Throwback
Smash Lord
New readers - this is an alternative to the 'no infinites rule' that is easier to police.
I'm helping a friend organise and run a Brawl tournament in late January 09. We were discussing what to do about the various infinite throws that exist, which, combined with the double-blind 1st round pick and counter-picks, essentially make some characters unviable in tournament play. In order to promote character diversity we came up with the following rule, which may or may not be unique. Any feedback would be appreciated.
The Impossible Match-ups Rule (IMR):
Within Brawl there are certain situations that occur as a result of the physics engine which mean that between competent players, some characters effectively have zero chance of winning certain match-ups. Consequently, characters who are on the bad end of such a glitch have been rendered almost unviable in tournaments as a less skilled opponent can completely destroy that character through counter-picking. In order to preserve these 99% counter-pickable characters as tournament viable, the following ruling will apply:
1. The character that can never win a particular match-up is known as 'the Bunny'.
2. The character that always wins a particular match-up is known as 'the Holy Hand Grenade'.
3. An impossible match-up will only occur as the result of a double-blind character pick. It is not legal to pick a Holy Hand Grenade on counter-pick (ie in a counter-pick round, after your opponent chooses a Bunny), unless your opponent agrees.
4. If you pick a Bunny as a counter-pick (eg your opponent is Dedede and you pick Mario), the IMR does not apply for that round.
5. When an impossible match-up occurs, the player who picked the Holy Hand Grenade must re-pick their character to a character that is not a Holy Hand Grenade for that match-up (I suggest picking a character with an advantage vs the Bunny). The Bunny may not re-pick.
6. The list of impossible match-ups is as follows:
[HHG vs Bunny] - [reason]
Dedede vs Donkey Kong - Infinite throw
Dedede vs Bowser - Infinite throw
Dedede vs Mario - Infinite throw
Dedede vs Luigi - Infinite throw
Dedede vs Samus - Infinite throw
Pikachu vs Fox - Chaingrab (CG) to ~100%
Zero Suit Samus vs Fox - Dsmash chain to kill %
Marth vs Lucas - Infinite throw
Wario vs Donkey Kong - infinite throw
***NOTE*** everything from this point is for information/discussion, and will not be published in the final ruleset.
7. The following reasons are provided for not considering certain match-ups Impossible:
- Wario can be CG'd by many characters but that doesn't make him a Bunny in any of his match-ups. Feel free to correct me on this.
- IC's have not been included at this time as a HHG against all characters because alternating throws are very difficult to set up (against a similarly skilled opponent), and therefore do not cause any impossible match-ups. Boring? yes! Impossible? no.
- Falco vs Link is not considered an impossible match-up because Link can self-harm himself to >40%.
8. The aim of this ruling is to prevent some characters from becoming almost unviable in standard tournament play, just because they have 1 or 2 impossible match-ups out of 39. By the current list of Impossible Match-ups, 7 characters become more viable while 5 become less viable, thus (theoretically) increasing character diversity. Should the ratio ever cause decreased character diversity, characters with more than 1 HHG (Fox, DK) may lose the protection of the IMR. Having said that, it is worth noting that having an unwinnable match-up (which you cannot avoid because of the counter-pick system) makes a character almost unviable, whereas a HHG being excluded from a match-up is nowhere near as significant in terms of tournament viability of the HHG.
9. I acknowledge that D3 is hurt by this ruling more than any other character, as he is a HHG to 5 characters. My argument is that under the IMR, D3 players don't suffer an automatic loss when their opponent chooses the Bunny (unlike the reverse with no IMR). Furthermore, the IMR only forces people who main 1 character (D3) to play a secondary, instead of the players who main any of his 5 Bunnies.
10. Banning of infinite throws is not being used because it's too hard to police and set a ruling that applies consistently to all situations.
11. If there are impossible match-ups not on this list, please let me know (doesn't Charizard have some infinite throws?). Only match-ups that are impossible because of physics/glitches allowing an inescapable defeat will be listed as 'impossible' (the Pika vs Fox Dthrow chain is close enough in my opinion). Match-ups occasionally listed as 80-20 on some boards because of the difference in characters (eg MK vs Ganon, samus vs bowser) will never be considered an impossible match-up for the purposes of this rule.
12. There are 1225 match-ups possible in Brawl. 9 are currently removed by the IMR. This is <1% of the total number of match-ups possible.
I'm helping a friend organise and run a Brawl tournament in late January 09. We were discussing what to do about the various infinite throws that exist, which, combined with the double-blind 1st round pick and counter-picks, essentially make some characters unviable in tournament play. In order to promote character diversity we came up with the following rule, which may or may not be unique. Any feedback would be appreciated.
The Impossible Match-ups Rule (IMR):
Within Brawl there are certain situations that occur as a result of the physics engine which mean that between competent players, some characters effectively have zero chance of winning certain match-ups. Consequently, characters who are on the bad end of such a glitch have been rendered almost unviable in tournaments as a less skilled opponent can completely destroy that character through counter-picking. In order to preserve these 99% counter-pickable characters as tournament viable, the following ruling will apply:
1. The character that can never win a particular match-up is known as 'the Bunny'.
2. The character that always wins a particular match-up is known as 'the Holy Hand Grenade'.
3. An impossible match-up will only occur as the result of a double-blind character pick. It is not legal to pick a Holy Hand Grenade on counter-pick (ie in a counter-pick round, after your opponent chooses a Bunny), unless your opponent agrees.
4. If you pick a Bunny as a counter-pick (eg your opponent is Dedede and you pick Mario), the IMR does not apply for that round.
5. When an impossible match-up occurs, the player who picked the Holy Hand Grenade must re-pick their character to a character that is not a Holy Hand Grenade for that match-up (I suggest picking a character with an advantage vs the Bunny). The Bunny may not re-pick.
6. The list of impossible match-ups is as follows:
[HHG vs Bunny] - [reason]
Dedede vs Donkey Kong - Infinite throw
Dedede vs Bowser - Infinite throw
Dedede vs Mario - Infinite throw
Dedede vs Luigi - Infinite throw
Dedede vs Samus - Infinite throw
Pikachu vs Fox - Chaingrab (CG) to ~100%
Zero Suit Samus vs Fox - Dsmash chain to kill %
Marth vs Lucas - Infinite throw
Wario vs Donkey Kong - infinite throw
***NOTE*** everything from this point is for information/discussion, and will not be published in the final ruleset.
7. The following reasons are provided for not considering certain match-ups Impossible:
- Wario can be CG'd by many characters but that doesn't make him a Bunny in any of his match-ups. Feel free to correct me on this.
- IC's have not been included at this time as a HHG against all characters because alternating throws are very difficult to set up (against a similarly skilled opponent), and therefore do not cause any impossible match-ups. Boring? yes! Impossible? no.
- Falco vs Link is not considered an impossible match-up because Link can self-harm himself to >40%.
8. The aim of this ruling is to prevent some characters from becoming almost unviable in standard tournament play, just because they have 1 or 2 impossible match-ups out of 39. By the current list of Impossible Match-ups, 7 characters become more viable while 5 become less viable, thus (theoretically) increasing character diversity. Should the ratio ever cause decreased character diversity, characters with more than 1 HHG (Fox, DK) may lose the protection of the IMR. Having said that, it is worth noting that having an unwinnable match-up (which you cannot avoid because of the counter-pick system) makes a character almost unviable, whereas a HHG being excluded from a match-up is nowhere near as significant in terms of tournament viability of the HHG.
9. I acknowledge that D3 is hurt by this ruling more than any other character, as he is a HHG to 5 characters. My argument is that under the IMR, D3 players don't suffer an automatic loss when their opponent chooses the Bunny (unlike the reverse with no IMR). Furthermore, the IMR only forces people who main 1 character (D3) to play a secondary, instead of the players who main any of his 5 Bunnies.
10. Banning of infinite throws is not being used because it's too hard to police and set a ruling that applies consistently to all situations.
11. If there are impossible match-ups not on this list, please let me know (doesn't Charizard have some infinite throws?). Only match-ups that are impossible because of physics/glitches allowing an inescapable defeat will be listed as 'impossible' (the Pika vs Fox Dthrow chain is close enough in my opinion). Match-ups occasionally listed as 80-20 on some boards because of the difference in characters (eg MK vs Ganon, samus vs bowser) will never be considered an impossible match-up for the purposes of this rule.
12. There are 1225 match-ups possible in Brawl. 9 are currently removed by the IMR. This is <1% of the total number of match-ups possible.
I approve of the vocabulary used in this rule.
are you kidding me?
