A Guide To Arguing Intelligently About Meta Knight

[Brinzy]

Did you hit your head and receive retrograde amnesia? People on Smashboards been "not reading" posts for years.

Haha, well I meant like Internet forums in general, since I've been posting for quite a while (just not here). Everywhere, it's the same thing. At this point in time, I just don't understand anymore.

EDIT: 1,000th post, and I have Yuna quoted in it? I'm such a ****ing Yuna fanboy.

 

[Dav657]

Do we really need a guide telling us how to debate? I just normally ignored all ignorant/stupid posts and just read the intellectual posts. I stopped going to the GBD board because people were posting really really stupid stuff. If this meta-knight stuff doesnt stop soon I wont becoming to the tactical one either.
Also if meta-knight does get banned, prepare for a flurry of posts saying people want him unbanned

 

[salaboB]

Also if meta-knight does get banned, prepare for a flurry of posts saying people want him unbanned

Impossible. Once he's banned he'll be completely forgotten and nobody will care about him anymore. It is one of the key anti-ban points!

 

[Praxis]

"No one can even go even with Meta Knight."
Pro-Ban advocates can frequently be caught down-playing decent matchups against Meta Knight. This typically includes Snake and Diddy, but often extends to oddball matchups like DK, Yoshi, and Jigglypuff. (Usually this involves assumptions like "I'm not going to walk into a pivot grab, so Meta Knight instantly beats Yoshi.")

I'd argue this point actually. Yoshi doesn't go even with MK. The CG is great, but it's not enough to make a horrible matchup into a good one, just a less bad one. MK will **** Yoshi offstage and can stay in the air a lot more than most characters, making the grab less effective. It's close, but the advantage is still MK.

How does Jigglypuff go even?

DK, Snake, and Diddy are arguable. They go even at best, but the top MK's have been trouncing the top Snakes and Diddys and DK's lately. Snake is probably 45:55 MK's favor, and Diddy is probably even only on Final Destination.

It's hardly clear cut either way, but MK doesn't have any clearly even matchups, and it's not absurd to argue that he doesn't have any.

 

[salaboB]

I'd argue this point actually. Yoshi doesn't go even with MK. The CG is great, but it's not enough to make a horrible matchup into a good one, just a less bad one. MK will **** Yoshi offstage and can stay in the air a lot more than most characters, making the grab less effective. It's close, but the advantage is still MK.

How does Jigglypuff go even?

DK, Snake, and Diddy are arguable. They go even at best, but the top MK's have been trouncing the top Snakes and Diddys and DK's lately. Snake is probably 45:55 MK's favor, and Diddy is probably even only on Final Destination.

It's hardly clear cut either way, but MK doesn't have any clearly even matchups, and it's not absurd to argue that he doesn't have any.

Unfortunately, it's very debatable and there's a number of skilled people (Like M2K) who believe there are some realistic even-matchups with MK.

It doesn't mean he's 100% right, but it does mean it's far safer to not rely on this as one of the core arguments because it will get caught in rather pointless stating of opinions with nobody able to prove it with certainty either way. Better to go with the ones that can be successfully defended even when the anti-ban arguments are accepted.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

You did not cover my arguement for banning metaknight, I guess it's the best one out there ^_^ Just kidding. This was an amazing post!! nicely done.

 

[OrlanduEX]

This thread is gold and hopefully it will be used as a reference in future discussions to avoid meaningless repetition and 7000+ post threads that can be summed up in the first page.

My only problem was the emboldened phrase in this line:

"Since Meta Knight breaks the counter-pick system at the core of Smash by having no counters, eventually a very disproportionate amount of players will switch to him as their main or secondary, stagnating the metagame."

Would you say that counter-picking has pivotal to the Smash series in general or Brawl in particular?

In Melee of course counter-picking played a role, but the game was generally developed and diverse enough that advanced techs and smart tactics beat counter-picking pretty much every time.

In Brawl, counter picking plays a considerably greater role, as using a character with a great advantage over another is often enough to decide the outcome of a match between players of similar skill level.

 

[Remzi]

MK has plenty of **** matchups, are you serious >_>

 

[smaci92]

gawd, this is an awesome guide lol thanks!

 

[Thinkaman]

MK has plenty of **** matchups, are you serious >_>

I don't want to start another argument about Meta Knight in this thread, so I'm just going to provide my rationale and ignore all further responses; not intending to be rude, just wanting to keep things on topic. (If you want, feel free to IM me to discuss!)

Meta Knight's metagame consists almost entirely of 6:4 matchups with a few 5:5s and 7:3s. Yes, Meta Knight does have some very good matchups... but those characters normally have an even WORSE time with another character! Mario and Luigi hate MK... but would rather play MK than DDD any day. Ganondorf is one of the easiest MK matchups, but Ganondorf would still rather fight him than DDD or G&W... In my personal experience (which counts for little) I've even counter-picked Ganondorf against a Meta Knight in a tourney set once!

Virtually every character in the game hates at least one other character more than MK, normally a small set. DDD, G&W, Falco, ROB, Marth, Wario, Diddy, and ICs are all terrible, terrible matchups for some characters. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are Marth/Mewtwo or Shiek/Bowser bad, but we are talking solid 8:2 matchups here that can be pretty rough. The only characters I can think of that would list MK as their actual worst matchup are ROB and Wolf, perhaps Fox and Pit as well. Meta Knight may be consistently good, but he doesn't really *DOMINATE* anyone.

The should be somewhat apparent if you think about it; the Pro-Ban support against Meta Knight is not coming from any particular groups of mains, claiming that MK makes their character unplayable. Rather, there is a wide variety of people complaining that he is too good in general.