Stage legality

Banned stages are stages that are banned from most mainstream tournaments. Stages can be banned for several reasons, including:

• Providing an unfair advantage for certain characters (such as excessive camping)
• Allowing players to abuse glitches in the game
• Completely altering the strategies needed to win (such as Temple and Icicle Mountain)
• Having a significant amount of slowdown during a match

Major differences in communities

There are many community preferences in terms of stage choices. For example, when Luigi's Mansion was all but banned on the East Coast, it was allowed on the West Coast. This is usually due to the characters used most often in the community. In the East, Meta Knight is the dominating choice. The East Coast is also well known for much smaller allowable stage lists than the West.

Banned stages in SSB

Banned in both singles and doubles
Stage	Reason for Banning
Mushroom Kingdom	Pipe camping; stalling
Planet Zebes	Acid (this stage is sometimes allowed in tournaments, it is semi-banned within the community)
Sector Z	Overly large; Arwing lasers
Yoshi's Island	Cloud camping

Banned stages in SSBM

In the current Smash Back Room rule set, certain stages are left up to the tournament organizer to decide on banning versus counter-pick. Stages marked with a single X are left up to the tournament organizer, whereas those marked with XX are always banned.

Stage	Banned in		Reason for Banning
	Singles	Doubles
Big Blue	XX	XX	Random terrain; random scrolling
Brinstar Depths	XX	XX	No ledges to grab; stalling; "caves of life";low ceiling favors Star KOs
Flat Zone	XX	XX	Randomness of falling materials; too small
Fountain of Dreams		XX	Significant slowdown during doubles play
Fourside	XX	XX	Uneven recovery potential; no large platforms for fighting; stalling; walls allow infinites
Great Bay	XX		Camping; stalling; ceiling spikes many characters easily
Green Greens	X	X	Over-reliance on camping; bomb blocks disturb players; walls allow infinites; low ceiling favors Star KOs
Icicle Mountain	XX	XX	Randomly moving stage; significant advantage to characters with good jumps
Kongo Jungle	XX	XX	Small rock on the right enforces stalling
Mushroom Kingdom I	XX	XX	Completely irregular design
Mushroom Kingdom II	X	X	All fighting centers on small middle platform in singles; camping at blast zones
Mute City		XX	Too small to accommodate doubles play as well as significant slowdown during doubles play
Onett	XX	XX	Cars can KO at low percents; walls allow infinites
Princess Peach's Castle	X	X	Banzai Bill is a one-hit KO; walls allow infinites
Hyrule: Temple	XX	XX	Too large; over-reliance on teching; see here for more
Venom	XX	XX	Slowdown; walls; game-breaking stalling and camping potential.
Yoshi's Island N64	XX	XX	Camping and stalling on clouds; significant advantage to characters with good jumps
Yoshi's Island (Pipes)	XX	XX	Fox can waveshine most characters off the right side; "caves of life"; low ceiling favors Star KOs

Banned Stages in SSBB

In the current Smash Back Room rule set, certain stages are left up to the tournament organizer to decide on banning versus counter-pick. Stages marked with a single X are left up to the tournament organizer, whereas those marked with XX are always banned.

Stage	Banned in		Reason for Banning
	Singles	Doubles
75m	XX	XX	Too large, stalling, random obstacles, fighting centers around top-right corner, difficult to move about stage
Big Blue (Melee)	XX	XX	Random terrain, random scrolling, ground too close to the cars, gives a large advantage to faster moving characters, stage moves too fast
Bridge of Eldin	XX	XX	Potential for game-breaking camping/stalling, walk-off edges, bomb in center of stage
Corneria (Melee)	XX	XX	Extremely close blast lines, gives a big advantage for those with good vertical KO attacks, excessive camping/stalling behind the big fin, wall infinites
Distant Planet	X	X	Rain makes the left side slippery and hard to walk on, Bulborb, Walk off edges
Flat Zone 2	XX	XX	Randomness of falling materials, extremely small, variety of damaging stage hazards, no lower blast line
Green Greens (Melee)	X	X	Bomb blocks are excessively powerful, blast lines very close to stage
Green Hill Zone	XX	XX	Excessive camping near checkpoints, walk-off edges, blast lines are slightly close to the stage in which it makes it a little too small
Hanenbow	XX	X	Highly irregular design, stalling potential, Sonic spin glitch
Luigi's Mansion	X	X	Over-reliance on teching, small ceilings, projectiles blocked by pillars
Mario Bros.	XX	XX	Gameplay is vastly altered by stage enemies, ceilings, walk-off edges, no lower blast line
Mario Circuit	XX	XX	Potential for game-breaking camping, walk-off edges, damaging karts
Mushroomy Kingdom (1-1 and 1-2)	XX	XX	Side-scrolling, stage moves too fast, underground's ceiling, ledges are not grabbable
New Pork City	XX	XX	Overly large, stalling potential, camera refuses to zoom in, Ultimate Chimera
Norfair	X	X	Randomness in stage incidents, horizontal lava allows lava combos, ledge stalling
Onett (Melee)	XX	XX	Cars, walls interrupt attacks, very small size, no lower blast line
Port Town Aero Dive	X	X	Randomly moving stage, cars KO at low percentages, cars difficult to see coming due to the colors
Rumble Falls	XX	XX	Gives overly large advantage to characters with large or multiple jumps, hurts those who rely on Tether Recoveries, first spike has One-hit KO potential, centers more on moving in the stage than fighting
Shadow Moses Island	XX	XX	Removes lower blast line, walls can block access to side blast lines, over-reliance on teching, walls allow infinites
Skyworld	XX	XX	No passable platforms; over-reliance on stage spikes; significant lag in doubles
Spear Pillar	XX	XX	Randomness of Pokémon attacks, excessive stalling potential, tunnel under stage similar to Temple's underground
Summit	XX	XX	Terrain is slippery, The Fish, ledges are not grabbable, Tether recoveries do not work
Temple (Melee)	XX	XX	Too large, stalling potential, over-reliance on teching, lower area with ceiling
WarioWare, Inc.	XX	XX	Over-reliance on random bonuses from Microgames
Yoshi's Island (Melee)	X	X	Blocks easily interrupt KO attacks, central pit blocks certain recoveries, blast lines very close to stage

See also

• Tournament legal