players once a match has started.
• The North American (U) version of Super Smash Bros is strongly recommended over (E), (A), (I) versions. Using All-star! Dairantou Smash Brothers! (J) should be either a separate bracket or the theme of the tournament.
• Desynchronisation in any single match will result in a restart of that match, with all previous successful matches counting. If possible, it is recommended that the exact stock and percentage at the point where desync occurred should be used. This may be difficult, especially if the desync occurs during a hard-to-escape combo, so if both players agree, resetting to just stock is okay.
• If the frame rate consistently drops below 57fps and there is a clear offender, they will be given one more chance to replay that match - lagging again, even in a different match, will result in disqualification.
• Disrupting your opponent or abuse through Kaillera should be reported via a Print Screen/equivalent function, and will result in disqualification from the tournament.
• Pausing is discouraged, and should only be done at the end of a stock, if at all. At other times, the pauser loses their current stock. If the pause causes the opponent to lose their stock, the pauser loses two stocks.
• Extreme stalling is disallowed. Enforcing is incredibly difficult. If it is reported, a server match with impartial observer is recommended to decide penalties fairly. Penalties are the same as Console penalties.
• It is recommended that inactivity over a period (decided by the organiser) is met with warnings and/or disqualification.
• Pausing and resetting (A+B+Z+R) should not be done unless both players have given consent prior. It is strongly recommended all tournament matches are left to finish, without any resets, even for the sake of saving time. This clearly shows who would have (and did) win a match. If resets do occur and there is a valid dispute, the person who reset forfeits.

Additional Doubles Rules

• Life Stealing (pressing Start when eliminated) is allowed.

Legal status of DK's Infinite Cargo Hold is left to Tournament Organiser discretion. It is recommended that the Cargo Hold limited to 2 releases to prevent abuse. One opinion is that the Cargo Hold can be regarded as a stall. If time is being enforced, it may be considered as such after 2-3 re-releases with the throwing player not attempting to do anything with it. It is advisable that this is cumulative in order to prevent abuse of this rule by throwing other moves in-between.

The following is how to escape the Cargo Hold. The tournament organiser may wish to inform players of this if they are not restricting the Cargo Hold.
This is only a recommended ruleset, and it is encouraged that Tournament Organisers take it and modify it as they see fit, while understanding the reasoning behind each of the recommendations and taking said reasons into account.

Other rules such as region-locking for online are left to the Tournament Organiser.

[collapse="Simple version of the ruleset"]
Legal Starters:

• Congo
• Hyrule
• Dream Land

Legal Counterpicks

• Peach's
• Congo
• Hyrule
• Dream Land

All matches aside from the below are best-of-3

• Winner's Semis, Loser's Semis
• Winner's Finals, Loser's Finals
• Grand Finals

Set progression:

• Players select characters for first match (double blind)
• Players strike stages (rock-paper-scissors)
• First Match
• Loser picks next stage
• Winner chooses character
• Loser chooses character
• Play match
• Repeat above four steps

[/collapse]

This is a very detailed set of rules that covers pretty much everything, good job to whoever helped come up with this.

I wish I had that no pausing rule when I played snake in MATTS! tournament

Feel free to make suggestions, guys.

Like Star King said, we're very open to any suggestions, especially from those who have organised tournaments before, both offline and online.

Edited and stickied this up for clarification

I think that if you show up to a console tournament you should have to play on a 64 console with a controller that plugs into said 64. No Wii or Laptop.

It was put in there because 64 tournies are almost always run alongside melee/brawl, which means one TV will be free for melee/brawl play. A lagless laptop setup, with appropriate adapters, is fairly close to console, and lets people use their xbox 360/keyboard/whatever controllers. Laptops are usually around anyway, since people do recording, meaning a USB stick and controller is all you need to set up 64. Sometimes practicality takes precedence, and Wii consoles can play all three games. If you want melee/brawl players to play 64 for the hell of it, the Wii is just as good a bet as the N64. While we understand there are differences between VC and console, other people won't really care.

Pretty sure that console is 'strongly recommended' in the ruleset anyway.

cool more rules, but the pause rule and losing a stock......yeeeeeeeeah

asianaussie said:

It was put in there because 64 tournies are almost always run alongside melee/brawl, which means one TV will be free for melee/brawl play. A lagless laptop setup, with appropriate adapters, is fairly close to console, and lets people use their xbox 360/keyboard/whatever controllers. Sometimes practicality takes precedence, and Wii consoles can play all three games. If you want melee/brawl players to play 64 for the hell of it, the Wii is just as good a bet as the N64. While we understand there are differences between VC and console, other people won't really care.

Pretty sure that console is 'strongly recommended' in the ruleset anyway.

Click to expand...

The TO should also always bring N64 adapters with him and have a controller plugin pm the emulator rightfully prepared for N64 controllers that will give the closest experience possible to console play.

At the last tourney I went to, the TO brought a 2-port N64 adapter, and another person brought his 1-port adapter. I brought 4 N64 controllers and the emulator, and a laptop was borrowed from the management. When the 64 tourney ended it was returned and used for recording. I played keyboard throughout, while others used N64 controllers, which were calibrated by the respective adapter owners.

Worked quite well, but console is still recommended.

sharksquail said:

I think that if you show up to a console tournament you should have to play on a 64 console with a controller that plugs into said 64. No Wii or Laptop.

Click to expand...

I agree with this. I can't come up with any super-solid arguments for this, though, except that adapters aren't perfect, and N64 is the real deal.

lol at the drugs rule

*****s gonna be mad if I bring a soda

MattNF said:

lol at the drugs rule

*****s gonna be mad if I bring a soda

Click to expand...

Yeah I thought the same thing when I saw that. But yeah, this is just a suggested list.

Looks good, but I have an issue with the controller portion - if a request is made to play with a gamecube controller on a wii but there are options available that would allow n64 controllers, I don't think that that request should be allowed. The person requesting the alternate setup should always be at the mercy of the individual who is capable of using an n64 controller. Asking them to bring pc adapters is reasonable, but a n64 to gc adapter is more expensive and cumbersome. The layout of the gamecube controller makes some movements difficult if not impossible, especially when dealing with DJC.

Regarding online server play, requesting /p2pon should be allowed. I think the issue of delay and use of the samedelay command should be discussed and decided upon as well.
Also, and not like it happens often, but it is not difficult to fake a ds and continue fighting by catching your opponent off guard. This has happened to me unintentionally at times, where I let go of the controller to type if there was a ds, and during that time the opponent strikes. If opponent hits nothing for a certain amount of time or intentionally dies or something, it should be considered a ds anyway.

The rule about the color change on kongo also can have some potential problems as well. I can be falcon and hold down-b and damage my opponent before he has time to reset unless he is very quick. I think the time limit should be increased.

Player starting positions I assume should be treated the same as melee/brawl.

sharksquail said:

I think that if you show up to a console tournament you should have to play on a 64 console with a controller that plugs into said 64. No Wii or Laptop.

Click to expand...

The Star King said:

I agree with this. I can't come up with any super-solid arguments for this, though, except that adapters aren't perfect, and N64 is the real deal.

Click to expand...

In that case, tell it to the tournament organiser. This goes for everybody making this particular statement. I'm not changing it here, because it's merely a guidelines for what to do in case there are such requests.

Can't believe I recommended banning caffeine o.o

firo said:

Regarding online server play, requesting /p2pon should be allowed. I think the issue of delay and use of the samedelay command should be discussed and decided upon as well.

Click to expand...

Please elaborate. I'm not well versed in this sort of stuff.

why is saffron not allowed?

^ Ness, I also dont think the stage is very balanced anyway imo.

As I have hosted a few online tournies, I think there should be a change to

Online matches are best-of-5, with Winners Finals, Losers Finals and Grand Finals best-of-7.

Click to expand...

I find that 4/7 WF and LF is overkill. Either make everything 2/3, WF and LF 3/5 and GF 4/7

or

make everything 3/5 and GF 4/7.

For online matches, IMO.

If the pause causes the opponent to lose their stock, the pauser loses two stocks.

Click to expand...

I also feel this should be discussed more.

Edit: Sorry I keep thinking I am in the disco room, double posts.

You should also include somewhere, that if a participant is unable to P2P then he must play on the server of his opponent's choice. If both are unable to P2P a middle ground should be taken.

Everything else looks good. Great job.

I think a rule could be reworked that saffron can only be a counter pick and, at the request of a ness player, could only be picked once.

Just think about the stage, though, it is quite unbalanced in general imo. I would rather just have it banned.

Saffron is ridiculously easy to camp on. Random elements such as electrodes/charmanders and stuff appearing also make it a difficult stage to play fairly on.

Tournament Organisers can go ahead and add it in with Peach's to a 5 stage striking list, but that's up to them.

Nobody seemed adamant about either banning or allowing Peach's Castle. It seems like most people lack experience on that stage.

So I guess further testing is in order.

I am glad saffron is out tbqh.

I think peach's should be 100% allowed, no question.

Peach's is good for a number of characters imo, like Falcon, Link and Ness. Mario and Luigi can get decent platform drop stuff going as well.

There's just nothing incredibly unfair about the stage - you're just as likely to be saved by the hazards as you are to be foiled by them.

great counter picks against samus and link obv. Also anyone with upb landing lag will have trouble.

Yoshi just plain ***** on it. As well as pika (but thats slightly more obvious)

I'd argue Link is actually alright on it, given a lot of the approaches are from above/below rather than from the side, and Link has pretty decent up/down stuff.

by shielding, you can assured you can just shield grab after the upb hitstun wears off and throw them off the stage.

repeat

The only suggest i can make is in online torunament, make Fighting Polygon Team Stage as neutral.

battlefield is bad because of the ledges

Why???? You need to have a good DI. bad di is a sure death, but a good di is the salvation.

Don't think battlefield's ledges let you ledge DI normally...isn't that the main problem?

asianaussie said:

Don't think battlefield's ledges let you ledge DI normally...isn't that the main problem?

Click to expand...

Yes, for me anyway.

battlefield's ledges are evil

if you try to DI towards the ledge, you go straight down rather than horizontal

Battlefield is a stupid stage to play on. One time I was mario right below the edge and a falcon from even lower uair'd me. On any other stage it wouldn't have killed me and I would have just been knocked up and over the stage. But because it was battlefield, I hit the ledge and flew completely horizontally towards the death edge and died.

Good to see that Hyrule is not the only neutral anymore. First step to less campy fox's.

The /p2pon command cuts out the server messages and pm and stuff during an online match. Enabling it does not have any adverse effects and can possibly cut down lag a bit.

The concern with delay in a server match is that there is might be a delay difference between the different parties. LAN allows for 1 frame of delay for some people, and opponents might have 3-5. Is this enough of an advantage to be considered unfair? The /samedelay command gives all parties the same number of delay frames (highest number of frames of any player). Should this be allowed? Should players be forced to spoof upward? It's hard to say.

Any other comments on the other points I posted? I feel that they are all legitimate concerns.

Saffron is NOT banned because of Ness. It's banned because it sucks in general. Particularly Kirby utilts on the helipad are near unapproachable.

I also disagree with the laptop set up thing. If people agree to play on a computer set up, like in the Chile tournament, that's fine, but there's no way that I want to go to a random tournament and have people demanding to play me on a computer. For one, not all my controllers work with my adapter. Also emulator is not the same as console anyway.

but you're a jerk so your opinions don't matter

Like I said, tell the relevant tournament organiser, not me. It's a recommended ruleset for a reason, and I'm keeping the recommendations there. Console is clearly recommended over the others.

What about range settings and whatnot for off/online? I know all controllers respond differently, so will the TO set up the ranges for each port ahead of time (for offline computer), or should there be a suggested range value for each type of controller that can be used (XBox, N64, GC, etc.)? You also have to take into consideration keyboard players, too, though... Hmm...

This would be nearly impossible to enforce for online, however, so I don't know where to stand on this subject, apart from saying that too much (unrealistic) DI can cause problems, especially for players who like to play fair and have their settings match console as much as possible (I know Boom voiced this concern a couple times).


Also, to add to the Saffron discussion: Saffron is good for kicks. It's a fun stage that is god-awful for competitive play because of camping and the overall "choppiness" of the stage. It's difficult to move fluidly, and makes approaches tough sometimes, like what ballin said.

And for online, what about Yoshi's Island without clouds? I know gameshark stages are frowned upon, but we could really use another stage, and Yoshi's Island is a fantastic stage if clouds are eliminated.