SSBM: Stage Banishment and Reasoning

[Dylan_Tnga]

Eh....makes sense, I guess.

Sounds like banning Fox, Falcon and C. Falcon would be a hella lot easier though, iffin' you're receivin' my drift.

Banning characters in smash? Why? Ok there have been characters banned in tournament fighting games before, two that I know of.

Street Fighter (god knows which one) Akuma is banned in one of them for just being BETTER than every other character by far. There was very good reason to ban him

NEKRID from soul calibur 2. Ok he was just ridiculous, he had the best moveset possible consisting of all the best moves from other characters. He was clearly a god character and obviously ban worthy in tournaments.

In smash, it is a proven fact that skill decides who wins. And ''OMFG BROKEN IMBALANCED'' characters such as fox/falco have their downfall wherein they can be combo'd from zero to death by many, many, many other characters in the game.

It all comes down to knowing your matchups, knowing your stages and how to counterpick, and KNOWING THE CHARACTERS THAT YOU CHOOSE TO PLAY.

which means everything about that character, his combos vs fastfallers based on percentage, his combos on floaties, what works on ganon might be entirely different than what works on captain falcon.

Smashbrothers is a fighting game that more than any other fighter (Yeah, sounds arrogant but I believe in it) is an art. It takes dedication to master like any good game should require and despite how much people complain about tiers/balance, victory is in your hands. Its in your mindgames, your ability to counter your opponent, and just how far you can push your combos based on DI. Also, missing edgeguards pretty much garuntees that you will lose. Edgeguarding is a big part of winning and losing too.

Ive noticed that none of the players who actually compete in tourneys or win them are the ones complaining about tiers. The only people who complain about tiers are people who play smash at a level where TIERS DO NOT EVEN MATTER

Sorry for the rant about the tiers but I post this kind of argument frequently. I do not mean to call anyone an idiot but I do firmly believe in what I am posting here and that Smash Brothers Melee, despite having some characters, yes, that are better than other characters is NOT a broken game and leaves victory to the most skilled player, not whoever picks fox.

You're a mod...
This belongs in the Melee discussion...

Yeah? and that post you just made is against the rules of this forum. Perhaps you shouldn't be lecturing?

This thread was created on the brawl section to explain to inexperienced players who are awaiting brawl's release WHY stages are banned, instead of just saying ''such and such stages will be banned in brawl'' without giving any information.

I really think alpha zealot was in the right making this thread, and the only thing you got right in your post was ''You're a mod''

He is a mod, he's also not an idiot. This thread is completly justified and you should keep your pseudo moderator opinions to yourself. Im tired of seeing people acting like mods and judging which thread should be where, when posts of that nature are clearly against the rules of this forum.

 

[Harry Megamix]

I don't see why you would go about banning the stages themselves, when you could just penalize the person using these cheap tactics at the tournament. It can't be that hard to have people overseeing the match, can it?

Banning stages just takes out some of the diversity in the game. Plus, you guys are big bad tourney-goers, right? You'd be the last people I'd expect to hear whining about things being "cheap".

 

[greenblob]

When it comes to banning, it's always techniques>characters>everything else.
Techniques take priority because first, some are very hard to judge (camping) and second, it forces self-restraint. It's better to take something out of the game than to force someone to stop using something. Generally, banned tactics are things that can be done in almost any stage.

And items aren't "cheap"--they're random. Cheapness, which is a very arbitrary label, is not a reason to ban anything.

 

[NES n00b]

Actually, tiers even exist in casual play. Peach and Sheik just dominate casual play because their brokeness don't require tech skill. Yeah, why do the casual players complain about tourney rules and stuff if they don't even go to them? Something that I don't understand myself.

Plus, banning characters should definitely be a last resort. The more deversity in characters the better (unless they shallow the metagame). Same goes for stages (unless again, they shallow the metagame).

Edit: lol, big bad tourney goers.

 

[greenblob]

Theoretically, a different tier list exists in casual play (theoretical because none has been made that's generally accepted).

And as for banning, it's not something that happens overnight. It's not something that's arbitrary.
In competitive Pokemon, evasion moves such as Double Team and certain Pokemon labeled as "ubers" are banned. Then some people came along, played some random matches on Netbattle, and declared SkarmBliss and Suicune "cheap" and decided that they must be banned. Banning does not happen this way.

 

[Harry Megamix]

And items aren't "cheap"--they're random. Cheapness, which is a very arbitrary label, is not a reason to ban anything.

I wasn't talking about items. I don't use items either; I was talking about the tactics that are the cause for bans.

Plus, banning characters should definitely be a last resort. The more deversity in characters the better (unless they shallow the metagame). Same goes for stages (unless again, they shallow the metagame).

I don't see how those stages "shallow the metagame". If you know advanced techs / mindgames / spacing, that should be enough to deal with whatever cheapness that comes along with the stages.

 

[Adi]

I don't see how those stages "shallow the metagame". If you know advanced techs / mindgames / spacing, that should be enough to deal with whatever cheapness that comes along with the stages.

Did you even read the post, the reason the stages are banned is because certain tactics on them are simply unbeatable.

 

[Dylan_Tnga]

I don't see why you would go about banning the stages themselves, when you could just penalize the person using these cheap tactics at the tournament.

Youd think so... actually I considered that angle too but someone answered that question here :

The hardest part about this is where to draw the line. It's easy with an obvious abuse (fox hits you with a laser and runs the Hyrule circle for 8 minutes), but it gets more difficult if they play honorably for part of the match. Where do you draw the line between cheap camping tricks and good mind games? Do you ban a fox player who only runs the Hyrule Circle 2 or 3 times when the match is almost over? etc.

Much easier to just ban the stage. Hyrule Temple is a nub stage anyway, its just too large. It's a FUN stage for beginners, but once you become a better play hyrule temple loses its novelty.

Take it from someone whos favorite stage used to be hyrule temple, and who also used to main link. *shudders at thought of playing link in melee* ''Omg, the germ!''

Actually, tiers even exist in casual play. Peach and Sheik just dominate casual play because their brokeness don't require tech skil

Bah with casual play it comes down to scrub rules though. Because no one is really good enough at the game to master all the aspects of a certain character, they will frequently abuse an effective, yet easy ''gay'' strat such as tilts to fair with shiek, dsmashing in general with peach, etc.

Casual play is where the term ''cheap'' is spawned, since in casual play people prefer to relax and play at random rather than creating solid techniques with which to win. But everyone likes winning, so during a casual session, someone might figure out an effective yet easy combo with shiek such as dtilt to fair and spam it over and over and over again. This kind of play is ''cheap''

Once you reach tournament play you cannot hope to use a repetitive attack strategy lest you become predictable. In Tourney play you have to know literally hundreds of strategies and really observe your opponent if you wish to have a hope of winning. You can't play ''cheap'' in tournament play because there exists always a way to get around any strategy and counter it.

Im still laughing my butt off at the comments on bomboldier vs ken. Wherein despite Bombsoldier nailing ken with repeated SHL and attacking his shield with pillaring and comboing him for over 80 percent... Ken is still ''CHEAP'' in any match he wins for using the technique known as chaingrabbing, which in my opinion is on an equal level (difficulty wise) with the Short hop laser to pillar to waveshine approach.

Boggles the mind, but hey. I'm Dylan_Tnga, Im a big ****ing jerk and I only accept tournmanet style of play, right?

Wrong, dammit. I just have the balls to state in writing that no matter what the tournamnet player will WIN if he plays to his/her 100 perecent capacity vs the casual player no matter what rules are in use.

Sounds arrogant, but it's the truth. Butthurt about it? Money match me.

 

[greenblob]

I wasn't talking about items. I don't use items either; I was talking about the tactics that are the cause for bans.



I don't see how those stages "shallow the metagame". If you know advanced techs / mindgames / spacing, that should be enough to deal with whatever cheapness that comes along with the stages.

Meh...I meant stages. Certain stages are banned because of randomness.

And yeah, people did respond with advanced techs. Then there were the 8 minute laps around Hyrule.

 

[Harry Megamix]

Youd think so... actually I considered that angle too but someone answered that question here

Much easier to just ban the stage. Hyrule Temple is a nub stage anyway, its just too large. It's a FUN stage for beginners, but once you become a better play hyrule temple loses its novelty.

Take it from someone whos favorite stage used to be hyrule temple, and who also used to main link. *shudders at thought of playing link in melee* ''Omg, the germ!''

I guess you're right in that respect. When it comes down to a match of pure skill, you can't have something as trivial as stage advantages messing up the game.

The "line being drawn" thing is too hard a call to make in some cases. People who use that crap in tourneys shouldn't even be there in the first place, IMO.

Then there were the 8 minute laps around Hyrule.

Jesus Christ, lol.

 

[NES n00b]

My friends and I abused the most effective tatics in n00b level play. I just fsmashed and grabbed with Marth and my friend would use fair, tilts, downthrow, and fair with Sheik. Another friend of mine just used dsmash with Peach. Ah, can't believe that I played like that at one time.

Also, stop insulting who I use in tournies Dylan. I got to admit; he is a crappy character, but I still like to play as him for some reason (Link).

 

[Kabyk-Greenmyst]

Umm...I think we're supposed to talk about how the banning rules used for Melee are to be applied to the stages in Brawl, the ones we know right now anyways. Not for why those rules exist. I'm not even going to get into it, I'll start a new conversation!

So far we have:
Battlefield - Allowed. Same as Melee with a Greek, atmospheric design.
Delfino Plaza - Allowed. Seems like a fairly consistent, flat, and relatively undisturbed level. When the flying platform lands somewhere in the plaza, it doesn't seem there's any real stage interaction.
Yoshi's Island - Debatable. There seems to be a floating platform off the edge that comes and goes. The main floating platform seems to shift during seasons, but nothing major. Really comes down to how much the stage changes for each season.
Lylat Cruise - Allowed. Looks to be a Final Destination (only interaction is background) with 3 stationary platforms above the main one on the bottom.
Bridge of Eldin - Banned. (most likely) Due to theories. Stage looks like it will have walk-off dead zones like Flatzone and Mushroom Kingdom. One theory says it's 2.5x the length of Final Destination, looooonnng smash attack to hit them off. King Bulblin with bombs and moblins with bows and arrows. This isn't even considering the huge amount of level that disappears when the middle breaks away.
Smashville - Allowed. Final Destination with an Animal Crossing background and one floating platform.
Rumble Falls - Banned. DK-themed Icicle Mountain.
Skyworld - Debatable. It all pretty much depends on how the clouds works, the ones that appear when the stage platforms break away. If they are Yoshi clouds and the platforms break fairly easy, then most likely banned. If hard to break and non-fading clouds, chance that it will be allowed.

Looking at it like this, I see why I felt like I did with every stage update. I had a feeling Sakurai was going to make a lot of entertaining levels, with the entertainment mostly in the background and designs, not in stage interaction. The way it is above, on average(making the 2 debatable into 1 allowed and 1 banned) we have a 5:3 ratio of allowed to banned. That is a very good and acceptable ratio, whether it is on a scale of 3 times as much or 20. [For the math *******, the ratio becomes 15:9 and 100:60] If we stay with this, we can have a nice sized selection of stages, both in tournament play and casual.

*NOTE: This is a lot of speculation coupled with the fact that I'm only lightly acquainted with the stage banning rules.

 

[Ogre_Deity_Link]

Bah with casual play it comes down to scrub rules though. Because no one is really good enough at the game to master all the aspects of a certain character, they will frequently abuse an effective, yet easy ''gay'' strat such as tilts to fair with shiek, dsmashing in general with peach, etc.

Casual play is where the term ''cheap'' is spawned, since in casual play people prefer to relax and play at random rather than creating solid techniques with which to win. But everyone likes winning, so during a casual session, someone might figure out an effective yet easy combo with shiek such as dtilt to fair and spam it over and over and over again. This kind of play is ''cheap''

Once you reach tournament play you cannot hope to use a repetitive attack strategy lest you become predictable. In Tourney play you have to know literally hundreds of strategies and really observe your opponent if you wish to have a hope of winning. You can't play ''cheap'' in tournament play because there exists always a way to get around any strategy and counter it.

Actually, this doesn't sound anything at all like the matches me and my friends have. Sure, we play honorably (Only because we really hate getting 5-stocked because of an over used, super powerful move) but we also normally duel on FD, play without items and we almost never use Shiek/Peach (well, okay, I play Peach occasionally, but I'm not that good with her to the point of unfairness.) Hell, I'm always playing a low tier character against my friend's Marth, but we always seem to get within one life of each other. I love the close matches, even when you lose, you fought well, and isn't that what counts?

Boggles the mind, but hey. I'm Dylan_Tnga, Im a big ****ing jerk and I only accept tournmanet style of play, right?

Wrong, dammit. I just have the balls to state in writing that no matter what the tournamnet player will WIN if he plays to his/her 100 perecent capacity vs the casual player no matter what rules are in use.

Sounds arrogant, but it's the truth. Butthurt about it? Money match me.

Fine! I will! I CHOOSE YOU QUARTERMON!!!!.....Oh wait...you didn't mean it that way? ....****!!!

Um....yeah.

 

[Proteus]

As for announced stages, most of them look like they'll be okay for tournament play. Battlefield is obvious. Delfino Plaza has potential. It depends on whether the plaza part will give any unfair advantages, since without ledges (as far as I can tell) it is in the same boat as Flatzone, Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroon Kingdon II, and Onett, all of which are banned. Yoshi's Story and Lylat Cruise look okay. Bridge of Eldin...meh. I don't think it'll be good. No ledges and King Bulblin might be too random/powerful. Skyworld and Smashville should be fine. Rumble Falls could be good. It's not random, which is good, but it will probably depend on the speed of the ascent.

Feel free to debate or tear any of my points apart.

Makes me sad that people ignored this, but thanks Kabyk-Greenmyst for bringing the thread back to this point.

Anyway, if Yoshi Island's ghost thing isn't random (like Melee's Yoshi's Story cloud) than there's no reason not to include it. Even if it is random it doesn't seem like a huge deal. Disagree with your point on Rumble Falls though, but that was addressed in the above quote.

 

[Dylan_Tnga]

Actually, this doesn't sound anything at all like the matches me and my friends have. Sure, we play honorably (Only because we really hate getting 5-stocked because of an over used, super powerful move) but we also normally duel on FD, play without items and we almost never use Shiek/Peach (well, okay, I play Peach occasionally, but I'm not that good with her to the point of unfairness.) Hell, I'm always playing a low tier character against my friend's Marth, but we always seem to get within one life of each other. I love the close matches, even when you lose, you fought well, and isn't that what counts?

hehe I can win randomly with pikachu and my friend owns with DK. Most of our matches are tight, you can check my vids if ya want.

 

[AlphaZealot]

There are some things I left out that I should probably address.

First and foremost, these are the stages that are most commonly banned at tournaments nowadays, but it is important to note that while the stages in red are almost universally banned, the stages in yellow still sometimes show up. For example, at the most recent FCD, I believe Kongo Jungle (with the 4 platforms and the rock, I never know what to call it, sigh) was allowed as a counter pick stage. Why did they decide to turn this stage back on? Well, its all about whoever is running the tournament and their philosphy, personally, I would ban stages like Jungle Japes and Greens Greens (because of certain advantages and disadvantages that I won't bother explaining unless someone is curious), and open up Peach's Castle and maybe Venom. The most important thing though, is why you are banning a stage. If there is a good reason, most people who want to attend won't mind if one stage is banned over another. These yellow colored stages have never really had a clear cut reason for being banned, yet when they are banned, most people just sorta shrug and understand with a "I guess I can see that" attitude.

I don't see why you would go about banning the stages themselves, when you could just penalize the person using these cheap tactics at the tournament. It can't be that hard to have people overseeing the match, can it?

This is a very good question. One problem with banning tactics is simply defining what is bannable. If Fox isn't allowed to shoot a laser and run for 8 minutes, is he allowed to do it for 25 seconds when he has a small lead and doesn't want to lose it before time runs out? what about camping? How can we exactly define what it is? Standing in one location for x amount of time? Well, then to thwart that all you do is stand there for 1 less second than that x amount of time, move away, then move back into position. It's very difficult to define just what can and should be banned, and this doesn't even get into the enforcement issue. We can enforce stage bans quite easily, if you see it being played, you tell the person to restart a match. At tournaments, there is usually a captain for each pool. Picking up on a banned stage isn't to difficult, but it would be impossible to have an official sit down and watch every single match to make sure someone isn't using a so called banned strategy.
In short, banning tactics is difficult because:
1) The ban is hard to define
2) If it was defined, then a new strategy similar to the first but slightly different will simply emerge.
3) Even if 1 and 2 didn't matter, we wouldn't really be able to enforce such rules.

These are the sort of things that people will need to keep in mind when discussing the brawl stages. After seeing the stages they have presented so far, I think things are looking pretty good, but there will be no way to really know until the game is released, and when that happens there will likely be some tournaments that run with every stage on.

My final point is about zoning. Zoning is a term used in other fighting games that isn't often used in SSBM, yet in reality, SSBM players have been using Zoning for years. The idea is simple, aside from spacing, you also want to control certain parts of the level that give you advantages. If your Marth on battlefield, you want to control the ground and you want to keep your opponents on the platforms where they are more vulnerable. You could argue that this is an unfair positional advantage for Marth, similar to ones created by other characters. The problem isn't that a position gives an advantage to a player, because ideally each person will always want there character at the most advantageous position on the stage. Instead, the problem with many of the stages, is that there are positions that are simply TOO advantageous, and that under no reasonable circumstance can you honestly ask a player to break these positions. Getting to the ground against Marth on battlefield isn't that difficult. It requires a little wit sometimes, but it is a totally reasonable thing to ask someone to do. Of course, here lies the problem, since this evaluation is more subjective than objective, it is difficult to really explain to someone where the line is drawn between what is simply a good position to hold and what is a unfairly good position to hold. I feel like I may have lost the point of this paragraph, so if someones asks I'll simply try to explain it better, as these are all concepts that tournament organizers have been attempting to grasp and balance over the last 4 or so years (the tournament community really didn't start to develop until 2002-2003).

 

[Rx-]

Did I miss the Brawl reference here?

 

[Viewtiful_Jeff]

Well, the thing is this: A lot of those, Fox and Falco doing crap with their lasers then playing defensively seems to be a problem. I'm no big Fancy Pants Tourney Dude, but it seems plain as day to me that Fox's laser combined with his Quite Frankly Not Sane speed are a bigger problem then those stages. Falco, to a lesser degree, since you can't laserspam with him, but it's still an easy to fire projectile that can nail the other guy from across the stage, and unless I've gone senile, he and Fox are the only ones that can do it (Samus's and Mewtwo's shots either have to be charged or are just pathetically slow and have limited range, Pikachu/Pichu's Thundershocks have to have ground to travel on, Link's arrows need to be charged, Ness's PKs have limited range, he's wide open during PK Thunder, etc. etc.)

It just seems like things would be a lot easier if those two were cut out, but that's just me. Hell, it's been months since I even played Melee anyway (accursed stret urchins stealin' my Gamecube).

 

[Rikka]

....I'm curious.

 

[Viewtiful_Jeff]

Well that's perfectly fine, but I think the best place to act on that would be eharmony or something, not Smashboards...

 

[Rikka]

C'mon, you come too....

I'm kidding. The stages.

 

[Deleted member]

Sigh how many people have posted that now? A million?

WHEN BRAWL COMES OUT, YOU'LL SEE! YOU'LL ALL SEE!

I even found a few youtube comments from mr ''Brawlpro'' (no joke thats his name on youtube and here) about how Ken is cheap for chaingrabbing bombsoldier and winning.

Because of course just standing there and letting yourself get SHL'd and Pillar'd is a great idea, right? Nope.

That will change. Not that I like making prophecies, but Sakurai is bound to throw out some 'advanced moves/glitches/exploits' (whatever you want to call them).

Then the universe will be at peace...






Until the next ones come along.

 

[Kabyk-Greenmyst]

Rx- you did miss the Brawl reference. Proteus and I talked about it on the previous page (4). I even colored it to make it easily readable and attractable to the eye in an attempt to bring the conversation back to the actual topic.

But apparently I failed, failed miserably. Even though this is *technically* a Brawl thread, just move it to the Melee section, as no one cares enough, too busy arguing about the levels in a game that will die (hopefully) when the sequel comes out.

 

[Rash]

I've seen enough to be able to say that Brawl will in no way be Melee 2.0 and will not feel the same in every way, save for the returning characters and movesets.

Melee is its own game, just like SSB64. It will not die. Even though people have been heavily playing Melee for the past several years (in waiting for the sequel, especially), I don't think people will get tired of it or just stop playing it. That's silly. A good game is a good game, and even once everyone has had their Brawl fix, both games will be able to coexist in their own realms. That's why no one should worry about the tournament scene during the "Brawl Age"; because it will never dissappear, even if Brawl is not tournament-friendly in the same way as Melee.

 

[M.K]

What kind of ticks me off is that when a casual player AND a tournament player are playing together, and the casual player chooses a stage like Fourside (which is banned for just a minor reason compared to others) and the tournament player goes all "OMG yUR a N00B luzr! Ths sTagE is BANNED n00B!"

I play to win, but I also play to have fun, and to me, some of these stages are fun. I respect tournament players, but yet, these stages are meant for wacky tacky play, and since tournament players like it straightforward, that's fine! [/opinion]

 

[Harry Megamix]

It depends on what you mean. Is this a casual player facing a tourney player in casual play? Or is it a casual player facing a tourney player in tourney play?

If the former, than I don't see why the tourney player would have that outburst unless he was an arrogant fool. And if it's the latter, than you should know better than entering into a public tourney without knowing the rules / regulations.

P.S: Alphazealot, I see your point.

 

[greenblob]

What kind of ticks me off is that when a casual player AND a tournament player are playing together, and the casual player chooses a stage like Fourside (which is banned for just a minor reason compared to others) and the tournament player goes all "OMG yUR a N00B luzr! Ths sTagE is BANNED n00B!"

I play to win, but I also play to have fun, and to me, some of these stages are fun. I respect tournament players, but yet, these stages are meant for wacky tacky play, and since tournament players like it straightforward, that's fine! [/opinion]

I'd think that instead of that shout, it'd be more of a snide comment followed by the abuse of some tactic that caused that stage to be banned in the first place.

 

[SmashChu]

Good to know.

But, in my personaly opinion, why don't they just not determine damage as a tie braker. There is aa reason the game doesn't and it's becuase, unlike a health bar in other fighting games, damage isn't a good indicater of how close to death you are. You can die at 40 damage or still keep fighting at 200. It depends on the fight. Determining the winner based on Damage is unreliable as the out come of the match would determine if that damage were put to good use.

I think that would make more courses leagle(spelling?) or at least counter. Now the player must fight you to win. In you are playing with stock time, the game would just take you into sudden death like it normally would.

That's just my two cents on the matter.

 

[Rikka]

Fox shoots lasers enough to where he can KO them, then keeps running with his one life lead.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Smashchu: That has been considered, but say you are in a match, tied at stock, time runs out, and you have 2% damage on your last stock while your opponent has 140% damage on his final stock. Clearly the first person had outplayed his opponent when time had run out, so having the match going into sudden death, with each person at 300%, wouldn't really be fair to the person who had played better for most of the real match. This doesn't even mention the flaws of the 300% sudden death system, which is basically a coin flip and also gives some characters huge advantages (say, Marth, with his insane range, or Samus with missiles, you get the drift, certain characters are favored more than others when only one decent hit will KO a person).

By the same token though, you could have cases where one person has 40% and the other has 42%. Would it be fair to make the person with 2% more damage lose the match? Maybe, maybe not. It a tough call. I've seen some tournaments run with a rule (that I somewhat like), that goes like this: if the players are tied in stock and separated in damage by less than 20%, than the players will do a 1 stock match on the same level to determine the winner. I like the rule somewhat, but then you get cases where the players are separated by 21%, what then? Eventually a line needs to be drawn.

A rule does need to exist though, because otherwise we may actually get draws in matches. Having a rule that forces one person to attack (because they would otherwise lose by percent tie breaker) actually forces players to hurry things along and get to fighting.

I personally, as I explained under some of the stages, don't like having them banned, but things could be worse, we still have a good number of stages left after all. Now opinions on some of the stages for brawl:
Battlefield: I think this stage will probably remain unbanned in tournaments, considering it mirrors many of the current neutral stages.
Delfino Plaza: Seems to be like Mute City, and since for the most part the stage appears to resemble neutral stages, I think it won't be banned. Probably will be used for counterpicking.
Yoshi Island: Wow, this stage I really have no idea. Could the different weather effect players traction? Maybe. I also have difficulty figuring out the size of the stage, it seems smaller than it really is.
Lylat Cruise: I'm actually pretty excited about this stage. The platforms are mostly on the same level, something we haven't really seen in the previous Smash Bros game. In addition to this, it appears R wings (or whatever) may appear as additional platforms. Could be very interesting, maybe a neutral stage.
Bridge of Eldin: The descriptions for this stage seem...a bit lacking. I can't really get a feel for how it works. It appears to maybe have walk of edges, but maybe that is only during part of the match? In which case the position is only a momentary advantage...who knows?
Smashville: My guess, a neutral stage. Seems like a pretty staight forward, platform level.
Rumble Falls: Similar to icicle mountain, but if the description is accurate, it moves upward at the same constant speed. I think, unlike icicle mountain, this slightly different attribute may make the stage available for tournaments. It adds a new strategy, because the players will need to stay toward the top, so you will get players fighting for the higher positions, which could be very interesting. My guess, counter pick stage.
Skyworld: I think this might be the first stage to get an axe, which is sad because I really like the looks of it. The bottom platform could create positions very similar to ones that occur when there is a divide in the stage or the small rock on the DK SSBM level. Who knows though, until it is played. One possible opening though is that players could edge hog, then use the momentary invulnerability to drop in on players camping the bottom platform.

 

[Midna]

it looks as if to prevent campers, simply pick Pikachu and spam thunder jolt like there's no tomorrow.

that DK stage looks interesting, and Skyworld bhetter not get the axe.

 

[Takalth]

Well, the thing is this: A lot of those, Fox and Falco doing crap with their lasers then playing defensively seems to be a problem. I'm no big Fancy Pants Tourney Dude, but it seems plain as day to me that Fox's laser combined with his Quite Frankly Not Sane speed are a bigger problem then those stages. Falco, to a lesser degree, since you can't laserspam with him, but it's still an easy to fire projectile that can nail the other guy from across the stage, and unless I've gone senile, he and Fox are the only ones that can do it (Samus's and Mewtwo's shots either have to be charged or are just pathetically slow and have limited range, Pikachu/Pichu's Thundershocks have to have ground to travel on, Link's arrows need to be charged, Ness's PKs have limited range, he's wide open during PK Thunder, etc. etc.)

It just seems like things would be a lot easier if those two were cut out, but that's just me. Hell, it's been months since I even played Melee anyway (accursed stret urchins stealin' my Gamecube).

You made a post on this principle before, I addressed your comments, and rather than responding (and actually moving a discussion forward), you just repeated your points as if I had not addressed them. I will raise my arguments again, in case you missed my post, but don't post a theory that you aren't willing to discuss.

Okay, here are my two objections to your idea:

#1: The cheap tactics will just be passed to other characters. Sheik can use the same trick Fox can, using needles and running the Hyrule circle. Under your suggestion, you just banned one of the two characters who could catch her. C. Falcom may not have projectiles, but all he needs is a moment where he's ahead on percent and he can start the same cheap tactic. Likewise, on other stages, the cheap trick is either universal or it will just get passed to other characters.
Ban the fastest characters, and you still have fastest characters, even if they aren't the same ones.

#2: Do you honestly think people will object less to banning characters than stages?

 

[TheZizz]

Settle ties with a coin-toss.

Given: luck = bad!
Given: stall = tie

IF tie = luck THEN
stall = bad!

 

[Pieman0920]

Lyat Cruise seems to have the hazard of space debree from the fights in the background. >__>

Just so ya know.

EDIT: Nevermind. Rewatched trailer. ._.

 

[shadenexus18]

I cried when I saw the upgraded version of Yoshi Island. Not out of joy, but out of misery. I HATE that stage with all of my very being!

Reason: It's like Apple Jacks, it's like how we breathe oxygen, it's like how Mario will forever be the heart n soul of Nintendo. Just because. Thats all the reason I'll ever need. I just plain out hate Yoshi Island. End of story.

 

[-=Marth_n_Roy=-]

Well from what you are laying out Zelot. . .almost 90% of ALL brawl stages will be banned. the only one surviving are the stages that change time of day

forget banned stages. . .what about banned characters!? Seriously. . .fox. . .is TOOO uber

You better not ban Falcon. I've just stared to pwn with him because I finally admitted that my controller sucked and starting using a different one. But unfortunately, its a Wavebird so I can't use it at tournaments (not that I go, but I like to be prepared).

Knee FTW

 

[Viewtiful_Jeff]

You made a post on this principle before, I addressed your comments, and rather than responding (and actually moving a discussion forward), you just repeated your points as if I had not addressed them. I will raise my arguments again, in case you missed my post, but don't post a theory that you aren't willing to discuss.

Okay, here are my two objections to your idea:

#1: The cheap tactics will just be passed to other characters. Sheik can use the same trick Fox can, using needles and running the Hyrule circle. Under your suggestion, you just banned one of the two characters who could catch her. C. Falcom may not have projectiles, but all he needs is a moment where he's ahead on percent and he can start the same cheap tactic. Likewise, on other stages, the cheap trick is either universal or it will just get passed to other characters.
Ban the fastest characters, and you still have fastest characters, even if they aren't the same ones.

#2: Do you honestly think people will object less to banning characters than stages?

I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to ignore you. I guess I just didn't notice your post. Apologies.

1. Stuff like Hyrule? Yeah, I can see that. It'd be impossible to catch someone who knew what they were doing there. But I think if you were paying attention, then you could catch someone on Great Bay easily enough. Also, how much range do Sheik's needles have, anyway?

2. At first, obviously not, but if it made things work better in the long run, yeah.

 

[Harry Megamix]

Banning stages is a dumb idea, no matter the cheap tactics. Although, however an unapetizing thought that is, banning characters is a stupid, ludicrous idea, and shouldn't even be considered in serious conversation.

Even if you do ban the characters that those cheap tactics are done the easiest with, people will just pick the characters closest to the top of the tier list and continue doing those cheap tactics.

Despite this argument, there has to be a better way besides banning stages.

 

[Pieman0920]

You'd think the tournament officials would ban such tactics, instead of the stages themselves. >_>

 

[Harry Megamix]

...AlphaZealot kind of shot that down a few pages ago. You have the right idea; it's just too hard to regulate each match, and even harder to drawn the line in determing what's cheap and what's not.