Reasons for baning Greens Greens and Luigis mansion.

GwJumpman said:

Green Greens should not be banned.

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Nidtendofreak said:

GwJumpman said:

Green Greens should not be banned.

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Quoted for Truth.

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o-Serin-o said:

^^^ The most legit reason I've heard to not ban Green Greens...

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Praxis said:

Alright, so in a recent poll regarding Greens (and in past polls on different tournament pages) I've been amazed by some people's views of the stage. Generally, people instinctively want to ban it due to the stigma against random events and a fear of the short sides and ceiling which case you to die earlier than you would expect.

Why it should not be banned

It's interesting how much faster the Brawl community is to ban things (and yes, I appreciate the irony of this statement in light of my writing the MK pro-ban argument on SWF). And while I actually do believe that, in a game designed by Sakurai to be noncompetitive, it is important to remove aspects that are noncompetitive, I do not believe that Green Greens as a stage falls under this banner. Once the mechanics of the stage are understood by the player, "random" events that always fall within a set region of the stage and can be prevented, managed, controlled, and minimized cease to have a significant deciding factor in the match, and rather become tools of the players. (Not to mention that the stage was legal in Melee >_> ).

The most important point that agrees with this statement, that "Green Greens is a competitive stage", is the fact that players can consistently win there, demonstrating that random events aren't an issue, and of even more note, that of all the regions that have it legal (as far as I can recall; Washington, Texas, Illinois, and some other Midwest states), none of them have ever banned it at a later date and the stage has caused no issues.

Washington, above all other states, has had a history of legalizing as much as possible and then banning them when they have demonstrated to be a problem. Early in Brawl's life, even Hanenbow was legal- but one player abused the stage, beating another by landing one hit and circle camping, and the stage was immediately banned with little question from that point. As stages prove to be an issue, they are removed. Greens has never caused an issue, beyond normal stalling that can be done on any stage and is eliminated via edge grab rule.

Importance as a counterpick

It's worth noting that the stage benefits several lower tiers (such as Peach, Zelda, Luigi, and Toon Link), and several higher tiers (Snake, G&W, and Dedede), but most importantly, it does not significantly benefit Metaknight. Snake vs MK is advantaged to Snake on this stage. By allowing Green Greens as a stage, MK is actually counterpickable by a number of characters, whereas normally they have to take him to a neutral (even Snake normally has to simply pick FD, since MK will ban Halberd).

The fact that MK cannot normally be counterpicked means that a stage that allows several characters to beat him or perform far better than usual is an important find and resolves some of the issues relating to him and the stage counterpick system.

How to actually play on the stage so as to eliminate issues

I'll begin with covering the most-complained about aspect of the stage: the bombs.

There's one key thing to note about Green Greens, and that is this; bomb block explosions have a hitbox that only lasts one frame, and they will explode immediately upon touching a hurtbox with their bottom.

This means that if you simply airdodge when passing through the columns, you can never be hit by the bombs. Similarly, standing by a bomb and spotdodging a projectile or attack from your opponent that sets off the bomb results in no damage to you, as the bomb explosion hitbox does not matter.

As to the importance of the bombs in the match. As there are many ways to prevent the explosions from doing damage (Spotdodging, airdodging, shielding, etc), they actually become a very important point. You can prevent Falco from side-Bing to safety by leaving pillars containing bombs intact, or stand by a bomb and have a safe point as large attacks like G&W's bair will set the bomb off and harm your opponent if you spotdodge.

Further, the bomb's knockback is greatly exaggurated. Stories of people dying at percentages as low as 40% are the result of horrific DI; it's very possible to survive at percentages over 100%, and it's even more possible to simply not let the bombs hit you. Opponents cannot launch you into the bomb (although dash grabs can push you in to them, however, doing this does not launch you at a killing angle) unless you momentum cancel with an aerial that breaks the bomb block (your own fault)- keep an eye out of the block formations.

The blocks in themselves can be managed when playing against characters like Dedede. If you destroy the lower blocks, Dedede cannot infinite you against the wall, and the lower blocks will not respawn until Dedede jumps up and breaks the top blocks (giving you an opportunity to chase him). And relating to the bombs again- by watching the formation of the top blocks, you will always know which pillars will or will not be reforming.

Further, the bombs do less damage than Snake's ftilt and have less knockback (IIRC) than the Melee version of the stage!

An older match:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXg1kauvemw

Note how ShadowRob survives past 150% every stock and we both survive high percent bomb explosions effortlessly. The simple rule is to airdodge when passing over pillars missing their top blocks, or move through them cautiously. Practice the stage and get a feel for it. The problem with Greens is that people with no experience on the stage run in to everything and cry foul- just like the ten-second-timer Klaptrap on Jungle Japes.





There are three people in WA who have truly spent the time to sit down and learn the stage. Me, Maos, and Valdens. All three of us consistently beat everyone else on the stage, and go even with each other there. Random events are NOT deciding matches, folks.




Debunking common myths


"Green Greens promotes camping". I've heard this from a number of people, usually ROB mains. t0mmy told me that he wouldn't ban Green Greens because, if I took him there, he'd camp me. He camped me. He went offstage and I fair'd him and killed him at some stupid low percentage. Jamnt0ast has made similar statements about the stage.

Green Greens does not promote camping via running away. Characters like Falco have to watch out for the pillars when side-Bing, and the blocks stop projectiles. Meanwhile, the character running away lines himself up for low percentage kills off the side, while the character that stays solid in the middle of the stage remains safe. Really, the best strategy is to camp the center and maintain the position, which is GREAT if you're counterpicking the stage on someone like Metaknight.

The stage favors characters that kill off the top, characters with good stage control, and it assists characters with poor recovery (due to the short sides making horizontal recovery distance unimportant). That makes it a good counterpick.

"Dtilt infinites!" As dtilts break the blocks they are supposed to infinite against, most infinites (such as Marth's dtilt infinite) simply don't work. The ones that do (G&W and ROB, for example) require the dtilt to be perfectly spaced so as not to break the blocks. Not only is it unreasonable to get this set up on a high level player (I CP every G&W and ROB here and they've all tried and not been able to), but by simply breaking the bottom blocks (which won't respawn while the top are intact), this is prevented.

"Dedede is really good here!" Honestly the only valid complaint IMO...it favors him in a lot of ways. Still, by breaking the bottom blocks, you can prevent the infinite from occurring and continue to fight him normally. Also, if the wind pushes towards the blocks, the infinite is interrupted. I have beaten several Dedede's here, though I would probably ban it against someone like Atomsk, I usually simply leave it on. It's not nearly as unwinnable as people think, and I'd rather have to worry about Dedede's here than not have the stage as an MK counterpick.





tl;dr version:

Green Greens is the best stage in the game and should be legal.

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Nidtendofreak said:

Honestly, I don't see how any state can actually justify banning this stage other then from some weak argument and refusal to change their ways.

We use this stage in Texas (like stated in OP), I have never seen a problem with any of the matches played there (same with Pirate Ship, but thats a different topic...).

Promoting camping isn't a reason to ban a stage (lol Falco on Jungle Japes. You want camping? Check out that combo). Close boundaries defiantly isn't a reason to ban a stage. If boundaries play a fact in what gets banned, any stage that doesn't have the exact same boundaries as FD needs to be banned for allowing earlier or later KOs.

Everyone knows where the apples spawn, and the tree shakes right before they come out. The bombs have already been explained. If wind is bannable, ban PS2 pls.

Stop johning and allow a perfectly legal stage to be legal please.

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Amazing Ampharos said:

I love Green Greens. I think TOs around here are banning it more largely because of some shenanigans I've pulled here which aren't really unfair but are really powerful (definitely at least 60-40 G&W wins against Meta Knight, very strong counterpick that puts MK at a big disadvantage).

Anyway, Green Greens is the hands down best counterpick for Mr. Game & Watch in my opinion, and for those who have a chance, I'd like to explain a bit more clearly how to exploit it.

The strategy to win is a defensive one, and it's all about where you are protected. Mr. Game & Watch has an invincible up special that basically makes him unstoppable as he moves upward; overall the only things that are really safe to come right down on him predictably with are things like Kirby's Stone (which tend to have other issues that make it not so great to rely on a lot). The blocks form a wall that tends to be pretty hard to move over as well. Put it together. Just stand on a side platform (when you have a lead) and wait. If they come over the blocks, use Fire, hit them, and run to the other side and wait there. This works against all characters, though characters who don't have any really special way to hit below them (something to throw or something like Stone) and who have poor horizontal air speed have the worst time dealing with it. Guys like Meta Knight and King Dedede have major issues here to this.

This is obviously not instant win so I'll go into how to stop it. Some characters simply camp back and better. Snake is the easiest case; he can just blow up the blocks with c4 and grenades and then keep raining explosives on you. Olimar can use his fsmash to clear out blocks and then rain pikmin on you, and he can be clever with how pikmin are kinda glitchy with the blocks (some colors get stuck on them via pikmin toss) to be really obnoxious. Both Links, Peach, and Diddy Kong to an extent can rain stuff on you from above (Peach, alternatively, could cycle turnips until she gets a beam sword which is so disjointed it will let her take out a wall of blocks super fast).

In general though, you just have to try to destroy the walls of blocks efficiently enough to approach from the side. This is still not bad for Mr. Game & Watch because he can use the opportunity to sneak in turtle or fair, and he can play defensively while the blocks respawn (it's pretty fast). I'm not convinced it's super overpowered, but it's very good, especially in some matchups.

Also, a last bit, if you're down as Mr. Game & Watch and they are camping the sides, you can easily destroy the blocks and pressure then with Chef. The platforms are lined up really well for that sort of trickery. Do watch out for the wind though; it can blow you into dropping bomb blocks if you are careless. You might not force a good opponent to approach just because of Chef, but you will force them back so you can safely key their shield (shield pushback will put them on the ledge or off-stage).

Camping aside, the stage is also good for Mr. Game & Watch because it's so small that his smashes kill super low, and he can have some fun on the ledges if he wants. It's pretty easy for him to detonate bomb blocks safely with his huge disjoints, and the apples are just generally fun for him.

This is also a general argument for why King Dedede really doesn't make the stage ban-worthy. If a DDD player picks this stage and the opponent goes Mr. Game & Watch, it sucks big time for him (he just hard CP'd himself). I also do generally feel that this stage isn't just "comparatively bad" for Meta Knight but actually "really quite terrible" for him. His type of mobility just isn't what this stage rewards at all.

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MetalMusicMan said:

Well, after a bit of testing I can honestly say that this stage definitely isn't nearly as "********" as I had previously assumed it to be.

It's definitely got a fair amount of ridiculousness to it, but after a bit of practice it certainly gets easier to avoid / predict what is going to happen.

Overall I think I have to agree that the community's harshness toward this stage is a bit unwarranted, and we have all probably said "screw Green Greens" without actually giving it a chance.


I definitely like the element of it being a not-so-great stage for Metaknight, though it's not a major plus in my opinion. As MK, you can still wait for apples to fall and use them to your advantage. If anything, it really forces aggressive characters to play patient, which is a nice change of pace.



I did a fair amount of testing with my DeDeDe vs Futurewrestler's ROB and I don't feel like it is particularly swayed towards either character, despite ROB's camping advantages and DeDeDe's chain throw infinite advantages. It seemed very even most of the time, since each character has his own huge advantage. I'd probably have to put it slightly in DeDeDe's favor since he does have a little easier time avoiding spam than he would on say, Final Destination.

Interesting notes from me playing my Falco here: I noticed that his illusion only goes through one layer of yellow blocks, so that prevents him from Illusion spamming like he does on Jungle Japes. One of the upsides for Falco though is that if he is camping on either of the end platforms, his standing Lasers go exactly even with the ground on the middle platform, so he can easily switch between shorthop double, short hop single, or grounded lasers for a slightly more effective spamming game than some stages.

Neither of those things is a major plus or minus, just some interesting observations.

Also, you appear to be right about the d-tilt infinites not really being an issue (at least ROB's and Metaknights, who I tested). DeDeDe's chaingrab can also be stopped by the wind or an appropriately placed explosive block.

I wasn't able to test this with a good Game and Watch or a good Snake, and ASC853's Olimar wasn't available when I was testing this, so I still have to say that I am unsure of how "broken" this stage actually is for those characters. I can only go off the common sentiment that they all have huge advantages here, though I have little experience against them on Green Greens.



So, in my limited playtesting of this over the last 2 weeks, while I still can't say that it for sure deserves to be a full counter and not a counter-ban, I have to say I am much more open to this stage being on the list of possible stages at a tournament.


Again, good work, Praxis. Perhaps with a bit more character diversity in my own experience with this stage, I will agree with you more fully... or perhaps not Time will tell.

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GwJumpman said:

Green Greens should not be banned.

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bobson said:

Do people even actually play on Luigi's Mansion? I always hear arguments like Metaknight can just spam tornado and people can just tech to live forever for free wins when spamming those things just don't work in a real match. Sure, they're good tactics once in a while in the middle of the match, but they have obvious counters and spamming them over and over will just get you killed. It reminds me of the people who want to ban King Dedede's chaingrab because the first couple matches they played against King Dedede ended up with them getting chained across the stage over and over because they hadn't yet learned how to avoid his BS grab range.

Stalling on Luigi's has much less to do with the techable platforms (although it helps here and there) and a lot more to do with the pseudo-circle you can get going when the mansion is up combined with the larger-than-average blastlines. There's really not much you can do besides destroying the mansion when someone decides to start circling if you aren't one of the few unique characters with ways to counter it entirely. Of course, the fact that the mansion is destroyable means that this obviously can't be kept up forever and is thus not necessarily a broken strategy, but it is in general easier to stall here when you abuse this properly.

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Paladin77 said:

how is green greens so good against MK?

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Thiocyanide said:

Luigi's Mansion was CPd in something like half the matches in the upper 16 placings of one of Inui's tourneys, each time a move like Tornado or Olimar's upsmash being abused to chain to high percents and then a more horizontal smash used to hit them out and kill them at very high percents. These moves are especially good because the hitboxes linger and make it impossible to 'tech out' because your tech puts you right back into the hitbox of the attack.

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Masky said:

Green Greens is banned because of a glitch that makes characters randomly explode and exploding apples.

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Of all the things you've said in the past, this is the only one I completely do not understand. When you get hit by one of these moves, you have several options immediately available to you, and there's no one way to cover all of them. You can tech the ceiling, tech the ground, tech the ground and roll left, tech the ground and roll right, land on the ground and roll left, land on the ground and roll right, land on the ground and buffer a getup attack (and I'm pretty sure the majority of them if not all of them have invincibility from the first frame), or just land and get up. Most of these have enough invincibility frames to get out of a chain of buffered attacks and the ones that don't give you more options to mix up your game if they predict the other ones. This isn't even considering DI.

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Green Greens is banned because of a glitch that makes characters randomly explode and exploding apples.

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On another note: I swear, NJ has the most boring CP list I've ever seen. If it's not almost debatable for neutral in some regions, it's most likely not on the CP list. Which in turn basically kills most of the point in having a CP list in the first place. Ugh. No wonder people find Brawl boring, they're stuck playing in regions with like, 9 stages total that are legal. Man up NJ.

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Nidtendofreak said:

^And they still do in Texas. Nobody good loses to a scrub because of a stage. I could take Dojo to Pirate Ship, and I would still get my rear handed to me on a plater. However, we don't fall asleep watching/playing the same stages over and over. At least we get something a bit different every now and then. It also allows to see who can adapt better, which is of course a factor of who is truly better.

The fact that you're trying to get RC banned simply proves in my mind that the upper EC area doesn't know how to fight on a stage if it's not flat with a maximum of three platforms. *shrugs* Four if you count CS's second area I guess, but that was probably a big risk in your eyes.

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Thiocyanide said:

I completely agree with Praxis that Greens Greens should only be banned if Cruise, Japes, and Picto are also banned at the same tourney. For the most part, the conservative ruleset agrees with this. Most conservatives still allow RC, though; I'm going to be running a tourney that has RC banned to gauge tourneygoer opinion and see how the results pan out.

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I will say this, Praxis: AA's post quoted in one of your earlier posts actually hurts the argument for the stage. If there is an easily abused tactic that can net you a win on a stage (i.e. Falco's chaingrab to spike on Japes, MK's ridiculous uair spam on Rainbow Cruise linked to easy SLoop kills, etc), that means that the stage has to be banned if you know that the other person has the minimal knowledge required to abuse it.

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Thiocyanide said:

ASSUMPTIONS! Let's continue making them, people.

Adaptation is good, I agree. Forcing people to adapt shows skill; that said, there are shades of adaptation, and not all of it is good. Should we force all characters D3 can infinite to adapt to being infinited? Maybe we should be adapting to people abusing circle camping on Hanenbow and Temple? Both of those are examples of things where the adaptation is so drastic or impossible that it forces people to avoid it altogether. They're the other end of the spectrum of the perfectly even matchup, or a stage like FD where there is almost no adaptation to be made. From there you get into the spectrum of adaptation, where how much you want to force it is debatable.

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Most of the stages that other regions allow that we don't many hosts in this region feel are forcing players to "adapt" to using broken, boring, and overall lengthy (AND THIS MATTERS - Many venues, and people, have limits to how late they can go) tactics to win. Thus, we don't allow them.

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Praxis said:

The best five characters in current metagame are MK, Snake, Diddy, Falco, and Ice Climbers.

Barring MK who is good everywhere, notice that the next five are all characters who consider NEUTRALS their best stage and counterpicks! (except Snake also has Halberd)

Conservative ruleset hurts game diversity, because none of the top five (except MK) would counterpick to anything but neutrals anyway, and banning Greens and Pirate Ship removes the best CPs against MK for many characters. You're catering to these characters, which start the first round on an advantaged stage, and now, can't be stage counterpicked to a disadvantage, and then counterpick you back to an advantaged stage.

I get that a lot of competitive players are comfortable with neutrals and would prefer a ruleset of all-neutral stages. I also get that most of said players play these top five characters and are thus comfortable with a conservative ruleset. But diversity of counterpicks is a necessity to give the cast valid counterpicks, unless the stage grants broken strategies.


EC's stage list fails.


I don't see how it does. He explains his strategy he has developed for the stage, and then explains how to stop it. He explains why the strategy is sound (making it a good stage for him) and why it is not unstoppable.

I have beaten Valdens' G&W using the same strategy many times, and I actually now counterpick him to Green Greens because Peach's mobility is heavily benefited by the stage and I can use block control to my favor.

I remember when I went to Texas and CP'd Green Greens on Hylian and everyone lol'd xD




This part of your post uses irrelevant examples that have nothing to do with what we are discussing.



OK.

So what's broken on Greens? What's lengthy? I've never seen a match go to time with an edge grab limit in place on Greens. The short walls and ceilings, if anything, make these matches shorter.





Anyway, I'm glad we agree on the premise that Green Greens is no different than Rainbow Cruise; our only difference is that you believe Rainbow should also be banned, which I'm fine with. I'm somewhat irritated that our region recently banned Green Greens (my CP against MK) but didn't ban Rainbow Cruise (MK's CP against me). T_T

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The best five characters in current metagame are MK, Snake, Diddy, Falco, and Ice Climbers.

Barring MK who is good everywhere, notice that the next five are all characters who consider NEUTRALS their best stage and counterpicks! (except Snake also has Halberd)

Conservative ruleset hurts game diversity, because none of the top five (except MK) would counterpick to anything but neutrals anyway, and banning Greens and Pirate Ship removes the best CPs against MK for many characters. You're catering to these characters, which start the first round on an advantaged stage, and now, can't be stage counterpicked to a disadvantage, and then counterpick you back to an advantaged stage.

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OK.

So what's broken on Greens? What's lengthy? I've never seen a match go to time with an edge grab limit in place on Greens. The short walls and ceilings, if anything, make these matches shorter.

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Thiocyanide said:

The only option you have is to tech the ceiling during the duration of the attacks and try to DI in such a way that it leads the attack spammer to the side or middle of the stage so you fly out; otherwise you simply fall back into the attack before you get to the ground.

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Thiocyanide said:

At the end of tornado you have the chance to tech away, but if you do actually manage to escape the tornado somehow all the MK has to do is move past one of the pillars on either side of the house to stop your projectiles and wait for you to have to approach him because of his percent advantage.

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Thiocyanide said:

At the end of tornado you have the chance to tech away, at which point Metaknight can escape before you can hit him.

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Thiocyanide said:

Olimar throws his Pikmin up fast enough and they have such a sweeping hitbox (Ignoring whites) that he can also keep you from getting to the ground.

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bobson said:

HOBO also has Metaknight banned.

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3. Getting out of MK's tornado on Luigi's is much harder to do than it first looks. You know how most characters "Pop" the first hit or two when they first are sucked into tornado or how they can pop you up in later parts of Tornado by changing altitude? If MK does this to you and you fail to tech the ceiling, you are hard pressed to get out. If you DO tech it, usually he's right there still under you so it doesn't solve anything. MK can also switch sides and mess up the correct direction you are supposed to DI at the last minute. As for Olimar, that one is more predictable, easier to escape from, easier to avoid, and it's also harder to setup properly.

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