Brawl Tournament Rules

[TriptychR]

I'm attending the FanExpo in Toronto this August and was reading up on their tournament rules for Brawl. You can find them at the bottom of this PDF: http://www.fanexpocanada.com/assets/...4f25c8e1f1.pdf

It just struck me odd that, for something that seems so structured and legal, there is still a lot of slang and what seems like in-speak in it. Is "Jiggz" the proper tournament term for Jigglypuff? Really? Maybe I'm just not in the loop.

Does anything else strike you odd about these rules, or do they seem pretty standard?

[JSG]

Metaknight is Banned

hurr

Wow, these rules are really complicated. No glitches, infinites, stalling, crossing, sudden death, or pausing without a reason.

I'd break of of those rules in one match without knowing. That's how I play.

[Falcon_Pawnch75]

Can someone post the rules? I can't see em :/

[⑨iygas]

Sure:

Tournament Rules
General Rules
1. All players must bring their own controllers. A limited number of rentals will be provided for a fee and a deposit.
2. All players must make their matches within the time frame, if players are not present they must forfeit the games.
3. All maps and gametypes are made by Playgrounds and are subject to change at any time, without notice.
4. If for any reason a game freezes, shuts down or any other particulars happen during gameplay, the game will restart and the match will be played over.
5. If you are caught glitching or using an exploit you may be penalized.
6. By registering for this tournament, players acknowledge that they have read, understand, and agree to abide by all of the rules.
7. The rules are subject to change at any time, so check them often. When a change is made, an asterisk (*) will be placed beside the updated rule.
You are expected to maintain certain etiquette when competing and respect the other players and Playgrounds staff. Failure to do so will be dealt with by the Referee, Tournament Manager or Tournament Organizer and such offences include but are not limited to excessive profanity, racism, unruly banter or quitting a tournament match. Punishment for such offences may include a verbal warning, forfeit of a match, removal from the tournament with no refund or being banned from future Playgrounds events.
Drugs, alcohol, weapons and other illegal items are strictly prohibited. If you are caught with any of these you will be immediately removed from the tournament and escorted off the premises. You will not be given a refund and you will be banned from future Playgrounds events.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Tournament Style
• 1 V 1
• Double elimination, 99 second timer
• 2/3 games per match
• 3/5 per semi final match
• 4/7 grand finals
• You can't switch characters after winning 1 game
• Random Stage
Game Settings
• Stage Striking MUST be used unless random has been mutually agreed on.
• Matches are 3 stocks with 7 minute time limit.
• All Sets will be best of 3. Winners/Losers Finals and Grand Finals being best of 5.
• First match you may call upon a 3rd party to have double blind picks.
• Loser of the next round then chooses the stage while the winner chooses their character followed by the loser choosing theirs.
• You cannot choose the same stage more than once in your set of 3. Unless the stage you had liked to pick was chosen on random.
• Pausing is only allowed if for a phone call or emergency, anything out of reason(breaking combo's, time to think or shield, etc) will forfit your stock.
In the event of a dispute, controller ports will be selected by Rock-Paper-Scissors
No player may choose a stage they have already won on in that set unless agreed upon by both players.
In team matches, the ports will be determined in a 1221 fashion; whoever wins the RPS will choose first, then the opposing team will get their ports, and then the teammate of the RPS winner will get the last port.
If the timer runs out, the victor is determined first by stock and then by percentage.
If a game ends with Bowser doing his suicide klaw and it ends in sudden death, the sudden death will be ignored and that game will count as a win for Bowser.
You are responsible for your own controller and name tag. Any malfunctions or errors that occur are your responsibility, so bring an extra controller if possible and always check to make sure you're using the correct settings BEFORE a match is played. If a match is to be restarted due to controller functions, it must be agreed upon by both parties.
Metaknight is Banned
Infinites/Excessive Stalling
Infinite and excessive stalling are both banned. You are considered to be stalling infinitely when you are using a technique that prevents the other player from reaching you indefinitely. Excessive stalling is when you use a technique to stall a match by remaining untouchable for a significant amount of time. Examples include using Fox's shine in great excess while recovering in an unreachable location, using Pit's up B to move back and forth underneath a stage, and more. This will result in a forfeit of your stock. End of Story.
D3 Walking and Standing Infinites are banned.
Characters who have the ability to swing from ledge to ledge underneath the stage (MK, Pit, ROB, Jiggz, etc) are not allowed to cross back and fourth from underneath the stage. You may cross over once, and you MUST touch the stage again before crossing underneath again. If you have crossed already, you are not allowed to go halfway underneath the stage and then come back.
IF SOMEONE IS DOING THIS TO YOU DURING A MATCH, PAUSE THE GAME AND CALL FOR TOURNAMENT STAFF
The staff will monitor the rest of the match or set. You will BOTH receive a warning. Yes, even if you were being infinited. This is in place to keep people from abusing the system. Tournament staff may disqualify someone from a match or the entire tournament if you are caught doing a "standing infinite" or if this is abused. I know it won't be an issue, we've got a great scene with no jerks, but I just want to cover my bases. I will personally see to and heated disputes.
WE ARE USING THE STAGE STRIKE SYSTEM
How Stage Striking works: Each player takes turns striking out the neutrals for stages they do not wish to play on. They take turns doing this until one stage is left, that is the stage which will be played on for round 1. For example, player 1 strikes out lylat, player 2 strikes yoshis, player 1 stirkes battlefield, player 2 strikes smashville, then the game will be played on final destination as it is the last stage available. The Winner of the first round will then ban a stage out of the legal stages listed below and the loser will then pick a stage out of the stage list. If it goes to round 3 then the winner of the 2nd round will ban a stage and the loser will then counter pick a stage.
Stage List
Neutrals:
Battlefield
Lylat Cruise
Final Destination
Yoshi's Island
Smashville
Counterpicks:
Delfino Plaza
Rainbow Cruise
Castle Siege
Frigate Orpheon
Halberd
Brinstar
Pokemon Stadium 1
Jungle Japes

I can't say anything. I've ever played in a tournament and seeing all these rules, I now remember why.

[Falcon_Pawnch75]

Lack of Pokemon Stadium 2 as a viable stage and Meta Knight's banning are enough to make me realize this is a fail tournament. Well, PS2 isn't as bad, but lol banning Meta Knight.

[TriptychR]

It still blows my mind that Metaknight is a bannable character. I'm never very good when I play as him, but I guess it's up to hardcore competitors to break everything down technically and figure out how to exploit the characters. I can respect it on one level, but otherwise it just seems to take the fun out of it all.

[Falcon_Pawnch75]

Meta Knight is never banned in good tournies. Meta Knight may be the undisputed best character in the game thus far, but Snake and maybe Diddy are close to him, so he's far from being ban-worthy.

[dinosaurshotgun]

Meta Knight is never banned in good tournies. Meta Knight may be the undisputed best character in the game thus far, but Snake and maybe Diddy are close to him, so he's far from being ban-worthy.

Meta Knight is always banned in good tournaments (some even ban snake) because he far outclasses everyone else including Diddy Kong and Snake. Diddy Kong isn't even high tier last time I checked...

[Piemaster]

The Winner of the first round will then ban a stage out of the legal stages listed below

Does the counterpicks count as the legal stages?

[Falcon_Pawnch75]

Meta Knight is always banned in good tournaments (some even ban snake) because he far outclasses everyone else including Diddy Kong and Snake. Diddy Kong isn't even high tier last time I checked...

If Meta Knight is banned in all good tournies, why was Meta Knight used by M2K in Pound 4? And why is Ally using Snake and Meta Knight? Neither of these two are banned in any tourney with good rules. Diddy is 3rd on the tier list now. He's been top tier for a long time.

[Eltrotraw]

the problem i see with that is that the majority of the competitive community sees mk as the best character, but did not deem him worthy to be banned.

it has been debated in the past if he SHOULD be banned, but that was voted against - mostly.

however, different tourneys often have different rules. if you don't like it, don't attend it. according to the smash backroom, the standard rules are as applies:

• 3 stock.
• 8 minutes.
• Items are turned to off and none.
• In doubles matches, team attack is on.
• All non-finals and semi-finals matches are best of three.
  • Finals and semi-finals are best of five.
• Controller ports are determined by Rock-Paper-Scissors if there is a dispute.
  • In team matches, these are determined in a 1221 fashion, with 1 being the team that won the RPS.
• If time runs out, the winner is determined by stock, and then by percent.
• All people are responsible for their own control scheme and must make sure it is set before the match begins.
• Any action that prevents the game from continuing results in a forfeiture of the match for the offender.

taken from smashwiki

[TriptychR]

For anyone who may be interested, I wrote about the rules on the site I contribute to: http://www.leftstickright.com/index....s-to-brawl-by/

[AuraKnight]

That was a pretty cool article, TriptychR.

Looking at the tournament rules, I can see two things really wrong with it:

1 - MetaKnight's banned.

I know that he's number 1 for a reason, and that he's really good, but banning him? Really?

Next thing you'll know, they'll ban Dedede for his infinite chain grab, and Snake because he's the next highest on the tier ladder.

2 - The Stage List

One thing I'll never understand about competitive Brawl is how they choose which stages are fair or not. Obviously, Stuff like Rumble Falls should not be touched with a 10-Meter Pole, but how can stuff like Rainbow Ride, Pokemon Stadium 1 and Castle Siege be counterpicks, and other novelty stages such as Pictochat, Bridge of Eldin, Skyworld, and more that are banned.

Then again, I'm not a competitive brawler, so maybe that's just me trying to force my casualness onto the pro circuit. If people want to restrict their gameplay in order to make it farer, they can knock themselves out.

[Eltrotraw]

1 - MetaKnight's banned.

I know that he's number 1 for a reason, and that he's really good, but banning him? Really?

Next thing you'll know, they'll ban Dedede for his infinite chain grab, and Snake because he's the next highest on the tier ladder.

I actually recall discussion talking about how banning Metaknight would lead to such a vicious cycle, as the advantages he has over the rest of the cast range from slight to extremely heavy(in this case, something like MK vs Snake as compared to MK vs Ganondorf).

Most tournaments don't really ban Metaknight, and in fighting game communities you rarely see characters banned consistently without good reason. An extreme case of this would be Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo's Akuma, where his air fireballs were able to keep many characters locked down and unable to do anything, a sweep kick that gave invincibility throughout the whole move, among other things.

2 - The Stage List

One thing I'll never understand about competitive Brawl is how they choose which stages are fair or not. Obviously, Stuff like Rumble Falls should not be touched with a 10-Meter Pole, but how can stuff like Rainbow Ride, Pokemon Stadium 1 and Castle Siege be counterpicks, and other novelty stages such as Pictochat, Bridge of Eldin, Skyworld, and more that are banned.

The difference between Rainbow Ride compared to other moving stages is that it's stuck on a fixed path. There's no randomness to how the stage flows out, it's always the same - it was a counterpick in Melee for the same reason(curiously, so was Mute City and Pokefloats for the very same reason).

Pokemon Stadium 1 is essentially the same as the original(which was a neutral stage), but with the added danger of the "ledge trap" that many newbies find themselves falling victim to on Final Destination. I really don't see the problem there.

Castle Siege, as far as I'm aware has a set order on how things are handled as well(and no stupid hazards/gimmicks that are horribly imbalancing for certain characters or just the stage itself), just that during the stage transitions and Stage Mode 2(throne room), walkoff blast lines are introduced and characters that can abuse them are more than willing to.

Pictochat is random. That's really all. It's a great stage regardless, just that the transformations are random and can prove to be gamebreaking.

Bridge of Eldin, only reason I can really think of are walkoff blast lines. Say hello to Dedede, Ice Climbers and other chain throwers if that'd be the case. I notice that Dedede's chain throw is banned(unless it's just referring to the infinite, where many banned stages provide walls that allow him free reign to do so even more easily), but there are other chain throws that are as abusable to gain yourself into an advantageous position.

Skyworld's banned for the "cave of life" in the middle of the stage, as far as I see it. Sure, you can destroy the top ledges to make it so you can knock the opponent off, but then it often turns into a chore of fighting the stage and the opponent at the same time.

Typically these things want to be left to tests of skill, so having to deal with too many other uncontrollable factors in a match(items, random stage hazards, etc) lead to some of these decisions.

---

That's not to say I agree with this setup, however, but this sounds like this con was trying to attract the competitive walk of life into this tournament while introducing their own rules at the same time.

Really, the rules that strike me as the most odd out of all of them are:

• Double elimination, 99 second timer
• You can't switch characters after winning 1 game

Why?

In Brawl, it's already harder to remove a smart player's stock due to the fact that defensive play is so rewarded in this game. Example? Tossing grenades(Snake) or lasers(Falco) at a Metaknight. This obviously will have to force him to come to you, since he has no real way to fight a projectile war with you.

My point here is that hitstun typically lasts too short in this game in that most "combos" aren't really combos at all because you can recover so quickly to airdodge or whatever out of what one would have thought were a consecutive string of hits - so the game ends up being a giant poke war of trying to poke each other down until they're in kill range. Also, Directional Influence - many combos that players often get off are due to poor directional influence, in that the player's holding toward the next hit, making them not get knocked back as far.

There're only a handful of actual combos in this game that aren't chain throws, and many of those are just involve tapping and holding A. Others do exist(Lucario's A -> A -> Forward+B comes to mind right away, or Marth's fair->dtilt), just that most of THOSE can only feasibly occur at low percents against a competent opponent.


As for the "switching characters" ordeal, counterpicking is a strategy in any fighting game. I don't get why they allow counterpicking stages but not counterpicking characters. You're not going to deal with Dedede the same way you do Bowser, that would probably lead to a suicidal ordeal.

I understand that they enforce this if you WIN, but suppose that you lose the next match because your opponent adapted to your gameplay, and you need to bring out your backup character(seeing how semis are best of 5 and grand finals are best of 7)?

[Piemaster]

sorry to sound stupid but what's chain throw?

[Eltrotraw]

Chain throw is a very simple strategy, locking the opponent into a series of throws, leaving them unable to do anything for a variable amount of time. This time ranges depending on how you perform it, on who(unless you're ice climbers), and how much damage they've racked up among other things.

You want a simple example? Take a volunteer(or a friend) to play as Fox, while you play as Pikachu. Grab him and use your down throw. Repeatedly. Have your volunteer try to escape from it.

Done right, they will be stuck in the series of throws from 0% to around 80%. 90-100% if they panic and DI in the wrong direction.

[Piemaster]

Wow, that strategy seems pretty rough.

[TriptychR]

sorry to sound stupid but what's chain throw?

Please do not be afraid to sound stupid in this thread. I will try my best to make sure that, at the end of the day, I'll be the stupidest-sounding one here. : )