Stage legality: Difference between revisions

'''Banned stages''' cannot be chosen at all. Stages can be banned for several reasons, common reasons including but not limited to:

*Especially poor matchup balance by providing a rather extreme advantage for certain [[character]]s (such as allowing the character to utilise excessive, gamebreaking [[camping]], or utilise infinite [[chain throw]]s, as in the case of {{SSBM|Fox}} in [[Temple]] for the former, or {{SSBB|King Dedede}} in [[Shadow Moses Island]] for the latter).

*Allowing players to abuse [[glitch]]es in the game.

*Possessing one or more "[[caves of life]]," allowing characters to survive much longer than feasibly possible under usual circumstances, and creating a general over-centralisation on the ability to [[tech]].

*Possessing permanent walk-off [[blast line]]s and walls; the former creates unreasonably powerful camping positions and allows for potential easy [[zero-death]]s that wouldn't occur normally, as well as marginalizing or completely eliminating offstage play (nullifying the value of a good recovery), while the latter also creates powerful camping positions and allow for zero-death or otherwise heavily damaging combos that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Walk-offs and walls that occur only temporarily on a stage are considered detrimental, but acceptable enough to usually not result in a stage's banning by themselves.

*Possessing elements that causes the stage to be too strenuous on the system's CPU and thus being capable of reducing the game's frame rate mid-match (such as [[Fountain of Dreams]] in ''Melee'' doubles play).

==Major differences in communities==

The commonality of characters can also play a role in what stages are legal or banned. Again in ''Brawl'', the rising prominence of {{SSBB|Meta Knight}} in the [[metagame]] led to stage lists in most regions becoming more restrictive. In the Tristate region, Meta Knight was not banned from tournaments, and as a result, the Tristate tournament scene banned or otherwise restricted stages such as [[Delfino Plaza]], [[Halberd]], and [[Rainbow Cruise]] due to Meta Knight's overwhelming power on such stages. In some regions, however, Meta Knight was not as widely used as the Tristate Area; as such, some of the aforementioned stages have differing legalities, with Halberd sometimes being a starter stage and [[Frigate Orpheon]] going from a banned stage to a counterpick. [[WHOBO 4]], the first American MK-banned major, featured an expansive stagelist that included Delfino Plaza, Halberd, Rainbow Cruise, and Brinstar as counterpicks, even though most of these stages were banned in MK-legal tournaments at the time.

==Stage legality in ''[[Smash 64]]''==

More recently, [[Smash Remix]] has allowed for certain hacked stages in tournaments, such as Zebes Landing (a version of Dream Land without wind), and even stages with a different layout, like 64 versions of [[Smashville]], [[Yoshi's Story]], [[Pokémon Stadium]] and others.

! Commonly cited reasons for status

|-

| style="background:#dfffbf" | Starter

| style="background:#dfffbf" | Starter

|-

| style="background:#ffdfbf" | Retired starter<ref name="Apex 2015 Ruleset"/>

| style="background:#ffefbf" | Infrequently legal<ref name="Apex 2015 Ruleset"/><ref name="GENESIS 6 Ruleset"/><ref name="Smash'N'Splash 5 Ruleset">[https://www.ssbwiki.com/Tournament:Smash_%27N%27_Splash_5#Stages Smash'N'Splash 5]</ref>

| style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned

| style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned

|}

| Overly large; excessive camping/stalling behind the big fin; fin allows for wall infinites; random, powerful stage hazards in Arwing lasers; several positions from which characters cannot recover which they can easily be forced into, especially by characters with good aerial games; overall gives unfair advantages to fast characters on the stage and aerial-based characters off of it

|-

| style="background:#dfffbf" | Starter

| style="background:#dfffbf" | Starter

| Overly powerful stage hazard in Klap Trap; unusually high ceiling gives a disproportional advantage to horizontal finishers; high potential for camping and stalling; very poor matchup balance, giving a disproportionate advantage to characters with projectiles and those that can traverse the stage well

|-

| style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned

| style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned

| Powerful camping position on the rock platform on the bottom right of the stage; [[Klaptrap|Klap Trap]] too powerful and difficult to avoid when it enters the Barrel Cannon

|-

| style="background:#ffdfbf" | Retired counterpick

| style="background:#ffdfbf" | Retired counterpick

| Walk-off blast lines; stage is too small; random, disruptive [[stage hazard]] in [[Birdo]]; lack of proper "center" platform hinders gameplay, particularly in doubles

|-

| style="background:#ffdfbf" | Retired counterpick

| style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned

In the past, the following stages have been legal counterpicks, but are now banned:

The following stages have never been legal in competitive ''Melee'' history:

*[[Brinstar Depths]], [[Flat Zone]], [[Fourside]], [[Great Bay]], [[Icicle Mountain]], [[Temple]], [[Venom]], [[Yoshi's Island (SSB)|Yoshi's Island (N64)]]

| Slants at the ledges; tilting can unfairly mess up recoveries

|-

| style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned

| [[Gameplay]] is vastly altered by stage [[enemies]]; overly powerful stage hazards; impassable platforms create caves of life; walk-off blast lines; no lower blast line

|-

| style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned

| High potential for camping/stalling; walk-off blast lines; frequent stage hazard in karts that often disrupt gameplay; no lower blast line

| Stage design from WarioWare, Inc. without transformations. Textures usually changed to a Wario Land theme. Too small for doubles.

|-

| style="background:#ffffbf" | Counterpick

| style="background:#ffffbf" | Counterpick

| [[Brinstar]] || style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned || Lava stage hazard is too powerful, especially against fast-fallers; stage creates significant reliance on aerial games, punishing characters that need to stay on the ground; irregular, disruptive design that can frequently change

|-

|-

| [[Dream Land (64)]] || style="background:#ffffbf" | Counterpick || Wind can alter gameplay; the top platform is closer to the ceiling than battlefield; thus sligtly favoring characters with vertical finishers

| [[Prism Tower]] || style="background:#ffffbf" | Counterpick || Some transformations feature walk-off blast lines.

|-

|-

| [[Magicant]] || style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned || Flying Men are too powerful a stage hazard and overcentralize gameplay on camping on the rightmost platform.

| [[Gaur Plain]] || style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned || Too large; promotes camping and circle camping; walk-off blast lines; grants advantage to characters with good aerial mobility

|-

|-

| [[Balloon Fight]] || style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned || Walk-off blast lines; Fish and other stage hazards are too disruptive and powerful; lower blast line is difficult to utilize

|style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned || Stage has constant walk-off blast lines and lacks a lower blast line; unusual curvature and gravity of the stage can also impact gameplay physics

|-

|style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned || Some transformations of the stage can block off blast lines; Shy Guy racers too powerful a stage hazard

|-

|style="background:#ffdfbf" | Retired counterpick || Stage transformations can have walk-off blast lines or no lower blast line; some potentially powerful camping spots; strongly benefits characters with good air mobility

|-

|style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned || Stage has constant walk-off blast lines and lacks a lower blast line; Shy Guy racers too powerful and disruptive a stage hazard

|-

|-

|[[Dream Land 64]]

|-

|[[The Great Cave Offensive]]

|-

|[[Palutena's Temple]]

|-

|[[Skyworld]]

|-

|[[Boxing Ring]]

|-

|[[Gaur Plain]]

|-

|[[Duck Hunt (stage)|Duck Hunt]]

|-

|[[Wuhu Island]]

|-

|[[Miiverse]]

|style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned  || Disruptive geometry; offstage triangles and walls can block K.Os and promote camping.

|-

|style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned  || Too large; high ceiling; platform layout promotes stalling and circle camping.

|-

|style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned  || Clouds off right side of the stage highly favor camping; right blast zone is extremely far away from the main body of the stage.

|-

|style="background:#ffbfbf" | Banned  || Too similar to Battlefield, omitted from most rulesets to reduce redundancy.

|-

|-

|[[Yoshi's Story]]

|-

|[[Fountain of Dreams]]

|-

|[[Lylat Cruise]]

|-

|[[Pokémon Stadium 2]]

|-

|[[Shadow Moses Island]]

|-

|[[Luigi's Mansion]]

|-

|[[Town and City]]

|-

|[[Wii Fit Studio]]

|-

|[[Northern Cave]]

|-

|[[Cloud Sea of Alrest]]

==References==

[[Category:Competitive play]]