Fourth and final community vote about Meta Knight.

FB Dj_Iskascribble · Jul 28, 2009

Ant-ban shouldnt have to re argue. just go look at one of the other three threads and see why pro ban lost. nothing has changed in their favor

ETWIST51294 · Jul 28, 2009

SuSa said:
How come I haven't figured out how to see the results like that?

Not fair.

Press on the numbers...

noradseven · Jul 28, 2009

As stated before some ppl like me who hate playing as MK don't want him banned, but onward.

Anti-ban ppl just keep saying stop crying well what are we supposed to tell you, that MK isn't the best character in the game, well I mean he is someone is going to be the best that how it rolls.

Im more worried about what will happen after we ban MK because personally I fear a snake domination far more than an MK one, but overall its just more frusteration because in all seriousness the no MK tourny results look shockingly similar to the ones with MK, with just a good bit more marth in the mix, and a tad more olimar(the 2 characters who MK 1/2 way invalidates because he is there main roadblock).

I guess what Im trying to say is for the most part MK beats ppl he doesn't invalidate them nearly as much as snake/falco/ddd/other top tiers do.

Famous · Jul 28, 2009

vato_break said:
Uffe wrote at 8:44 PM on Jul 28, 2009 :
Death is my destiny.

Lol, pretty much...Or the SBR wanted a laugh from seeing both sides argue...

P. O. F. · Jul 28, 2009

Praxis said:
Before anyone brings up Akuma again, consider this.

Generally, Akuma and MK is a bad comparison because Akuma 90:10'd his whole cast. But...has anyone considered the cast of HD Remix?

In Street Fighter II HD Remix, Akuma was REBALANCED (by David Sirlin himself, hired by Capcom) to be a playable character, intended to be tournament legal.

He ended up having no bad matchups, but still being beatable and not even winning every tournament.

The SF community fought for months. Several anti MK ban smash players like AlphaZealot were arguing against banning him too.

In the end- the SF community banned him, and he was banned at Evo. And David Sirlin SUPPORTED this.

A major player wrote:

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=170255

Street Fighter II HD Remix Akuma == Metaknight?

Praxis FTW. Reposting again because this covers everything into true logic.

Roxas M · Jul 28, 2009

Thiocyanide said:
As an additonal counterpoint to pro-ban, who seems to show Melee off as some great balancer, let's look at some results, shall we?

1. Mango - Jigglypuff/Falco - $2,280
2. Armada - Peach - $1,425
3. Hungrybox - Jigglypuff - $855
4. Zhu - Falco/Fox - $570
5. Mew2King - Marth/Sheik - $228
6. Scar - Falcon - $171
7. Darkrain - Falcon - $114
8. Hax - Falcon - $57
9 Pink Shinobi - Peach
9 Raistlin - Jigglypuff
9 Lambchops - Falco
9 Dashizwiz - Falco/Fox
13 Vwins - Peach
13 Tope - Sheik
13 Jman - Fox
13 Darc - Jigglypuff

What placed well here?

Jiggs, Falco, Fox, Peach, Falcon, Marth, Shiek

But wait! Two of those characters were used by one person, and - by god, is that TWO jiggs in the top3? 7/25 characters were used, 28% of the cast. Now, over to Brawl.

1. Ally - Snake - $2,336
2. M2K - Meta Knight - $1,460
3. Tyrant - Meta Knight - $876
4. Dojo - Meta Knight - $584
5. ADHD - Diddy Kong - $233
6. DEHF - Falco - $175
7. Fiction - Wario - $118
8. SK92 - Falco - $59
9. Judge - Meta Knight
9. Lain - Ice Climbers/King Dedede
9. Ultimate Razer - Snake
9. UTD Zach - Game & Watch
13. Bardull - Marth
13. Havok - Meta Knight/Marth
13. Zex - Marth/Meta Knight
13. Chip - Toon Link

Who placed here?

Snake, MK, Diddy, Falco, Wario, Ice Climbers, D3, GnW, Marth, Toon Link.

Several of these characters are loners, and we see several MKs and alt MKs. But none of the MKs are first, and we also have two Falcos in the top 8. As for the amount of the cast used, we have about 10/35 of the cast members, or... wait, WHAT?! 28%?

Holy crap, Batman! Those numbers are the same! And if we look at the distribution of mains:

4 Jiggs, 3 Peach, 3 Falco, 3 Falcon, 1 Marth, 1 Sheik, 1 Fox
5 MK, 2 Snake, 2 Falco, 2 Marth, 1 Wario, 1 Diddy, 1 Ice Climbers, 1 Game And Watch

Well cripes! It looks like the distribution for the top 16 is much closer to uniform for the Brawl results!

Clearly this isn't conclusive and there are almost certainly a few flaws in my reasoning, it's still good evidence that arguing Melee as the harbinger of balance is kinda ********.

.....that's 1 tournament.
you need more evidence than that to convince me. and placings don't mean as much as the character itself. we're banning mk not the tournament.

SuSa · Jul 28, 2009

Wow... I clicked everywhere BUT the numbers (Which btw are only ever so slightly different then white for me... )

Glad to say, I'm one of the few..the proud... the Red's who voted No.

Master Raven · Jul 28, 2009

jesus **** i feel like i walked into an orgy party

Prawn · Jul 28, 2009

Praxis said:
Before anyone brings up Akuma again, consider this.

Generally, Akuma and MK is a bad comparison because Akuma 90:10'd his whole cast. But...has anyone considered the cast of HD Remix?

In Street Fighter II HD Remix, Akuma was REBALANCED (by David Sirlin himself, hired by Capcom) to be a playable character, intended to be tournament legal.

He ended up having no bad matchups, but still being beatable and not even winning every tournament.

The SF community fought for months. Several anti MK ban smash players like AlphaZealot were arguing against banning him too.

In the end- the SF community banned him, and he was banned at Evo. And David Sirlin SUPPORTED this.

A major player wrote:

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=170255

Street Fighter II HD Remix Akuma == Metaknight?

Wow I was anti ban but like this changed my mind sort of, I'm on the fence again.

I wish I hadn't voted yet

[FBC] ESAM · Jul 28, 2009

AvaricePanda said:
Pro-ban, ask me these questions:

Why now is a ban necessary? You've been using the same argument for a year, and the MK "problem" has only gotten better, yet people are still fussing on about how MK will only get worse, and he's dominating tournament results, etc.

Let's look at something.

This has been said since November, and since November, his overall tournament results have declined. While he still is in the lead for best results, they aren't nearly as bad as half a year ago. Look at the two most recent, most competitive, largest Brawl tournaments; Apex and Genesis. A lot of people said, "Let's wait for Apex!" It happened. One out of the top eight was a pure MK main I believe, with two or three others using him as a secondary in some matches. Ally, a Snake main, won Apex. Most people said, "Let's wait for Genesis!" 3 out of the top 8 were pure MK mains, no one else using him. Ally, a Snake, won Genesis.

The fact of the matter remains that in genesis 4-5 of the top 8 used him as a secondary to CP and to make the matchup more in their favor. That is the point of the pro-ban saying that he ****s up the CP system. Don't know results of apex so i can't argue about that.

These results have a decent decline from other large tournaments such as hobo11 and CoT4 in the past, yet people are saying that MK's tournament results will only grow. They've shrunk. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that his tournament placings will get better.

True. However, MK has needed to be banned for a while. The only reason he wasn't was because the game was even younger. Having this many tournaments have that many MKs place high is a bad sign, regardless of age of the game.

First of all, what exactly is an even match-up? If you're really on-paper-picky, then even match-ups don't exist except for ditto matches (but even then, port priority). But realistically, an even match-up is just a match-up where it's very close, and the more skilled player will generally win. And the top players are pretty close in skill.

The point of a matchup ratio is to decide out of 100 matches one character will win some amount and the other will win some amount, asuming they are on the same skill level. If MK has no matchup worse than 50:50 (probably the hardest being himself) it means that MK will win more matches than he will lose. Yes, it is POSSIBLE for him to lose...just less likely in most cases

To say that MK has no even or close enough to even match-ups is hard, given the evidence. Ally, a Snake main, has gone back and forth with M2K, an MK main, as well as beating other top MKs. Lain, an Ice Climbers main, beat Dojo and M2K, both MK mains, at Apex. ADHD, a Diddy main, has beaten Dojo in an MM at Apex and come very close to beating both M2K and Tyrant in previous sets.

Matchup experience comes into play with lain and ADHD. M2K lost to lain at Apex, but then ***** him back in loser's finals because he realized how to play against him. Ally's style of snake is very VERY good, but if the MK plays perfectly against that style, MK will still win more matches than the snake will

If MK had a clear advantage on every one of his match-ups, why would things like this be happening?

MK doesn't have a clear advantage in EVERY matchup, just enough to make 75% of the cast unplayable against him. THe other 25% still barely go even with him. MK wins more matches against every character than he loses, with the exception of another MK. THe fact that he has a higher chance to win against EVERY CHARACTER than EVERY CHARACTER's chance to win against him is prepostorous

If you want to argue the match-up specifics of why I think that he has even MUs like Snake, ICs. and Diddy, then go ahead and challenge me, because I don't feel like writing out long match-up summaries. I will say this though; Diddy Kong especially has only improved in this match-up since it's been explored, and he has a lot of known technical room to grow, such as single banana locking and working out the kinks of mid-ranged zoning, room to grow in the match-up that MK doesn't have. These match-ups are looking worse for MK as time goes on.

He has even matchups?? ****, he must not be broken then...
/scarasm
Just because the person doesn't 100% win every match doesn't mean he isn't bannable. He clearly makes EVERY character in the game less viable, other than himself. You can never use anybody in a tournament with a 60:40 against MK or worse because you will be over-run if you don't have a secondary. This also ****s the game mechanics up because it requires people who don't main MK from the start to pick up 2 characters, splitting their attention which makes the metagame for EACH of those characters develop slower

First: Snake and Diddy Kong.

So MK doesn't win every match 100% of the time. Oh no!

Second: Planking and aircamping have been known for ages, The infamous Plank vs. SK92 match where Plank...well...planked and played very campy was a match from September of last year. It's late July now. Everybody knows about the match, everybody knows about planking and air-camping, INCLUDING MK mains. If they wanted to have planked every match to net a win by now, they'd do it.

Yes, air planking/real planking have been known for a long time. However, do you see ANY metaknight use them every match? Do you see EVERY metaknight do it until the person gets around it? The fact of the matter remains that people just get bored with the actual style MK can play, and it makes the game A LOT less fun for both parties. Hell, M2K ends up playing a more aggro style instead of a defensive one because he doesn't like being defensive. Just because you don't like doing something doesn't mean it isn't better to do. I don't like running, but it doens't mean it isn't good for me.

But not only do many people choose not to play like that because it's boring and not fun for them (M2K being a good example of this), many don't do it much even if they could because they aren't horribly broken. A good chunk of the cast has a very safe answer to planking, and EVERYONE can get past planking and air-camping by simply approaching. Is it safe? Not always. Do we know the specifics of what each character can do against planking and air-camping? No. So should people stop saying, "LOL IT'S BROKED BAN EET" and actually try to find out how good or bad it is before they say it's bannable? Yes.

Exactly. Approaching ISN'T SAFE! When your one chance to even the game up isn't safe that makes the game retardedly difficult. A metaknight can just realize from what angle the opponent is approaching and either hit them away, or run away and start camping from a different position. The top players of each character have tried to find ways around air camping, but not enough people actually do it so that when it actually does happen the people can't do anything about it. You prove to me that every character can deal with air camping...hell, even 10 characters can deal with air camping and you are right in this point.

People have been saying that since November.

It's late July now.

Hey, guess what, competitive Brawl still exists! And look, all of the signs, such as his match-ups and tournament placings, show that his lead on the cast that he once held is now, in fact, slipping! There's no evidence to suggest that the meta-game will deteriorate, especially since people have been saying that for over half a year and the situations only gotten better!

I don't see how the situations have gotten better. Metaknight still places in the majority of tournaments. No other character has even CLOSE to the same success as metaknight. It isn't like there is one dominant player that ***** every region. Every single region has some sort of MK problem. The only region I can think of that doesn't have a MK as #1 is the MW with anther. However, he loses to the top MKs of other regions (tyrant, M2K, Seibrik) so MK would dominate that region if a good enough one came around. Metaknight still dominates most regions, and most is good enough. You don't need MK to win every single tournament and have every top placing, just most of them comparing to every other characters, which he does.

There is no logical reason to ban MK at this point. While the scare back in November or whatever was understandable, the situation's gotten better, and pro-ban is using the exact same argument. If competitive Brawl would have died, it would have happened by now. There is no evidence to suggest that MK will have some broken new tech, or MK will dominate results in the future. Even if there was, you don't ban things pre-emptively because you theory-craft that they MIGHT be bad. You ban them when they're a problem.

Yes, there is no evidence to suggest that MK will have even more dominance than he already does, but the dominance he already has is scary! 22% of all top 3 placings? Holy **** man, that is ****ing ridiculous considering how many characters there are in this game. No one characters should have 11/50 top 3 spots. In theory craft MK is bad, and in actuality MK is bad.

Meta Knight is not a problem, and Meta Knight will not be a problem.

Meta Knight should not be banned.

Those last 2 are just opinions

You said nobody was responding to you, so i did. Have a nice day. Responses in bold

Bob Money said:
How does Ally win national tournaments not using Metaknight?

If one of you pro banners could answer that, please.

Again, MK doesn't have every matchup that he is going to win every time, but the times ally has won tournaments have been THE ONLY national tournaments that a MK hasn't won. You can't invalidate all those wins with 2 losses, considering a lot of the top placers all at least second MK

Reposting because this thread scrolls too fast.

Also, for all you pro-banners saying MK is invincible, you are wrong. He isn't invincible, just too strong and he clearly outpowers a majority of the cast, while still beating the rest. He isn't invincible, but he shouldn't be allowed for reasons stated in the avarice panda quote response.

ShadowLink84 · Jul 28, 2009

Thiocyanide said:
Akuma was banned without ANY debate, and yet, a year later, there is still a TON of debate here.

This invalidates my argument how so?
Considering the argument is that saying "we must wait before banning anything" is a terrible argument in itself.

And that its only when it is said "We must wait only when the subject in question is borderline that we must wait."

Which was the argument made earlier and thus, is the result of my response.

Thiocyanide said:
stuff

I am sorry but do explain as to what this has ANYTHING to do with my statement.
The comparison in question is NOT MK is similar to Akuma.
That is NOT the case, and the fac tthat you yourself are bringing up Akuma's matchups, shows that you yourself are trying to refute an argument that has not been made.

I shall repeat again, in bold red letters.

The Comparison is NOT that Akuma is like Metaknight. No such comparison has been made. It is to show that the statement of "we must wait in regards to the banning of subjects" is not valid unless the subject is something that is highly debatable.
As such I am comparing MK's highly debatable legality, to Akuma's obviously illegal status as a method of showing that the aforementioned argument is flawed and should be reformed. Nothing else.

Seriously, I've had to repeat myself in regard to this in the past, and people STILL think I am comparing the two characters to each other directly. Its just a strawman when you make such a response.

I didn't respond to the rest of your post since it was a misunderstanding on my part.

Remzi · Jul 28, 2009

Maniclysane said:
So get better at the game. You said it yourself, he wins because he's that good. That means you need to become that good. Skill is the determining factor in competitive games.

So I guess this IS the best argument yall have to offer.

MK has not been beaten. MK cannot be beaten. Players controlling MK can and have been beaten.

MK as a character is invincible. Ally is so much better than most players, that he can compensate for his character. This does not make MK, as a character, any less unbalanced.

Are we going to not ban a broken character, because one insanely skilled player can consistently beat him?

marthshadow said:
bengals, why are the pro-ban people waay more prepared than the anti-ban?
and why do they start using marth as a argument to keep mk?

It's easier to defend an argument that is so clearly correct >.>

and the marth argument is sooooooooo dumb lol

dextasmurf · Jul 28, 2009

I SAY MEW2KING NEEDS TO BE BANNEDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.....(grumbles) always takin my f-ing money

FB Dj_Iskascribble · Jul 28, 2009

marthshadow said:
.....that's 1 tournament.
you need more evidence than that to convince me. and placings don't mean as much as the character itself. we're banning mk not the tournament.

thats exactly what pro ban said in every other thread. something new please
the anitban advocates arent here. dont judge us on what noobs say

Awesome Turtwig · Jul 28, 2009

Mwhahah! *strikes down metaknight*

Bob Money · Jul 28, 2009

Ally is a *human* being with skills. So am I, so are you. Saying he is the exception makes no sense unless he's not human.

The problem with comparing SRK to Smashboards is that SRK (EVO) is THE accepted standard (tournament) for fighting games in America. Brawl does not have a standard "world series"type of thing to adhere to. In the end Mr.Wizard made the decision to ban akuma from HIS tournament which is the standard tournament in SF community. Therefore because ONE TO decided to change the standard man adhered to it because people want to train (go to tournaments) practice with EVO as the goal. To frown at EVOs rules as a major fighting game TO would be frowned upon by the Fighting community.
This is not the case with Smashboards because its not backed by anything the community recognizes as the standard for tournaments. If MLG banned metaknight then I think the Akuma banning comparision could be used.

HyugaRicdeau · Jul 28, 2009

You can debate theorycraft all you want, but the proof is in the pudding.

Assuming the stats are correct, MK taking 30% of the prize money in Apr-Jun is laughably distant from anything that could be considered ban-worthy. The statistics do not show that MK is unbalanced to the point of warranting a ban. That should be the end of the discussion as far as I'm concerned.

CRASHiC · Jul 29, 2009

dj_Iskascribble said:
thats exactly what pro ban said in every other thread. something new please
the anitban advocates arent here. dont judge us on what noobs say

http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=7972230&postcount=11

Remzi · Jul 29, 2009

BananaHammock said:
Wow I was anti ban but like this changed my mind sort of, I'm on the fence again.

I wish I hadn't voted yet

Why the hell is that post so convincing for some people?

We are not SRK, we have our own way of doing things, and as much as I want MK banned, that's not why he should be banned. There are a million other reasons for that.

Stop meatriding SRK people.

Like honestly, nothing related to brawl was presented, and people are changing their opinions on a brawl related issue.

itsthebigfoot · Jul 29, 2009

marthshadow said:
.....that's 1 tournament.
you need more evidence than that to convince me. and placings don't mean as much as the character itself. we're banning mk not the tournament.

evo's 2 mks in the top 8 enough?

how about apex?

CrimsonSnow · Jul 29, 2009

Ban MK...and also Nu.

ANTi_ · Jul 29, 2009

sasukebowser said:
This thread has gotten enough voters so that I can't both the Pro and ban vote percentages on the same screen without scrolling.

http://i27.tinypic.com/2vuzc0i.jpg

Yoo how you do that?

'V' · Jul 29, 2009

No matter what happens, top tiers will win and low tiers will lose.

This is why either :

(A) You ban more than just one character to try to balance things out for the majority of the ENTIRE cast

or

(B) You make certain tournament divisions where only certain characters are allowed like in heavyweight boxing. Have an only-high tier division and an only-low tier division.

Either way, the game's still pretty broken, but at least people will have a little more fun using the characters that they like. At least for low tiers anyway.

CRASHiC · Jul 29, 2009

*_ANTi_* said:
Yoo how you do that?

click on the number.

Falconv1.0 · Jul 29, 2009

itsthebigfoot said:
evo's 2 mks in the top 8 enough?

how about apex?

Lain beat M2K at Apex.

Amazing Ampharos · Jul 29, 2009

The pro ban argument is weak, and I feel strongly that Meta Knight should not be banned. This will be the longest post of my life, but please allow me to make my case.

Marc said:
Pro-Ban Side

We believe that Metaknight should be banned from competitive play, for both the health of the game and of the community.

As such, this document has been written to outline several key points to explain the reasoning behind a ban. We will begin with the first point explaining ban criteria, and follow into what makes Metaknight "too good" of a character. The latter points delve into the effects of MK on the metagame as a whole and the community. We appreciate your taking the time to read our argument and make an informed decision.

Okay.

1. Metaknight is bannable.

Before we choose to ban or not to ban metaknight, a criteria must be set on what it takes to ban a character. We will write two criteria on what it takes to ban an aspect of the game. You may ask “where did you get this criteria, did you pull it out of your behind, like a Gordo or Stichface? No. Our ban criteria is derived from two sources: history/practice (past smash games, stuff we did ban in Brawl) and to a lesser extent, popular opinion.

In other words, your ban criteria aren't at all based on a theory of rulesets in competitive games? A sound ban proposition should have a theoretical basis. History is total bunk; by asserting there's a problem, you agree what we've done up to now is inadequate. We can't look to the past for answers. Popular opinion is also bunk; large groups of people can be and frequently are simply wrong. I don't see a reference to what truly matters, sound theory. By not placing a strong theory of competitive gaming first, the whole position lacks credibility.

To summarize our ban criteria and the reasoning behind it – before we go into the details to support it- here we are.

Criteria to ban something in the game

[1] That aspect of the game must be so different from everything else in the game that it is an alien to the rest of the game.
[2] That aspect of the game must decrease the quality of every aspect of Brawl.

These seem like weak criteria. [1] is basically an argument that aspects of a game must be similar to each other; why? I see no reason this should be true; the outliers are often the most interesting characters in fighting games. It also suggests there would be an argument to ban a radically different character even if he were really bad. For instance, consider a character that automatically removes stocks when his attacks connect. This character on a basic level is nothing like the rest of the cast. However, consider also that his attacks are at fastest frame 50 and that he's lighter than Jigglypuff with Link's recovery. Okay, he'll never hit anyone and is obviously the worst character in the game. Should this theoretical character be banned? I suggest obviously not. He's horrible, and anyone who picks him is basically deciding to lose. Being different is NOT an argument to ban anything.

As per point [2], quality is completely subjective. Mew2King says Meta Knight is the most fun character. Therefore, we can conclude that the overall gameplay is of higher quality in Mew2King's opinion with Meta Knight allowed. Therefore, [2] does not universally apply to Meta Knight since I have cited one person who disagrees strongly. [2] is really just bunk.

Now, why set these criteria? Is it arbitrary? No. The reason these are ban criteria is because:

A- Everything we have banned in Super Smash Brothers history has met both of these criteria, and
B – Besides Metaknight, there is nothing we have yet to ban that satisfied both of these criteria.

The issue is simple. Metaknight shares all the same aspects of Brawl that we have ALREADY BANNED – In Brawl, and to lesser extents, Melee and Smash 64. Thus, Metaknight should be banned as well.

I would point out that "what we have banned" is not very clear. Regional rules differ so much that only very obviously broken things could be called things we have banned in the past non-controversially. We banned the infinite dimensional cape and New Pork City sure. It's hard to say we've banned much more than that... Items even are debatable because we could argue easily they are NOT banned; they are a setting we simply choose to set to off for the sake of having a single tournament standard (all off with frequency set to "none" bans no more than frequency set to "high" with every item whose name begins with a consonant set to "on" with the ones whose names start with a vowel set to "off"; it's all arbitrary).

Before I go into some details, please realize that the ban criteria the anti ban side come up with are likely not in accordance with past smash games but more likely in accordance with other fighting games. Then ask yourself what is more important: to ban what we the smash community have decided has been banworth over our series’ 8-10 year history, or to ban what other communties have set as ban criteria? Obviouisly, because this is a Smash game, the ban criteria we have set in SMASH GAMES SHOULD OUTWEIGHT THE BAN CRITERIA SET IN OTHER FIGHTING GAMES. We are the smash community and we are our own entity. Our game is NOT Street Fighter. We choose as a community to follow our own path and, while we take guidance from other communities, our own history sets a better standard than the history of other games.

Our community, over 8-10 years, has managed to come to endless bitter arguments over rulesets with vast regional rule differences with the SBR imposing some vague order on the mess, though it's honestly pretty ineffective since large tournaments like Genesis blatantly flaunt SBR rules and ban stages not recommended for banning by the SBR (why does no one get upset over this?). Oftentimes arguments within our community about bans are very poorly formed and rely on emotional appeals such as "PictoChat is gay" [this means NOTHING] or "Corneria encourages camping" [you need to demonstrate why this is a bad thing]. Those are only two examples; we could find endless more and not just stages (look at arguments about infinites!). I don't really see that we're a success story. To be fair, smash rules are far harder to make than Street Fighter rules due to the large number of pre-game choices present in smash, but this isn't an argument to just follow the same path we've always followed. We need to instead formulate a very rigid theory for rulesets to apply, and it just happens that some elements of other fighting game communities (such as the oft-cited David Sirlin) have laid some good groundwork that we might like to cite. Of course we have to adapt things to the unique circumstances of smash, but to ignore the work of the greater fighting game community, a group to which we honestly belong like it or not, is foolish at best.

I want to be clear I am not dismissive of our community; I engage myself in it because I am optimistic about the future of Brawl and its community. I do want to be realistic though, and that means we can't overlook our flaws even as we celebrate our strengths. In this, looking to other fighting game communities that are strong where we are weak may be valuable.

Now, I will show the ban criteria. Then in A, I will explain how everything we banned as a community fits the ban criteria. In B, I will show how Metaknight fits the criteria.

[1] The aspect of the game must be so different than every aspect of the game that it is alien to the game.
A - What have we banned that follows this criteria?

Examples: Items, Crazy Stages, Stalling Techniques

The first thing people will say is that items are banned because they are random. That is not why they are banned. Otherwise, why do we set the first stage on random? Why do we allow King DDD to use forward b and Peach to use down B? Why is Halberd not banned (it has random hazards) Items are banned because winning based on a random event is foreign to all the other reasons you should win. As a community, we want winning to be based on overall skill set, not your ability to deal with a random event. You cannot disagree that if you are far better at dealing with food on very low than your opponent, you will likely win the items match. It has a very low effect on the outcome, yet food on very low is banned. The random factor is even smaller than the hazards on some legal stages. It’s just that as a community, the skill of being able to deal extremely will with a random event is ALIEN to the rest of the skills of the game – mind games, spacing, tech skill, and so on. This applies to crazy stages. We don’t want to see how good you are at teching. If you were perfect at teching, nobody would ever beat you on Hyrule Temple in Melee or Luigi’s Mansion in Brawl. You’d be unbeatable. But winning based on teching alone isn’t a skill you’d want to test. Same goes for stalling. It takes skill to stall. Both players can do it. So why not allow it? It’s because it’s alien to spacing, mind games, tech skill. It’s alien and we don’t care to measure this as valuable.

We do NOT set the first stage to random. That IS unfair. We use a stage striking procedure, ideally among 7 starter stages (my region uses 7, and it works out super well).

This doesn't define skill at all. The argument about skill means nothing because it doesn't define what it's talking about. I would argue that skill at competitive game X is whatever allows you to win at competitive game X with greater frequency. Therefore, arguing that anything is not skill that makes you win is non-intuitive. This post does not present a counter for this simple position because it chooses not to define basic and ambiguous terms.

That point about Luigi's Mansion is truly absurd. Is the author not aware of the plethora of trajectories that avoid the surfaces or, more significantly, the fact that you can destroy the mansion? Teching is very frequently tested anyway; when Donkey Kong does his cargo stage spike on you on a stage such as Final Destination of Smashville (both legal everywhere), your ability to tech could very well determine if you live or die. The point about stalling is the most inane of all because we DO allow time wasting tactics such as just jumping around and airdodging a lot as Wario. Only when the tactics are uncounterable (such as the Luigi ladder in teams) do we consider it banned stalling.

B. Why Metaknight follows this Criteria

This point is supported by the rest of the pro ban argument. It’s all the stuff about MK having no bad matchups – its about MK’s unique ability to stall matches and break the planking ledge grab rules. It’s about MK’s over focus on the Metagame. Sure, it takes skill to win with MK. But guess what? It takes skill to stall too. It takes skill to deal with food on very low. It’s just that, these aspects are so foreign to the rest of the game that they should all be removed. With MK in, success in brawl is determined in your ability to beat one matchup, honestly. Notice that the best players in the world are those that are simply good against MK. This is the #1 far and above beyond aspect that makes or breaks you as a player, even if you are meh at every other matchup in the game. It’s foreign and fits the ban criteria. With MK removed, the game isn’t about defeating one matchup so much as it is about winning a massive load of matchups.

This isn't true at all. Your opponent can pick any character he wants. If you are amazing at fighting Meta Knight and terrible at fighting Diddy Kong and your opponent picks Diddy Kong, what do you think happens? Meta Knight isn't even half of what you fight in a tournament; statistically only about 1/3 of your foes will use Meta Knight. Do you think it's mindlessly easy to beat the other 2/3? It's an insult to the mains of every other character to argue this, honestly. If you run into me, you had better know something about fighting Mr. Game & Watch or I'll steamroll you no matter how great you are at fighting Meta Knight. If you run into Ally and aren't versed in navigating grenades (since Meta Knight doesn't have those), the only real question is whether he'll 2 stock you or 3 stock you.

Meta Knight having no negative matchups is also extremely non-obvious. It's very easy to see a reasonable person arguing that Snake beats Meta Knight 55-45. Even if you disagree, can you assert for ABSOLUTE CERTAIN that Meta Knight has such a clear advantage? You also have to consider stage-character combos. Mr. Game & Watch beats Meta Knight 60-40 on Green Greens and 55-45 on Norfair. I know him better than anyone else, but I'm sure such circumstances exist in every matchup at least among the good characters (if you want to use Captain Falcon against Meta Knight, you can't expect the rules to help you).

[2] That aspect of the game must decrease the quality of every aspect of Brawl.

A – Examples of things we banned that fit this – Crazy stages, Stalling, Items

Yup, the exact same examples. When you are playing on a crazy stage, every aspect of Brawl – counterpicks, excitement of watching the match, spacing, mind games are all minimized in favor of playing on the stage. Stalling. Stalling decreases the quality of watching matches, decreases viewing interest in the game, spacing, mind games and everything. It becomes a battle of who can avoid contact. Much like MK’s existence becomes about defeating MK and the ability to counterpick MK. Items. I’m not talking about bombs, and crazy things. I mean FOOD ON VERY LOW. Why is this banned? To be honest it’s because, bluntly, WE JUST DON”T LIKE IT. Can one seriously argue that food on very low is going to make a much more skilled player lose to a less skilled player? No. But, food’s EXISTENCE decreases the importance of every single other thing – mind games, spacing, tech skill. We just WANT to play a game where these qualities are the be all end all to test, not a game where food decreases the importance of these. Quite honestly food on very low is banned because it gets in the way of the game we want to play.

Anything that matters decreases how much everything else matters. Mr. Game & Watch can frequently make the game VERY spacing intensive. By doing this, he decreases how much your timing abilities matter (no timing helps you if you're out of range!). Fox, on the other hand, stays in your face and forces precise timing which makes your spacing abilities matter less (if someone can quickly move in and interrupt you every time, your ability to position yourself isn't so useful, is it?). There is a point that we do have to decide which skills we are going to be testing at some point, but the game largely dictates that by what it rewards with us at best giving a subtle hand. This is really a non-argument.

Yes, the argument boils down to “MK is not broken enough to be unbeatable, but MK is broken enough to ruin every quality and aspect of the game in the same way everything we have ever banned has been.” That is where we come up with the banned criteria. Things we’ve banned in Smash Brawl, Smash Melee, and Smash 64. If you are getting your ban criteria on PERSONAL DESIRE or OTHER FIGHTING GAMES, is it really as substantial as getting it from all the banned aspects of the series of games Super Smash Brothers Brawl? What we have banned as a community and the reasons we have banned them are ALIGNED with why the pro ban side wishes to ban Metaknight.

Using all caps makes you seem more correct, right?

Sorry, that was a bit snarky, but I'm honestly not seeing any substance to this last point at all so much as yelling at people.

2. Metaknight is the best character in the game by a significant margin.

It is universally unquestioned that Metaknight is the best character in Brawl, and with good reason. The term broken is often coined; and since the term often is used with different meanings, we should begin with defining the term "broken". For our purposes, we will define "broken" as "A word used to describe an element in a video game that does belong, and is above aspects or mechanics of the game." We as pro ban believe that Metaknight is "broken" within this definition.

Is it really universally unquestioned? That's a bold claim. Can you demonstrate it? After watching Ally's Snake in action, I personally don't think it's clear that Meta Knight is better than Snake (you're already completely wrong since you made a universal claim and one person disagreed). Your definition is vague at best. Mr. Game & Watch is an aspect of the game, and Captain Falcon is an aspect of the game. Ganondorf is a third aspect of the game. Therefore, we could consider Captain Falcon and Ganondorf jointly as "aspects of the game". Warlock Punch and Falcon Punch could be considered "mechanics of the game". Mr. Game & Watch as a game element is above Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, Warlock Punch, and Falcon Punch as "aspects or mechanics of the game". Since he exists, there's really no reason to use any of those other things (though there are many other game elements that are above those four; they're really just terrible). Is Mr. Game & Watch broken as well? This definition is simply unclear, and I could use it to argue that almost anything is broken depending on how I choose to interpret it. It's not a sound basis off which to argue Meta Knight should be banned for sure.

An analysis of Metaknight's moveset demonstrates his capabilities as the best character. Such an analysis is too lengthy for this writeup, but see Praxis' brief list or perhaps Fiction's lengthy document.

Allow me to address those sources head-on.

Praxis's document...

Transcendent priority is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it does indeed allow him to pass through other attacks. On the other hand, it does not allow him to use his attacks defensively. As a Mr. Game & Watch main, I'm very familiar with using my aerials to protect myself from projectiles. I might, for instance, stick my turtle out to eat Pit's arrows as I approach him. Meta Knight cannot do this; if he sticks out his own back aerial, Pit's arrows will pass through and hit him. Not so great, is it?

The point is wrong anyway since not all of his sword attacks have transcendent priority. His glide attack is a sword attack, and it does not.

Meta Knight's up aerial is not a momentum cancel as it does not alter his momentum in any way that any slower aerial also could not. It does allow him to potentially use a move that cancels his momentum, but Meta Knight does not have particularly good options in this regard. Mr. Game & Watch may not have any aerials that finish as quickly as Meta Knight's up aerial, but his bucket clearly gives him better momentum canceling options.

Meta Knight's nair and dair are indeed good moves. Many characters have good moves.

Meta Knight's forward smash has exceptionally long start-up, allowing many characters to "punish" by simply attacking Meta Knight before it comes out.

Yes, Meta Knight's down smash is very good. I could say that Snake's up tilt is also notoriously fast for a kill move (6 frames, and it kills significantly lower with less cooldown than Meta Knight's down smash).

Shuttle Loop is indeed an exceptional move, but it should be noted that those invincibility frames are from frames 5-8 so it is far inferior as a protective out of shield measure to moves such as Marth's Dolphin Slash that have frame 1 invincibility (Meta Knight will get hit if he tries to up special out of shield right before a hit).

Mach Tornado is indeed good, but it's also extremely high commitment. Drill Rush is the same way.

Dimensional Cape is just a terrible move other than the banned IDC. Why bring it up?

Yes, Meta Knight has a very good airdodge, but it overall has less utility than another good air dodge such as Wario's due to Wario's more useful physical properties that afford him more mobility while airdodging.

Fiction's document is in a horrible file format I don't intend to open (why not .txt?). Praxis's was already just a list of "these are good moves" that didn't really do much to say anything other than the fact that Meta Knight has good moves so I'm doubtful it's that interesting.

Individual aspects of his moveset are merely tools MK has available to him, and obviously do not in themselves prove Metaknight to be broken. The deeper issue is that, when this moveset is combined into one character, the result is a character that bypasses several aspects of the game. The following points will examine how Metaknight fits this description.

I'm doubtful, but let's save it until the following points.

3. Metaknight has a perfect recovery and an abnormally safe ledge game.

One of the basic game mechanics that Metaknight bypasses is that of recovery. Metaknight's recovery is virtually perfect; he always has a safe option to recover, unless he has needlessly wasted them. With the combination of his multiple jumps, shuttle loop, two glides each capable of crossing clear to the other side of the stage, tornado, Drill Rush, invulnerable Dimensional Cape (as well as Infinite and Extended Dimensional Cape to cross the stage), and quick aerials with little ending lag make his recovery not just safe, but unstoppable barring a mistake on the part of the Metaknight. By bypassing the entire edgeguarding aspect of the game, Metaknight takes less damage and virtually never gets gimped, which, when combined with his excellent momentum cancels, greatly minimize the seeming "lightweight" disadvantage.

I killed a Meta Knight off-stage with Mr. Game & Watch's forward aerial at a tournament last Saturday; it was not something that would have been easy to avoid. Meta Knight does indeed have an exceptional recovery, but "perfect" is an exaggeration at best. I have already demonstrated his momentum cancels to be non-excellent (at the very least worse than Mr. Game & Watch's, though I'd love to see an analysis of the momentum altering properties of Meta Knight's specials, the thing that really matters for momentum canceling ability that this argument simply did not address... though I doubt it's that good since all four ultimately terminate in a helpless falling state).

The pro-ban side has prepared a video demonstrating why MK's recovery breaks normal standards of recovery and breaks the game's normal edgeguarding mechanics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDCG6NF10oU

I watched several minutes and saw a large series of tricks to use... on stage. Where is the recovery aspect? Stop being wimps and chase him actually off-stage; this is just an argument against trying to greet Meta Knight at the ledge... something that was really obvious (even the fiercesome recovery of Ganondorf has good counters to people trying to do that).

Metaknight's extremely powerful recovery ties in to the issue of safe options, which will be discussed shortly.

We'll see.

Another point is Metaknight's ledge game. Typically, in smash, being on the ledge is considered a disadvantaged position. In Brawl, there exists a subset of characters who are safe on the ledge as they remain on the ledge (playing on ledge the entire match is referred to as "planking"). These characters include Mr. Game & Watch, Marth, and of course, Metaknight. A ledge grab rule was created to discourage planking from dominating matches, and for the most part, it has been effective- except where Metaknight is involved. Metaknight is the only character in the cast capable of stalling offstage in an unapproachable position over an extended period of time in between the ledgegrabs (and further, gliding under the stage to the opposite ledge if threatened). As a result, we see Metaknight players continuing to abuse such strategies in spite of rulesets designed specifically to stop it; and said rulesets were instituted for the most part due to Metaknight users abusing planking in the first place.

Ledgestalling is incredibly unsafe. Consider this. While it is indeed hard to hit a Meta Knight, Mr. Game & Watch, or Marth player correctly ledgestalling, they too are at great risk. If they get hit, they are extremely likely to be stagespiked and possibly killed. You can only force an approach to the ledge when you have a lead, and in those cases you are forcing a mutually risky situation at best. You want to avoid risk when winning and create risk when losing. I'm not seeing the advantage here. At absolute best it's powerful only in select matchups; I certainly don't fear anyone ledgestalling me when I play as Mr. Game & Watch (I'll happily join MKs off-stage where I easily outrange them with my superior set of aerials and invincible up special), and I stopped ledgestalling myself because it was losing me matches, not winning them.

Testimonial agrees with me anyway. Plairnkk, the innovator of these tactics, claimed not to use them against Azen because Azen is smart and beats them. In general, he abused such tactics to the limit and never dominated the tournament scene with them. This suggests those tactics to be non-broken.

4. Metaknight has too many safe options.

In Melee, and in Brawl, most characters are capable of limiting the options of each other until the opponent is in a disadvantaged situation. Snake, Diddy, Falco, Wario, and ROB are examples of characters that excel at limiting the options of their opponents. In any situation, there is generally a certain amount of options the opponent can take that will result in either them being hit, you being hit, or neither being hit, and the goal is to put the opponent in a situation with minimal options that result in you being hit or neither.

For example; Fiction's Wario is trying to approach a Snake. Out of lets say 20 scenarios, he gets hit in 10, he hits snake in 5, and neither of us get hit in 5. He wants to make sure he keeps using those 5 options where no one gets hit until he can find the situation where he can hit snake without being hit in return. If Fiction were to simply rush snake without using the neither-hit option, he would have a 2/3 chance of getting hit..something that he doesn't want. When snake gets Fiction in a bad situation, such as having used his double jump above his head, while Snake has shot a mortar up in the air and has a grenade on the ground, there are more like, say, 5 situations. In those 5 situations, most snakes can cover 2-3, while a very good snake (such as ally), could possibly cover all 5 at once, making sure that he gets hit no matter what I do. This is called A DISADVANTAGED SITUATION.

Yes, such situations exist.

Unlike the rest of the cast, due to his numerous jumps, glides, priority-ball specials, quick low-lag aerials, best airdodge, and powerful defensive moveset, MK has a "safe" option in almost any situation that results in the neither-hit result. As MK cannot be trapped in such a manner, MK is capable of continuously choosing safe options until punishment opportunities arise. This is why so-called "gay" Metaknight playstyles are so effective. MK is capable of abusing his safe options, and in some matchups, to an absurd degree- for example, the DEHF vs Dojo matchup, in which Dojo ran the timer out by simply remaining in the air using his aerials defensively the entire match (a match which a Genesis judge wanted to DQ him for, despite the fact that no rules were violated).

This is just not true. Meta Knight has very poor aerial mobility which puts him in a bad situation quite frequently. Sure he has several jumps, but they just don't move him very fast. Let's say Meta Knight was just pushed upward by the wind hitboxes of Mr. Game & Watch's up aerial. He is now high in the air and needs to get down. If he tries to use his air control and jumps to get out of the way, Mr. Game & Watch can continue to up aerial him until he has no more jumps, further limiting his options. Gliding is really unsafe from that high, and all of his specials will leave him in helpless which is sure to get him hit. If he tries to airdodge through, Mr. Game & Watch can simply fishbowl on top of his airdodge, get some good damage, and send him upward again! If he tries to plow through with dair, Mr. Game & Watch can reset with uair or go for some sure damage by plowing through with Fire (doing 6%) and then putting Meta Knight in a situation in which it will be very hard to avoid a key, most ways to avoid it resulting in Mr. Game & Watch being below him again (that's bad, remember?).

The Genesis match is basically a joke. DEHF was playing as Falco, and he chose to pursue a strategy that amounted to "spam lasers and camp". Dojo, as Meta Knight, secured a lead and used assorted defensive maneuvers to simply avoid the lasers. Other characters could have done the same even easier (top tier Lucas defeats this strategy by simply holding down + B). Regardless, it's clear this isn't a very effective strategy, and Dojo was defeating it. In this situation, the correct thing for DEHF to do would have been to stop spamming lasers and to approach in an attempt to hit Meta Knight. He did not and chose to continue to spam. He also continued to fail to hit and then lost to time. His loss was to the fundamental reason that he was using a non-aggressive strategy when he was losing, saw it was not working, and chose to continue to pursue that strategy in the face of the evidence. He lost, and it seems only right and proper.

Due to these points, we believe that Metaknight is a character that is not in line with the rest of the cast, and thus not fit for competitive play.

I'm not seeing it.

5. Meta Knight breaks the counterpick system.
Super Smash Brothers Brawl is based on counterpicks, both via stage and character; this is most especially true in singles. The existence of said counterpicks is ignored only by the most obtuse and stubborn members of our smash community, with the majority of competitive smash players embracing the concept and learning stages that are good or bad for certain characters as well as getting secondary characters to create more favorable matchups.

Counterpicking is indeed important, but few players learn counterpick characters. The two best players in the world are Mew2King and Ally. Mew2King uses Meta Knight and only Meta Knight. Ally uses Snake and only Snake. As I look at my local smash scene, almost all of the players use only one character, including Steeler and Zeton who mains the definitely not top tier Pokemon Trainer and Fox (yes, Zeton plays Fox vs Pikachu in tournament, and he has won before). The people who use secondaries are unpredictable too. We have MetalMusicMan who uses King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Falco last I checked (certainly a high tier fiend). We also have Thinkaman who mains Jigglypuff and does indeed use a secondary. His secondary is Ness. Our most character diverse player, InfernoRage (claims to use everyone except Zero Suit Samus), does not use primarily Meta Knight even; at the last tournament, he used mostly R.O.B.. The appeal to numbers that most players pick up secondaries is simply not true regardless of whether you look at Meta Knight uses or not.

Generally, counterpicks are character dependent more than stage dependent. The most extreme example generally involving infinites or zero-deaths, such as Pikachu vs. Fox, or D3 vs. DK, and less extreme simply based on movesets, mobility, edgeguarding, gimping, combos, juggles, and a variety of other factors leading many to see obvious advantages in matchups like MK vs. Luigi, Falco vs. D3, or Marth vs. Jiggs. Stages also generally play a factor, admittedly less of one due to our banning of extreme stages like Shadow Moses or Bridge of Eldin. Stages increase our odds of winning by naturally enhancing our characters strengths as well as our opponents weaknesses; you will find Falco winning on Jungle Japes often due to his spike into the water negating many recoveries while Falco's side-b does just fine in getting him back to the stage, and Metaknight's gimping abilities are no stranger to Rainbow Cruise.

Stages are the main counterpick factor I see around here. Midwest-West has more liberal stage rules than some other regions which I credit as being one of the main factors of our healthy diversity in all aspects of Brawl (characters included!). I still remember a few months ago annihilating a decent Meta Knight who didn't know what to do on Green Greens (and then winning on Luigi's Mansion due to stage knowledge, overcoming his character advantage). I do see people try to character counterpick sometimes, and it ends up just not working. Try picking Mr. Game & Watch against Thinkaman (the Jigglypuff main) if you aren't a real G&W main and expect pain. Even try picking Pikachu against Zeton the Fox. For one, good luck grabbing him; he's not just going to let you. For two, good job getting him to 80%. Now kill him. If you aren't good with Pikachu, you are going to find this hard since he'll fight back very hard, and other than chaingrabs Fox has a natural advantage on Pikachu that he knows how to exploit.

We've built Smash on the back of this counterpick system to make things fair. There are no "fair" stages; Snake does extremely well on all flat stages with platforms, most notably Smashville and Battlefield, but pales in comparison to ROB on mobile stages like Rainbow Cruise or Frigate Orpheon, and the Ice Climbers themselves would easily prefer Final Destination. We allow for double blind picks and force the winner of the prior game to choose their character after the stage is chosen, and then allow the losing player to counterpick with a character of his choice, resulting in at least one "uphill" battle for each player and one "fair" starting match via our stage strike system.

Unfortunately, Metaknight breaks both the stage aspect and the character aspect. The only stages Metaknight has shown to do poorly on have been Shadow Moses, Bridge of Eldin, and other ridiculously one-sided stages. As for characters, Metaknight has shown to have only even matchups at best and has continually outshined every other character in the game. Because of this, Metaknight inherently breaks the counterpick system.

Green Greens is a reasonable stage in general (SBR suggests it as counterpick/banned) and Meta Knight is pretty poor there. Yoshi's Island (Melee) is quite mediocre for him in general. Anyway, like I said, different characters want different thing against Meta Knight. Sure Meta Knight will love Norfair against Snake. He will like it a lot less against Mr. Game & Watch; experience has taught the local Meta Knights to ban Norfair against Mr. Game & Watch.

Should you consider Diddy a good character (as many do), an even matchup with MK, and a tournament viable character in many other matchups, you would have company. However, that Diddy player will have to go through a counterpick that is not favorable for him in every set in addition to all the bad matchups he must face when he runs into Marth, ROB, or anyone else that has an advantage over him. Metaknight never has this issue in any way.

The MK numbers never go down. If MK had a counter, this would not be occurring and instead we'd see an influx of the counter character to Metaknight. If we suddenly saw a rise in Donkey Kongs, wouldn't we see a large number of Dedede secondaries within a month or two? Metaknights numbers have consistently increased, not decreased, and it is due to his lack of a proper counter character and stage.

Meta Knight is definitely really good and does not have hard counters, but can't we say the same for Pikachu in smash 64 and Sheik in melee? In general all the good characters have pretty winnable matchups against each other anyway; the character matchups are really not nearly as big of a deal as they're made out to be. If Diddy Kong meets Marth, who wins? Some people want to say "Marth", but I think the more obvious answer is "the better player" with the matchup difference being small enough that it's honestly just not that big of a deal.

6. Metaknight detracts from the metagame.

As the game has grown, each region has seen their own share of strong players playing strong characters of a large variety. As time went on, we discovered Snake to be extremely powerful and he dominated the tournament scene. The game then became figuring out "what beats Snake" and we found several counterpicks and counter-characters. Despite Snake being proclaimed as a "counter" to MK, it was Metaknight that took the top spot from Snake and has stayed there by a large margin ever since.

Meta Knight is possibly the best character. Someone has to be.

This alone is evidence that Metaknight is something special. The points above individually mean nothing, but together they mean that Metaknight detracts from the metagame. At low level play, Metaknight is the signature character of "broken" with all his powerful options and gimps, at mid level play he is the magic pill that finally gets you out of the slump (it gets tiring losing to the same character, right?), and at high level play he is the constant "safe option", a pocket secondary that EVERYONE can pick up and play effectively with little to no serious training in addition to Metaknight being a viable main on his own.

My Meta Knight is awful; I can't play him at all. I lose to players I generally beat with Mr. Game & Watch if I use Meta Knight. Meta Knight is a character that many players find natural. It's definitely not universal though; his poor aerial mobility, absolute lack of a projectile, and generally extremely non-lingering hitboxes are very awkward for some players.

This creates a metagame focusing around Metaknight at all levels. Low level players have already been conditioned to see MK as the dominant threat due to his dominance, and mid level players are often seen choosing Metaknight to solve their problems; it is only through a community-wide soft ban and personal preference that he hasn't fully permeated the scene. Many players do not pick Metaknight because he is "too gay" or they simply want to pick another character because they love that character! When you are playing to win, Metaknight is the primary serious option and this has been apparent to us at high level play. No other character has been a more consistent main and secondary at the top level of play.

Many would argue that recent performances make Ally arguably the best player in the world. Ally does not use Meta Knight. The community wide soft-ban argument is simply absurd. The real reason everyone doesn't use Meta Knight is that he's not right for everyone, and switching to Meta Knight is just a check for who has the better Meta Knight... a check to which you'll surely fail against the people who are serious Meta Knight mains. I believe that no matter what investment I put I could never do as well against Meta Knight in a ditto as I do with Mr. Game & Watch. That's why I use Mr. Game & Watch and not Meta Knight. I play to win. I do not believe I am alone in this.

In a tournament setting, the ideal (and the reason people pick up secondaries) is to never play a matchup worse than 5/5, and not open yourself up to stage counterpicks that disadvantage all of your characters. Players often develop secondaries to account for certain stages and their bad matchups (such as an Ice Climbers main on Brinstar). In a game with such a dual-counterpicking system, a character with no bad stages or bad matchups (matchups worse than 5/5) is "broken" in the sense that anyone who does not play that character is opening themselves up to stage and character counterpicks. By completely removing the counterpicking aspect of the game, Metaknight not only becomes the ideal guaranteed universal option that every reasonable player should use, but also removes the importance of the rest of the cast (why pick a character with a bad matchup when you don't have to?).

Meta Knight is already open to stage-counterpicks. At a tournament with liberal stage rules with me using Mr. Game & Watch, he must face either Green Greens or Norfair. Both put him at a disadvantage. He's not guaranteed anyway since you probably "click" better with some other character and will be able to play better with them. Ignoring personal player abilities is a tragic flaw, and it's also the reason multiple characters are used in any fighting game, not just Brawl (every game has a best character, or at best a 2-3 best characters... yet virtually all of them see far larger casts being played).

When the game focuses on beating someone that is commonly played, easy to use, powerful, eliminates common game mechanics (like edgeguarding and counterpicking), and whose sole weakness is a temporary "since everyone plays MK, we know the matchup vs. MK better than the MK does" you get a shell surrounding the ACTUAL game beneath. A game with a multitude of counterpicks and an incredibly large group of viable tournament characters that are otherwise removed solely by Metaknight is possible. The game shouldn't be about solely beating Metaknight, and the best option shouldn't be to pick Metaknight. We have all played smash without Metaknight, and it is a more enjoyable and more competitive smash that increases character diversity by a significant margin.

It shouldn't be about this, and frankly, it isn't. This point is just wrong.

7. Meta Knight is a very serious detriment to the mid level of play.
Traditionally, the SBR has always catered to the top level of play, but is this always the right course of action? When considering a character like Metaknight, it is wise to consider the effects on the community as a whole, and most notably, the mid level of play.

Very few players truly play the game at high levels, and the vast majority of players are at what is considered a "mid" level of play. And at this mid level of play, Metaknight dominates at an unprecedented level. It is not uncommon for smaller regions to be dominated by a Metaknight who does not practice at all and often puts minimal effort into the game. While such a player may not perform well at a national tournament against high level players who have spent countless hours studying the matchup, he is capable of beating everyone within his skill set, even those who put significantly more time into their characters. If the region progresses significantly, eventually either the Metaknight who does not practice is toppled, or forced to actually practice and/or learn matchups to remain on top.

It's also common for smaller regions to be dominated by other players. Iowa's scene is dominated by Joker the Snake main. Missouri is extremely disparate with no one clearly dominating, and I can say MetalMusicMan, the only Meta Knight player, doesn't "dominate". The Wichita scene does have the case of having Domo being extraordinarily powerful with -Affinity- sometimes very close on his heels, both Meta Knight mains, but they are also very clearly the best players (though not so good that they can't lose to other players from within their small area). Small areas are just dominated by whoever is the best there sometimes, and Meta Knight is a commonly used character. It's only natural that several of these scenes would be Meta Knight dominated.

This odd situation has occurred in many regions, including Ohio, Washington, Idaho, Puerto Rico, Eastern Canada, New Mexico, Arizona, and likely many others not listed. And while in some cases, the region's top players become better and eventually surpasses the mid-level MK mains and overcome the matchup, the MK main still continues to outplace everyone in their skill level, simply due to the ease of use of the character.

I'm very doubtful that the Meta Knight mains are worse than the people they're beating. Did you consider they may actually be the top players if they are dominating?

Metaknight's ease of use, at mid levels of play, becomes the magic bullet, letting anyone who switches to MK immediately outplace anyone at their skill level. And unlike other characters known for simplicity (Mr. Game & Watch in Brawl, Sheik in Melee), the character does not begin to show flaws as high levels of play are approached, but rather, only gets better. Meanwhile, the other players in the region have to put enormous amounts of effort simply to be able to fight Metaknight. Often, the solution is to simply pick up Metaknight to deal with Metaknight, as a main, or a second (as achieving higher levels of play is not a satisfactory short term answer, and still will never give you an advantaged matchup).

I have literally never seen anyone benefit from this. The only time I remember someone trying that stunt was Clel switching from Marth to Meta Knight, a move that ended up having him knocked out of the first tournament he tried it at. Meta Knight isn't simple or easy to use; I don't know where this myth comes from. Consider all those tricky ways to make his specials safe; do you think someone at mid levels can just pick him up and instantly do those? If you don't do those, you can punish him all day... Also, Meta Knight mains need teching powers to avoid dthrow to dsmash from Mr. Game & Watch. At mid levels, many players fail at that. How rosy are his prospects if he eats a free smash out of every throw with Mr. Game & Watch having an option to try to tech chase for usmash which kills very low?

An excellent recent example was Washington's monthly GameClucks tournament that occurred in June, during the weekend of Genesis. The top players travelled to California to attend Genesis, and when the tournament actually occurred, seven of the top eight players used Metaknight in their later matches (switching to him when their opponents did), and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in doubles were all double Metaknight teams. These results are unusually saturdated with Metaknights compared to average Washington results. What happened? As players lost matches, they switched to their Metaknight secondaries, allowing them to beat players at the same skill level, unless those players switched to Metaknight in return.

I'm not familiar with Washington, but that sounds like those players have personal problems. There's no evidence their case is actually general; my experiences suggest quite the opposite.

Why are we bringing this up as a point? Obviously, it doesn't concern high level players directly. Yet, the problem that arises is that as people switch to Metaknight to surpass the players in their skill pool due to his ease of use, players get frustrated. As people switch to Metaknight to beat Metaknight (or pick him up as a secondary), the tournament scene at lower to middle ends becomes overly saturated with the character, and some players end up quitting in frustration (or, of course, maining Metaknight).

I watched what characters the less skilled players were using at the last tournament I was at, and NONE of them were using Meta Knight. I saw lots of Sonic and Pit but not really any Meta Knight. Of course several of the better players were using Meta Knight (though more of them were using other characters), but among the lower skills, I wasn't seeing this at all. It sounds like some regions are doing it wrong, and I suspect this may be largely due to the empty hype Meta Knight has. Maybe if someone explained to these less skilled players that they will lose anyway even if they switch to Meta Knight, they might pursue their actual best winning options instead of hoping to overwhelm other bad players while losing even worse to anyone actually decent.

8. The community favors a ban.

It is important to note that the majority of the Smash Bros community has voted in favor of banning Metaknight in three different polls. If Metaknight is banned, he must obviously have a strong effect on high level play- but as the SBR, it is important to make note of the community as a whole's view on the character, and factor this into our decision.

Do not forget the public viewpoint:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=200718
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=205886
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=230733

As Brawl progresses, more regions report Metaknight problems. Regions like Puerto Rico have quelled it with a soft ban on Metaknight counterpicks ("soft bans" are social stigmas against picking a character. In the case of Puerto Rico, people who switch to Metaknight during their counterpick find their names recorded and announced after the tournament, discouraging them from doing so), and many other regions similarly look down upon Metaknight mains. Other regions, such as SoCal, NorCal, Washington, Arizona, or Eastern Canada find their players and tournaments gradually becoming more MK-centric, and support the ban (several of these regions running MK-banned tournament series).

The community's view is a very important point that cannot be overlooked.

If you listen to posting on the boards, the community also favors melee over brawl... yet brawl tournaments routinely have double the attendance of melee tournaments. These polls are and will continue to be skewed in favor of vocal minorities, and in this case, that's people who want to ban Meta Knight. These polls are certainly non-scientific in any case; they aren't compelling evidence.

9. Meta Knight is already clearly bannable, but we have artificial and unclear rules in place to keep him in the game.

Without rules clearly targeting Meta Knight, he would be literally undefeatable.

The infinite dimensional cape clearly breaks Brawl entirely, for reasons that don’t need to be explained here. We have removed it using a rule, but it’s very hard to detect and enforce. You cannot really tell if someone taps the c-stick up once or twice to gain that extra inch of distance they need to escape or hit a perfect edgehog. Then there is the Extended Dimensional Cape, which while not infinite, can be used to stall out a match. If you’re in trouble, simply use the Extended Dimensional Cape and cross the level safely. Once you get there, come out of cape and go back to the other side using Extended Dimensional Cape again. Throw in a technically illegal but impossible to detect tap up on the c-stick and you’ve got a completely safe way to cross the stage.

This is indeed a problematic fuzzy rule, but in the end simple risk-reward enforces it. Execute it a bit and get a small advantage. Get caught ever and be disqualified and possibly blacklisted from future tournaments. There are other, more insidious ways people could cheat to a similar effect, such as booting the game through homebrew to give certain characters subtly tweaked mechanics (like a Ness back throw that kills 5% lower) that people are unlikely to notice. They aren't a problem because the risk is too high for being caught.

We have rules in place to prevent planking and stalling, which have become big issues. We’ve tried various amounts of ledgegrabs being allowed, but planking and stalling have remained issues. Meta Knight players have found ways around these rules, and have stalled. See Dapuffster v Plank at Apex, or, more recently, Dojo v DEHF at Genesis for examples of stalling that cannot be limited by any reasonable rule. Air camping or air planking, whatever you prefer to call it, makes many matchups unwinnable, and not just against low tier characters. Diddy Kong, Falco, Ice Climbers, Marth, Donkey Kong, Lucario, and to a lesser extent Wario and Snake, have their matchups tilted strongly towards Meta Knight’s favor because of air camping, and are all in B tier or higher. These techniques that skirt the lines of the rules but cannot be truly banned or limited make Meta Knight a broken character worthy of a ban.

There is simply no evidence that any of this is broken. Sometimes players do decently with such tactics, but do they ever win against the top players? I know a lot of players try these tactics and lose too. I see here a case of a tactic sometimes working (and sometimes not!) but never beating the best players. Why is this a concern at all?

Over time, TOs have continually refined their rules to try to reduce Metaknight's dominance of various aspects of the game. Early on, stages like Norfair were banned primarily due to Metaknight's abuse of ledge camping. MK mains responded by learning abusing the ledge on every stage. TOs responded with the ledgegrab rules, which MKs responded to by stalling out their ledgegrabs. TOs have begun to lower edgegrab limits, and now MKs are beginning to abuse aircamping. The character will continue to cause problems as long as he is legal.

None of these rules (including a Norfair ban) are in place in my region, and we don't have a Meta Knight problem. Some rules, such as banning Norfair, may overall actually help Meta Knight! I would go so far as to suggest that conservative stage lists inspired by a fear of Meta Knight are one of the biggest things helping Meta Knight win in the modern metagame. I agree these rules are a non-solution, but they are also a non-solution to a non-problem. We need strong, scientific evidence of these tactics being truly dominant, not a few players placing highly but not at the top using them. Before such evidence exists, I don't know of any way to proceed other than to rule this all a series of non-issues.

Conclusion:

With these points in consideration, we believe that Metaknight as a character is:
(A) Within our community's banning standards
(B) Detrimental to Brawl's metagame
(C) Has a negative impact on our community

and thus, we believe that Metaknight should be banned.

The last point in this conclusion wasn't really argued, but I'll say that banning Meta Knight would make our community look extremely bad (the shoryuken people already think we're scrubs now!) and would cause endless angst from the Meta Knight mains, potentially even driving top players like Mew2King to quit Brawl. I'm dubious at best that allowing him is doing more harm than good to the community.

Counterpoint #1- The game is still growing and evolving

When Brawl was released, we saw a multitude of characters succeeding in all areas. Shortly after tournaments became common, Snake became THE character. He was seen in 1st place on many results pages, most especially East Coast, with DSF in West Coast and Florida being inundated with Snakes.

In a very short time, merely a matter of weeks, the smash community put its head together and found a multitude of weaknesses for Snake. This included counter characters (ROB and D3 both did well against him in tournament play) and counter stages (Snake routinely lost on stages that required more aerial movement, like Rainbow Cruise).

Most advanced techs for Melee were found mere months after its release. We're a larger, more organized, and more competitive community now than we were when Melee started. Snake was dominant and we knocked him off his throne with Metaknight, who has stayed in the #1 position ever since (a strong argument against Snake counter Metaknight, as Metaknight is the most common character).

The reason this hasn't been done with Metaknight is because despite the game "growing and evolving", Metaknight has none of the weaknesses other characters has... and is growing with them. In fact, Metaknight's plethora of options in all circumstances has made him grow FASTER than other characters. It is not a coincidence that most of the top ranked characters from Ankoku's chart are either Metaknight himself, or characters that do better than most against Metaknight, and it is no coincidence that it has gone on this long.

Meta Knight is a good character that it is good to do well against. There's no doubt there. I do, however, fail to see this playing out. Donkey Kong does pretty well against Meta Knight and is barely used because of King Dedede, as a good example. FOW has demonstrated that Ness can challenge Meta Knight well; how much does this tend to help Ness in tournament placings? Ankoku's chart is just a popularity chart in which good characters are generally more likely to do well than bad characters; it's not compelling evidence. At most, I see this as saying "Meta Knight is the best"... which is fine. Being the best is allowed; if it weren't, we'd have to ban every character except the worst.

Counterpoint #2- Metaknight really IS too good/over centralizing

Metaknight holds roughly 22% of ALL tournament places, the most of any characters. 22/100 doesn't seem like much, but this is a single character taking nearly 1/4th of ALL tournament PLACEMENTS... out of 36 characters.

Second place is Snake, with roughly 13% of all placements, a 9% decrease from 1st to 2nd place. Third place is currently held by Dedede, who is actually ranked at 4th place, with 7%, a 6% decrease from 2nd..

Fourth place is held by Falco at 5%, a 2% decrease from third place. It only gets WORSE. Metaknight is incredibly overcentralizing, especially when combing all the tournament placements of Snake and Dedede results in 2% less than Metaknight alone!

In conclusion, the most common tournament placings in the top 3:
Metaknight- 22%
Snake-13% (9% less than MK)
Dedede- 7% (15% less than MK)

This is not taking into account the top 8, which many have noticed to have several more MKs than other characters... So MK is actually more dominant than these percentages dictate.

22% is pathetic for a broken character. If he's so dominant and necessary, how is it that 78% of the community gets on fine without him? I threw out the number 1/3 earlier, but 22% isn't even 1/4 so I was overestimating Meta Knight. All these other numbers show is that there's extreme diversity so 22%, a number that would be pretty petty in some fighting games, towers over the numbers for other characters in Brawl.

AlphaZealot also once demonstrated that Marth's numbers in melee were higher than 22% among MLG large tournaments. I can't be bothered to find the link right now, but anyone who knows high level melee wouldn't find that hard to believe. It's also not a sign that Marth is broken; 22% is just not a very big benchmark for top characters to pass.

Now I will formulate my own argument to demonstrate simply why Meta Knight should not be banned. Here is my theory for rulesets in a competitive game.

An element in a game (character, stage, tactic) is deserving of a ban if it meets either or both of the following criteria:

1) It is "broken". This means that it is so powerful that other elements are not worth using and the game as a whole degenerates into who can use that element the best.
2) It increases the variance of the game unacceptably much. Variance is best approximated as the randomness in results in play between two similarly skilled but not equally skilled players, and random game elements are the most common source of variance increases (extremely high risk high reward tactics, like camping the top of Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2, can also cause variance, however).

Meta Knight just obviously does not satisfy 2) so 1) is the only point to really consider. The evidence simply does not suggest this as 78% of the points from Ankoku's tournament result data are owned by non-Meta Knight characters. It is very hard to imagine a metagame in which 78% of the characters actually used and placing top 8 are inviable; I dare say it's simply completely implausible.

Also, as a last point, consider several of the following weaknesses Meta Knight has.

-Meta Knight has extremely low aerial mobility.

Once Meta Knight jumps, he is far less mobile than most other characters. This puts him at a big disadvantage in the air against someone like Mr. Game & Watch, and characters even as low tier as Jigglypuff can leverage this against Meta Knight. In a game in which many characters can use jumping as their primary form of movement, having to be cautious when you jump is a big concern.

-Meta Knight has no projectiles at all.

Most characters in Brawl have some form of a projectile. In fact, only the following characters have no projectile at all:

Donkey Kong, Ganondorf, Meta Knight, Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, Marth, Ike

Ganondorf and Captain Falcon are hopelessly inviable (IMO obviously the two worst characters by a big margin) so they can practically be factored out. Ike's Aether is so ridiculously disjointed from him (multiple body lengths) that it is practically an upward projectile. That leaves Meta Knight with only three true peers in this weakness (Donkey Kong, Jigglypuff, Marth); it does matter, and it really does limit Meta Knight's ability to fight long range.

-Meta Knight's attacks have extremely short durations.

Most of Meta Knight's attacks only have a duration of 2 frames which is extremely short. That makes them poor at punishing spotdodges and airdodges, and it requires Meta Knight players to be very precise in their attacks since they can't ever throw out a hitbox and hold it as a wall.

-Meta Knight has a bad jump break and is short.

Meta Knight's jump break from grabs is poor, and his small stature means many characters can hold him up in the air and force him to jump break. This allows some characters such as Yoshi to chaingrab him, and it generally sets him up for follow ups in several matchups. Among high tier characters, only Wario is in a worse situation with grab breaks.

-Meta Knight is poor at killing vertically.

Meta Knight has a difficult time killing upward, and this puts him in a difficult spot in many matchups when he finds himself on a stage such as Halberd, Brinstar, or Green Greens with a low ceiling. It gives characters with strong vertical kill potential the chance to try to center the match around center stage and therefore to focus on Meta Knight's difficulty in this regard.

-Meta Knight has an awful jab.

Meta Knight's jab is a rapid slash attack that is just not very useful at all and tends to leave him open. The point in bringing this up is that not all of Meta Knight's moves are good. Like all characters, he has some good moves and some bad moves.

In conclusion, Meta Knight should not be banned, and I have voted as such.

C.box · Jul 29, 2009

Btw just because mk has some "evens" doesn't mean that he himself isn't far ahead of the cast. It means that those character's tools are better against mk's tools then most.

For this example I will be using marth and mk vs diddy and falco

Marth vs falco = 60:40 marth mk vs falco = "even"

Marth vs diddy = 60:40 marth diddy vs mk = "even"

Now why is it that metaknight, who is vastly considered a better marth do worse in these match ups then marth himself? It's because of how different character's affect the match ups.

Because of metaknight's poor aerial speed he relies on his ground speed to build up momentum, this isn't a problem until you fight diddy kong who completely takes running towards him to build momentum out of the picture while marth with good aerial movement can make a better approach towards diddy. Diddy's tools which are the bananas affect mk more this way then they affect marth approach wise. Same thing with falco.

Even though mk's tools are supposively superior and hold more options then marth's, since they are different diddy and falco's tools get a different result against Mk (in this case getting a better result) then against marth.

Character's tools are what decide the match ups, Link which is bottom tier goes 55:45 against snake (sound familiar? *cough mk vs falco cough*) However even though link doesn't do bad against snake it doesn't mean that snake isn't a VASTLY superior character. So "even" match ups (which snake is really the only one worthy to be called even IMO) doesn't justify his stay.

And i'm anti ban <_<.

Sosuke · Jul 29, 2009

http://www.smashboards.com/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=647

This is the link to the poll results because I'm tired of posting it on people's profiles. >_<

CRASHiC · Jul 29, 2009

Old Mocha said:
No matter what happens, top tiers will win and low tiers will lose.

This is why either :

(A) You ban more than just one character to try to balance things out for the majority of the ENTIRE cast

or

(B) You make certain tournament divisions where only certain characters are allowed like in heavyweight boxing. Have an only-high tier division and an only-low tier division.

Either way, the game's still pretty broken, but at least people will have a little more fun using the characters that they like. At least for low tiers anyway.

I'm sorry, but did you read the first post?

Nysyarc · Jul 29, 2009

HyugaRicdeau said:
Assuming the stats are correct, MK taking 30% of the prize money in Apr-Jun is laughably distant from anything that could be considered ban-worthy. The statistics do not show that MK is unbalanced to the point of warranting a ban. That should be the end of the discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Then you have a very shallow view of the situation.

MarthFanatique · Jul 29, 2009

This is coming from a Peach main's perspective.

It's a double-edged sword IMO. Snake isn't as difficult a matchup for Peach as Metaknight. So, naturally I would be pro-ban all of the way.

However, it's a double-edged sword; if Metaknight is banned there is going to be a large infux of Marth players (considering Metaknight was Marth's biggest problem overall with the S tier). Marth has few counters; he ***** much of the cast thus.

Inversely, if Metaknight isn't banned then we'll just have to deal with other S tier character that's a nighe-impossible matchup for a matchup intelligent Metaknight player (which Metaknight can make relative easy work of much of the cast).

vato_break · Jul 29, 2009

Falconv1.0 said:
Lain beat M2K at Apex.

^
this^^^^^

P. O. F. · Jul 29, 2009

SuSa said:
Glad to say, I'm one of the few..the proud... the Red's who voted No.

Sorry man. True though.

PrinceRamen · Jul 29, 2009

How does Mk have the best airdodge? I read it in the OP and i'm just wondering...

btw can you just click on the numbers to see the poll results?

SnowballBob33 · Jul 29, 2009

It's not 100% percent about MK winning. Its about MK being used to avoid losing.

Falconv1.0 · Jul 29, 2009

Oh, btw, everyone who keeps saying **** like "all the anti ban side is 'no johns'" needs to shut the **** up. Avarice has posted so many times, so has Inui to a lesser degree, and the anti bans were allllllllllllllllll up in the other debates. Not being ignorant pricks.

FB Dj_Iskascribble · Jul 29, 2009

CRASHiC said:
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=7972230&postcount=11

okay, in that same post it says dont bring up akuma. what does that have to do with mk

shogun. · Jul 29, 2009

Thiocyanide said:
As an additonal counterpoint to pro-ban, who seems to show Melee off as some great balancer, let's look at some results, shall we?

1. Mango - Jigglypuff/Falco - $2,280
2. Armada - Peach - $1,425
3. Hungrybox - Jigglypuff - $855
4. Zhu - Falco/Fox - $570
5. Mew2King - Marth/Sheik - $228
6. Scar - Falcon - $171
7. Darkrain - Falcon - $114
8. Hax - Falcon - $57
9 Pink Shinobi - Peach
9 Raistlin - Jigglypuff
9 Lambchops - Falco
9 Dashizwiz - Falco/Fox
13 Vwins - Peach
13 Tope - Sheik
13 Jman - Fox
13 Darc - Jigglypuff

What placed well here?

Jiggs, Falco, Fox, Peach, Falcon, Marth, Shiek

But wait! Two of those characters were used by one person, and - by god, is that TWO jiggs in the top3? 7/25 characters were used, 28% of the cast. Now, over to Brawl.

1. Ally - Snake - $2,336
2. M2K - Meta Knight - $1,460
3. Tyrant - Meta Knight - $876
4. Dojo - Meta Knight - $584
5. ADHD - Diddy Kong - $233
6. DEHF - Falco - $175
7. Fiction - Wario - $118
8. SK92 - Falco - $59
9. Judge - Meta Knight
9. Lain - Ice Climbers/King Dedede
9. Ultimate Razer - Snake
9. UTD Zach - Game & Watch
13. Bardull - Marth
13. Havok - Meta Knight/Marth
13. Zex - Marth/Meta Knight
13. Chip - Toon Link

Who placed here?

Snake, MK, Diddy, Falco, Wario, Ice Climbers, D3, GnW, Marth, Toon Link.

Several of these characters are loners, and we see several MKs and alt MKs. But none of the MKs are first, and we also have two Falcos in the top 8. As for the amount of the cast used, we have about 10/35 of the cast members, or... wait, WHAT?! 28%?

Holy crap, Batman! Those numbers are the same! And if we look at the distribution of mains:

4 Jiggs, 3 Peach, 3 Falco, 3 Falcon, 1 Marth, 1 Sheik, 1 Fox
5 MK, 2 Snake, 2 Falco, 2 Marth, 1 Wario, 1 Diddy, 1 Ice Climbers, 1 Game And Watch

Well cripes! It looks like the distribution for the top 16 is much closer to uniform for the Brawl results!

Clearly this isn't conclusive and there are almost certainly a few flaws in my reasoning, it's still good evidence that arguing Melee as the harbinger of balance is kinda ********.

i'm kinda iffy about this...
i mean that is one tourney and it's not like melee is getting any younger...
but imo look at the past

before melee was big, sheik dominates
mlg era was fox's and marth's
post brawl it's jiggs

brawl was big from start to finish and metaknight is still dominant for a year and a half

Gigabyte_ · Jul 29, 2009

no way. Just get better

Roxas M · Jul 29, 2009

what bengals said + 1 more thing.
STOP TALKING ABOUT THE PEOPLE that use mk. we're discussing mk, not the people that use him. we need better evidence than "get better". i could just as easily say pick another character and get over mk.
mk is broken. plain and simple. the reason why he doesn't always place 1st in tournaments because there is someone that uses another character better than the mk user. we need to talk about fighting against mk on a even level.
if 2 people play at the same skill level and player 1 uses mk player 1 will always win. remember i said same skill level. i want to make that clear so i don't get miss quoted.

Fourth and final community vote about Meta Knight.

Should Meta Knight be banned from competitive Brawl?

Yes

No

Frostbitten

Smash Hero

Smash Lord

Smash Champion

Smash Ace

Smash Master

Banned via Administration

Smash Master

Smash Master

Smash Legend

Smash Hero

formerly VaBengal

Smash Lord

Frostbitten

Smash Journeyman

Smash Ace

Baller/Shot-caller

Smash Hero

formerly VaBengal

Smash Lord

Smash Cadet

Smash Hero

Smash Lord

Smash Hero

Smash Master

Balanced Brawl Designer

Smash Journeyman

Smash Obsessed

Smash Hero

Last King of Hollywood

Smash Journeyman

Smash Master

Smash Ace

Smash Lord

Smash Ace

Smash Master

Frostbitten

Smash Rookie

Smash Cadet

Smash Master

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