Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
To start this off, let's make a (false) assumption. Metaknight is broken in every matchup on Norfair and Brinstar, but not on any other stage. Essentially, he will automatically win on his counterpick every single time. This is broken. This means that you have to ban one of the stages. Having both of them legal is completely degenerate. Right?
...Or you could add more stage bans.
The problem with most "borderline" stages is that they're broken. Not in every matchup, not even in a majority of the matchups, but in a few matchups. Part of the problem of the MLG ruleset is that MK or Wario can basically say, "Brinstar or Norfair, pick your poison" and get a ridiculous advantage on their counterpick that borders on broken. But are the stages really broken? Is Falco-Diddy broken/severely polarized on Brinstar? What about Marth-ICs? Is MK-Snake heavily polar on Japes? Is Pikachu-MK ******** on PTAD? Beyond the obvious candidates (to return to the previous examples, MK and Wario), the stages are nothing beyond moderate/strong counterpicks.
You'll find this phenomenon all the time. Certain matchups and/or characters are broken, but for the vast majority, they're nothing more than normal counterpicks, or even one of the most neutral stages in the matchup! Green Greens. Norfair. Brinstar. Final Destination. Jungle Japes. Port Town Aero Dive. Luigi's Mansion Et cetera. They're problematic, but only problematic when you can't ban all of the stages where a character is too good. So what to do? There's a simple method to keep balance in rounds 2 and 3, and keep the hardcore counterpicks, which are usually drastically different from most other stages and therefore add a lot of required skill/adaptation.
Step 1: Find all the stages that are known as problematic as far as counterpicking advantages go, verify their status as such. Keep in mind that here, we are referring to stages that (almost) uniformly give one character
Step 2: Find out for which characters each stage has ridiculous advantages, check the overlaps
Step 3: Stage bans are equal to the highest number of overlaps.
Let's do this with the following (halfway-liberal) stagelist:
Battlefield
Castle Siege
Delfino Plaza
Final Destination
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
Pokémon Stadium
Smashville
Yoshi’s Island
Brinstar
Frigate Orpheon
Green Greens
Pictochat
Pokémon Stadium 2
Norfair
Jungle Japes
Rainbow Cruise
Step 1: Norfair, Brinstar, Rainbow Cruise Green Greens, Pictochat, Jungle Japes, Final Destination
Step 2: Norfair: MK, G&W, Wario, Pikachu.
Brinstar: MK, Wario, Ness.
Rainbow Cruise: MK (VERY questionable)
Green Greens: DK (questionable), DDD (questionable), G&W, am I forgetting anyone?
Pictochat: Diddy Kong (questionable).
Jungle Japes: Falco, DK, Ness/Lucas? (questionable).
FD: Ice Climbers, Falco/Diddy (questionable), DDD (questionable, only in certain matchups)
Step 3: Matches:
MK (Brinstar, Norfair, RC (?): 2 or 3)
G&W: (Norfair, Green Greens: 2)
Wario: (Norfair, Brinstar: 2)
Pikachu: (Norfair: 1)
Ness: (Brinstar, JJ?: 1/2?)
DK (Green Greens (?), Jungle Japes: 2)
DDD (Green Greens (?), FD (?): 1.5 (because it's only in certain matchups))
Diddy Kong: (Pictochat, FD (?): 2)
Falco: (Jungle Japes, FD: 2)
Lucas: (JJ?: 0/1?)
ICs: (FD: 1)
Highest number is 2 (or 3, if you really want to count MK as broken on RC-he really isn't except in matchups where he ***** on his counterpick no matter what), so there's your stage ban count.
Now, I suppose most of you are asking yourself, why? Why not just ban the stages outright?
Depth. As said above, the stages are hardly ever broken or hardcore counterpicks, only in a few choice matchups. This method leaves the stage open to the matchups where it is not broken. Furthermore, it encourages having multiple mains/secondaries, so that if you get all of the "broken" stages for your main banned, you can switch to your secondary and abuse that. It forces players to know the stages, know the matchups that function differently on the stages, and encourages knowing multiple characters well.
A secondary effect is that characters with lots of hardcore counterpicks, while not getting a free win on their counterpick, will get another (far less game-breaking) return-while on a liberal stagelist with 3 stage bans, MK will still have to take ICs to Frigate or Delfino, MK can ban FD, SV, and BF against the ICs. It still rewards hardcore counterpicks, but not in as much of a broken way.
Another question I'm likely to hear is, "why is it right to rebalance the system like this?" Well... Why have a stage ban at all? The existence of, and number of stage bans is completely arbitrary. There's no real reason to have any particular number (like the timer). So why not provide them in such a way that it rebalances what our counterpick system innately breaks?
...Or you could add more stage bans.
The problem with most "borderline" stages is that they're broken. Not in every matchup, not even in a majority of the matchups, but in a few matchups. Part of the problem of the MLG ruleset is that MK or Wario can basically say, "Brinstar or Norfair, pick your poison" and get a ridiculous advantage on their counterpick that borders on broken. But are the stages really broken? Is Falco-Diddy broken/severely polarized on Brinstar? What about Marth-ICs? Is MK-Snake heavily polar on Japes? Is Pikachu-MK ******** on PTAD? Beyond the obvious candidates (to return to the previous examples, MK and Wario), the stages are nothing beyond moderate/strong counterpicks.
You'll find this phenomenon all the time. Certain matchups and/or characters are broken, but for the vast majority, they're nothing more than normal counterpicks, or even one of the most neutral stages in the matchup! Green Greens. Norfair. Brinstar. Final Destination. Jungle Japes. Port Town Aero Dive. Luigi's Mansion Et cetera. They're problematic, but only problematic when you can't ban all of the stages where a character is too good. So what to do? There's a simple method to keep balance in rounds 2 and 3, and keep the hardcore counterpicks, which are usually drastically different from most other stages and therefore add a lot of required skill/adaptation.
Step 1: Find all the stages that are known as problematic as far as counterpicking advantages go, verify their status as such. Keep in mind that here, we are referring to stages that (almost) uniformly give one character
Step 2: Find out for which characters each stage has ridiculous advantages, check the overlaps
Step 3: Stage bans are equal to the highest number of overlaps.
Let's do this with the following (halfway-liberal) stagelist:
Battlefield
Castle Siege
Delfino Plaza
Final Destination
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
Pokémon Stadium
Smashville
Yoshi’s Island
Brinstar
Frigate Orpheon
Green Greens
Pictochat
Pokémon Stadium 2
Norfair
Jungle Japes
Rainbow Cruise
Step 1: Norfair, Brinstar, Rainbow Cruise Green Greens, Pictochat, Jungle Japes, Final Destination
Step 2: Norfair: MK, G&W, Wario, Pikachu.
Brinstar: MK, Wario, Ness.
Rainbow Cruise: MK (VERY questionable)
Green Greens: DK (questionable), DDD (questionable), G&W, am I forgetting anyone?
Pictochat: Diddy Kong (questionable).
Jungle Japes: Falco, DK, Ness/Lucas? (questionable).
FD: Ice Climbers, Falco/Diddy (questionable), DDD (questionable, only in certain matchups)
Step 3: Matches:
MK (Brinstar, Norfair, RC (?): 2 or 3)
G&W: (Norfair, Green Greens: 2)
Wario: (Norfair, Brinstar: 2)
Pikachu: (Norfair: 1)
Ness: (Brinstar, JJ?: 1/2?)
DK (Green Greens (?), Jungle Japes: 2)
DDD (Green Greens (?), FD (?): 1.5 (because it's only in certain matchups))
Diddy Kong: (Pictochat, FD (?): 2)
Falco: (Jungle Japes, FD: 2)
Lucas: (JJ?: 0/1?)
ICs: (FD: 1)
Highest number is 2 (or 3, if you really want to count MK as broken on RC-he really isn't except in matchups where he ***** on his counterpick no matter what), so there's your stage ban count.
Now, I suppose most of you are asking yourself, why? Why not just ban the stages outright?
Depth. As said above, the stages are hardly ever broken or hardcore counterpicks, only in a few choice matchups. This method leaves the stage open to the matchups where it is not broken. Furthermore, it encourages having multiple mains/secondaries, so that if you get all of the "broken" stages for your main banned, you can switch to your secondary and abuse that. It forces players to know the stages, know the matchups that function differently on the stages, and encourages knowing multiple characters well.
A secondary effect is that characters with lots of hardcore counterpicks, while not getting a free win on their counterpick, will get another (far less game-breaking) return-while on a liberal stagelist with 3 stage bans, MK will still have to take ICs to Frigate or Delfino, MK can ban FD, SV, and BF against the ICs. It still rewards hardcore counterpicks, but not in as much of a broken way.
Another question I'm likely to hear is, "why is it right to rebalance the system like this?" Well... Why have a stage ban at all? The existence of, and number of stage bans is completely arbitrary. There's no real reason to have any particular number (like the timer). So why not provide them in such a way that it rebalances what our counterpick system innately breaks?