Pro-Ban
Omniturtle - Haverhill, MA (Fitchburg State College) Falco/Fox Main
I know that I am technically a noob in the Brawl world, but I've spent enough time on smashboards, on youtube, in practice-mode, and in vs mode with friends who constantly grow as I do and cycle between beating me and losing to me. I may not represent the high level play, but I will take a stand for the mid-level players out there who are suffering. As a mid-level player, it is my job to learn from the best. It is my job to evolve my own strategies around not only the pros' to which I aspire, but also my own personal style and experience. Mid-level players all dream of being high-level players, and many do realize that goal, typically; however, the mid-level is struggling through the worst conflict that the Smash community has ever seen.
Mid-level players thrive on the experience they gain from watching and playing against higher-level players. This is the lifeblood of competitive play. Right now, mid-level players should be learning from the best, and eventually learning to incorporate their own ideas into their strategies, as they transcend from mere parrots, squacking back every strategy they see, to fierce strategists capable of thinking for themselves. Sadly, the biggest problem right now is that The Best are all busy either learning to play metaknight or learning how to beat metaknight. I will say right now that I WILL LEAVE ALL MATTERS CONCERNING HIGH-LEVEL PLAY TO HIGH-LEVEL PLAYERS. It is not my intention to claim that I have a rightful say in what happens between high-level players; but right now, the problem has infected my home turf. Mid-level players are suffering and it must stop now.
Metaknight is NOT held within the bounds of the normal "give-and-take" character model. Every other character is held to a balanced character model which always includes a give and take of various advantages. This is NOT counterpicking, it has nothing to do with intercharacter relations. This is the basic design of a character itself. Faster characters usually sacrifice power, and ofter weight-advantages. Stronger characters often lose the speed advantage, as well as often being larger targets, more easily sweet-spotted, with weaker shields. Possibly the most extreme examples would be Sheik and Donkey Kong. Sheik is among the fastest characters in the game, with high-end combo potential. Her downfall is that she is limited in her killing options and dies easily. Excluding various gimps which I am fully aware of, her strength-based killing game revolves entirely around her up-smash and her back-air. Her light weight makes her easy to KO. This is quite a balanced trade of strengths and weaknesses. Donkey Kong is a massive character, who has the power to KO at unbelievably low percents. His problem, however, is that he is slow, and cannot easily combo into his strongest hits. Everyone knows that DK is a momentum character. When he's winning, he's destroying, but the second the tide shifts, he's in serious trouble. DK has a very weak defense when considering both his somewhat useless shield, and his massive size which always manages to be just big enough to get hit. The trade-off to DK's overwhelming might is that he is almost exclusively reduced to a back-air approach. Anything else he has is too slow, or situational. This, again, is a very well-balanced trade of strengths and weaknesses. The problem with metaknight AS A CHARACTER is that he has no such balance. Supposedly he is a fast character (understatement) who should have trouble KOing, and should be worried about low% deaths because he only weighs 2 lb. The truth is that neither of these weaknesses appear in Metaknight. Metaknight's KO game is beyond any other character in the game, but just as I did with Shiek, I will steer clear of his tremendous gimping potential while I'm on the subject of power as a trade-off. Metaknight's forward smash, down smash, and upB all have incredible killing power, and while the smashes would honestly not boost him up to powerhouse status, they are, at the very least, within the middle-weight/speed category. His down-smash, especially, poses a problem, whereby a Metaknight has access to an instantaneous attack with the power to kill at low-end reasonable percents. The upB is the real kicker, because it does have I-frames, and comes out instantly, especially from a shield. Now beyond any other issue, the biggest problem with these moves is that they are not punishable. An upB can be punished by certain characters, only in an ideal situation. Forward and down smashes are not punishable. In fact, not a single move in a decent Metaknight's arsenal is even the least bit punishable. With any other character, if you try a power-move, and miss, you will be punished. Metaknight always gains control again before any other character (excluding Wario in certain cases) has a chance to get anywhere near him. And if it's not bad enough that he is a killing machine, Metaknight's weight disadvantage is almost completely negated by his outstanding and unnatural DI capabilities. Let me bring your attention to Anti-Ban side's argument that Metaknight does not bypass the mechanics of the game including DI. METAKNIGHT ABSOLUTELY AND WITHOUT A DOUBT DOES BYPASS THE MECHANICS OF NORMAL DI. His momentum cancelling potential is astronomical, and it almost completely negates his weight disadvantage. Metaknight is NOT a balanced character. He is absolutely alien to every other character in the game, considering his all-strengths, no-weaknesses design.
Right now Brawl is all about Metaknight, and this is irrefutable. I don't know what the Anti-Ban side was thinking by bringing up the fact that 30% of all the cash winnings have been claimed by Metaknight. This is clearly an argument for the Pro-Ban side. (thanks guys, check's in the mail) This proves even better than the 22% ranking issue, that competitively Brawl has become almost 1/3 Metaknights. This is an overbearing presence on not just high-level players, but mid-level players too. This sends the message that (I quote this directly from the mouths of several REAL people in the mid-level tournements, whom I spoke with face-to-face about this issue) "Metaknight wins tournaments, why pick anyone else?" A player named RYU in the Fitchburg, Massachusetts area was the most annoying of these Metavangelists. He was a skilled player, with a possible shot at winning the tournament entirely; but, in the final match against a Fox main, he switched to Metaknight for fear of losing with his regular character. He went into the match fully confident that Metaknight would let him coast his way to victory, but instead, he lost miserably. The question is not whether or not MK is beatable, because he is. The question is, why are good players forced to believe that their only hope lies with Metaknight, instead of with their hard-earned main? As annoying as he was, I will admit that he had a very good chance of winning the tournament, had he stuck to his own characters. Metaknight is more than just a character problem. His very existence forces players to constantly fear that they either can't beat him, or that they need to use him. The pro-ban side has already done a fantastic job of outlining the reasons why Metaknight makes the game entirely about fighting with and against a metaknight, and I agree wholeheartedly. The funny thing is, Metaknight is ALOT of fun to play, and he can do some really cool things. The truth, though, is that in the end, he doesnt belong.
Now, if you've actually read this far, then I thank you deeply, and I would like to leave you with one more message, from the bottom of my heart, concerning the very soul of our community. The saddest part about Metaknight is that has turned our entire community into a laughing stock. Plank is an unforgivable menace who has laughed in our faces countless times, simply because he knows how bad the situation is and that we can't do anything to stop him or players like him. I have seen his posts saying that Brawl is stupid, and that it's hilarious how much trouble we're all going through while he just sits back and rakes in prize money. To clear up any possible confusion: Plank, I hate you and could not respect you if my life depended on it. You and all the other MK mains who laugh at this community need to get the hell out of it. And now we, as a community need to stand up and show them that we're not going to just sit back and take it anymore. We are not going to let tournament winners hide behind loopholes that constantly undermine our efforts to make a fair and just rulebook. We are not going to sit back and let tournaments be overrun by a threat we cannot contain. Right now we have the power to change our community for the better, and we will not sit back and let one more Metaknight infest our otherwise noble game.
