The SBR-B is currently working towards reaching a final conclusion on Meta Knight. This issue has divided the community for at least a year now and we had already decided that we’d come to a definitive answer after Genesis, the major tournament in San Francisco. We had both sides write up a short essay consisting of their main arguments and are having a final poll in the SBR to decide our official stance. The pro-ban side needs a 2/3 majority for Meta Knight to get banned, as is the procedure for everything the SBR recommends be banned.
Because this is such a major issue, we decided to let the community have a say in it as well. This idea was coined by SamuraiPanda, so you should thank him for including the community in this. Below you’ll find the arguments presented by respectively the pro-ban side led by Praxis and the anti-ban side led by InfernoOmni. Please read through these and make an informed decision. The results of this poll will count towards the SBR decision. One vote will be added for the side that reaches majority and an additional vote for every 2.5% past 50%.
Moderators are watching this thread closely. Spamming, flaming, trolling and especially the use of alternate accounts will be infracted without warning.
Pro-Ban Side
We believe that Metaknight should be banned from competitive play, for both the health of the game and of the community.
As such, this document has been written to outline several key points to explain the reasoning behind a ban. We will begin with the first point explaining ban criteria, and follow into what makes Metaknight "too good" of a character. The latter points delve into the effects of MK on the metagame as a whole and the community. We appreciate your taking the time to read our argument and make an informed decision.
1. Metaknight is bannable.
Before we choose to ban or not to ban metaknight, a criteria must be set on what it takes to ban a character. We will write two criteria on what it takes to ban an aspect of the game. You may ask “where did you get this criteria, did you pull it out of your behind, like a Gordo or Stichface? No. Our ban criteria is derived from two sources: history/practice (past smash games, stuff we did ban in Brawl) and to a lesser extent, popular opinion.
To summarize our ban criteria and the reasoning behind it – before we go into the details to support it- here we are.
Criteria to ban something in the game
[1] That aspect of the game must be so different from everything else in the game that it is an alien to the rest of the game.
[2] That aspect of the game must decrease the quality of every aspect of Brawl.
Now, why set these criteria? Is it arbitrary? No. The reason these are ban criteria is because:
A- Everything we have banned in Super Smash Brothers history has met both of these criteria, and
B – Besides Metaknight, there is nothing we have yet to ban that satisfied both of these criteria.
The issue is simple. Metaknight shares all the same aspects of Brawl that we have ALREADY BANNED – In Brawl, and to lesser extents, Melee and Smash 64. Thus, Metaknight should be banned as well.
Before we go into some details, please realize that the ban criteria the anti ban side come up with are likely not in accordance with past smash games but more likely in accordance with other fighting games. Then ask yourself what is more important: to ban what we the smash community have decided has been banworth over our series’ 8-10 year history, or to ban what other communties have set as ban criteria? Obviouisly, because this is a Smash game, the ban criteria we have set in SMASH GAMES SHOULD OUTWEIGHT THE BAN CRITERIA SET IN OTHER FIGHTING GAMES. We are the smash community and we are our own entity. Our game is NOT Street Fighter. We choose as a community to follow our own path and, while we take guidance from other communities, our own history sets a better standard than the history of other games.
Now, we will show the ban criteria. Then in A, we will explain how everything we banned as a community fits the ban criteria. In B, we will show how Metaknight fits the criteria.
[1] The aspect of the game must be so different than every aspect of the game that it is alien to the game.
A - What have we banned that follows this criteria?
Examples: Items, Crazy Stages, Stalling Techniques
The first thing people will say is that items are banned because they are random. That is not why they are banned. Otherwise, why do we set the first stage on random? Why do we allow King DDD to use forward b and Peach to use down B? Why is Halberd not banned (it has random hazards) Items are banned because winning based on a random event is foreign to all the other reasons you should win. As a community, we want winning to be based on overall skill set, not your ability to deal with a random event. You cannot disagree that if you are far better at dealing with food on very low than your opponent, you will likely win the items match. It has a very low effect on the outcome, yet food on very low is banned. The random factor is even smaller than the hazards on some legal stages. It’s just that as a community, the skill of being able to deal extremely will with a random event is ALIEN to the rest of the skills of the game – mind games, spacing, tech skill, and so on. This applies to crazy stages. We don’t want to see how good you are at teching. If you were perfect at teching, nobody would ever beat you on Hyrule Temple in Melee or Luigi’s Mansion in Brawl. You’d be unbeatable. But winning based on teching alone isn’t a skill you’d want to test. Same goes for stalling. It takes skill to stall. Both players can do it. So why not allow it? It’s because it’s alien to spacing, mind games, tech skill. It’s alien and we don’t care to measure this as valuable.
B. Why Metaknight follows this Criteria
This point is supported by the rest of the pro ban argument. It’s all the stuff about MK having no bad matchups – its about MK’s unique ability to stall matches and break the planking ledge grab rules. It’s about MK’s over focus on the Metagame. Sure, it takes skill to win with MK. But guess what? It takes skill to stall too. It takes skill to deal with food on very low. It’s just that, these aspects are so foreign to the rest of the game that they should all be removed. With MK in, success in brawl is determined in your ability to beat one matchup, honestly. Notice that the best players in the world are those that are simply good against MK. This is the #1 far and above beyond aspect that makes or breaks you as a player, even if you are meh at every other matchup in the game. It’s foreign and fits the ban criteria. With MK removed, the game isn’t about defeating one matchup so much as it is about winning a massive load of matchups.
[2] That aspect of the game must decrease the quality of every aspect of Brawl.
A – Examples of things we banned that fit this – Crazy stages, Stalling, Items
Yup, the exact same examples. When you are playing on a crazy stage, every aspect of Brawl – counterpicks, excitement of watching the match, spacing, mind games are all minimized in favor of playing on the stage. Stalling. Stalling decreases the quality of watching matches, decreases viewing interest in the game, spacing, mind games and everything. It becomes a battle of who can avoid contact. Much like MK’s existence becomes about defeating MK and the ability to counterpick MK. Items. I’m not talking about bombs, and crazy things. we mean FOOD ON VERY LOW. Why is this banned? To be honest it’s because, bluntly, WE JUST DON”T LIKE IT. Can one seriously argue that food on very low is going to make a much more skilled player lose to a less skilled player? No. But, food’s EXISTENCE decreases the importance of every single other thing – mind games, spacing, tech skill. We just WANT to play a game where these qualities are the be all end all to test, not a game where food decreases the importance of these. Quite honestly food on very low is banned because it gets in the way of the game we want to play.
Yes, the argument boils down to “MK is not broken enough to be unbeatable, but MK is broken enough to ruin every quality and aspect of the game in the same way everything we have ever banned has been.” That is where we come up with the banned criteria. Things we’ve banned in Smash Brawl, Smash Melee, and Smash 64. If you are getting your ban criteria on PERSONAL DESIRE or OTHER FIGHTING GAMES, is it really as substantial as getting it from all the banned aspects of the series of games Super Smash Brothers Brawl? What we have banned as a community and the reasons we have banned them are ALIGNED with why the pro ban side wishes to ban Metaknight.
2. Metaknight is the best character in the game by a significant margin.
It is universally unquestioned that Metaknight is the best character in Brawl, and with good reason. The term broken is often coined; and since the term often is used with different meanings, we should begin with defining the term "broken". For our purposes, we will define "broken" as "A word used to describe an element in a video game that does belong, and is above aspects or mechanics of the game." We as pro ban believe that Metaknight is "broken" within this definition.
An analysis of Metaknight's moveset demonstrates his capabilities as the best character. Such an analysis is too lengthy for this writeup, but see Praxis' brief list or perhaps Fiction's lengthy document.
Individual aspects of his moveset are merely tools MK has available to him, and obviously do not in themselves prove Metaknight to be broken. The deeper issue is that, when this moveset is combined into one character, the result is a character that bypasses several aspects of the game. The following points will examine how Metaknight fits this description.
3. Metaknight has a perfect recovery and an abnormally safe ledge game.
One of the basic game mechanics that Metaknight bypasses is that of recovery. Metaknight's recovery is virtually perfect; he always has a safe option to recover, unless he has needlessly wasted them. With the combination of his multiple jumps, shuttle loop, two glides each capable of crossing clear to the other side of the stage, tornado, Drill Rush, invulnerable Dimensional Cape (as well as Infinite and Extended Dimensional Cape to cross the stage), and quick aerials with little ending lag make his recovery not just safe, but unstoppable barring a mistake on the part of the Metaknight. By bypassing the entire edgeguarding aspect of the game, Metaknight takes less damage and virtually never gets gimped, which, when combined with his excellent momentum cancels, greatly minimize the seeming "lightweight" disadvantage.
The pro-ban side has prepared a video demonstrating why MK's recovery breaks normal standards of recovery and breaks the game's normal edgeguarding mechanics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDCG6NF10oU
Metaknight's extremely powerful recovery ties in to the issue of safe options, which will be discussed shortly.
Another point is Metaknight's ledge game. Typically, in smash, being on the ledge is considered a disadvantaged position. In Brawl, there exists a subset of characters who are safe on the ledge as they remain on the ledge (playing on ledge the entire match is referred to as "planking"). These characters include Mr. Game & Watch, Marth, and of course, Metaknight. A ledge grab rule was created to discourage planking from dominating matches, and for the most part, it has been effective- except where Metaknight is involved. Metaknight is the only character in the cast capable of stalling offstage in an unapproachable position over an extended period of time in between the ledgegrabs (and further, gliding under the stage to the opposite ledge if threatened). As a result, we see Metaknight players continuing to abuse such strategies in spite of rulesets designed specifically to stop it; and said rulesets were instituted for the most part due to Metaknight users abusing planking in the first place.
4. Metaknight has too many safe options.
In Melee, and in Brawl, most characters are capable of limiting the options of each other until the opponent is in a disadvantaged situation. Snake, Diddy, Falco, Wario, and ROB are examples of characters that excel at limiting the options of their opponents. In any situation, there is generally a certain amount of options the opponent can take that will result in either them being hit, you being hit, or neither being hit, and the goal is to put the opponent in a situation with minimal options that result in you being hit or neither.
For example; Fiction's Wario is trying to approach a Snake. Out of lets say 20 scenarios, he gets hit in 10, he hits snake in 5, and neither of them get hit in 5. He wants to make sure he keeps using those 5 options where no one gets hit until he can find the situation where he can hit snake without being hit in return. If Fiction were to simply rush snake without using the neither-hit option, he would have a 2/3 chance of getting hit..something that he doesn't want. When snake gets Fiction in a bad situation, such as having used his double jump above his head, while Snake has shot a mortar up in the air and has a grenade on the ground, there are more like, say, 5 situations. In those 5 situations, most snakes can cover 2-3, while a very good snake (such as ally), could possibly cover all 5 at once, making sure that Fiction gets hit no matter what he does. This is called A DISADVANTAGED SITUATION.
Unlike the rest of the cast, due to his numerous jumps, glides, priority-ball specials, quick low-lag aerials, best airdodge, and powerful defensive moveset, MK has a "safe" option in almost any situation that results in the neither-hit result. As MK cannot be trapped in such a manner, MK is capable of continuously choosing safe options until punishment opportunities arise. This is why so-called "gay" Metaknight playstyles are so effective. MK is capable of abusing his safe options, and in some matchups, to an absurd degree- for example, the DEHF vs Dojo matchup, in which Dojo ran the timer out by simply remaining in the air using his aerials defensively the entire match (a match which a Genesis judge wanted to DQ him for, despite the fact that no rules were violated).
Due to these points, we believe that Metaknight is a character that is not in line with the rest of the cast, and thus not fit for competitive play.
5. Meta Knight breaks the counterpick system.
Super Smash Brothers Brawl is based on counterpicks, both via stage and character; this is most especially true in singles. The existence of said counterpicks is ignored only by the most obtuse and stubborn members of our smash community, with the majority of competitive smash players embracing the concept and learning stages that are good or bad for certain characters as well as getting secondary characters to create more favorable matchups.
Generally, counterpicks are character dependent more than stage dependent. The most extreme example generally involving infinites or zero-deaths, such as Pikachu vs. Fox, or D3 vs. DK, and less extreme simply based on movesets, mobility, edgeguarding, gimping, combos, juggles, and a variety of other factors leading many to see obvious advantages in matchups like MK vs. Luigi, Falco vs. D3, or Marth vs. Jiggs. Stages also generally play a factor, admittedly less of one due to our banning of extreme stages like Shadow Moses or Bridge of Eldin. Stages increase our odds of winning by naturally enhancing our characters strengths as well as our opponents weaknesses; you will find Falco winning on Jungle Japes often due to his spike into the water negating many recoveries while Falco's side-b does just fine in getting him back to the stage, and Metaknight's gimping abilities are no stranger to Rainbow Cruise.
We've built Smash on the back of this counterpick system to make things fair. There are no "fair" stages; Snake does extremely well on all flat stages with platforms, most notably Smashville and Battlefield, but pales in comparison to ROB on mobile stages like Rainbow Cruise or Frigate Orpheon, and the Ice Climbers themselves would easily prefer Final Destination. We allow for double blind picks and force the winner of the prior game to choose their character after the stage is chosen, and then allow the losing player to counterpick with a character of his choice, resulting in at least one "uphill" battle for each player and one "fair" starting match via our stage strike system.
Unfortunately, Metaknight breaks both the stage aspect and the character aspect. The only stages Metaknight has shown to do poorly on have been Shadow Moses, Bridge of Eldin, and other ridiculously one-sided stages. As for characters, Metaknight has shown to have only even matchups at best and has continually outshined every other character in the game. Because of this, Metaknight inherently breaks the counterpick system.
Should you consider Diddy a good character (as many do), an even matchup with MK, and a tournament viable character in many other matchups, you would have company. However, that Diddy player will have to go through a counterpick that is not favorable for him in every set in addition to all the bad matchups he must face when he runs into Marth, ROB, or anyone else that has an advantage over him. Metaknight never has this issue in any way.
The MK numbers never go down. If MK had a counter, this would not be occurring and instead we'd see an influx of the counter character to Metaknight. If we suddenly saw a rise in Donkey Kongs, wouldn't we see a large number of Dedede secondaries within a month or two? Metaknights numbers have consistently increased, not decreased, and it is due to his lack of a proper counter character and stage.
6. Metaknight detracts from the metagame.
As the game has grown, each region has seen their own share of strong players playing strong characters of a large variety. As time went on, we discovered Snake to be extremely powerful and he dominated the tournament scene. The game then became figuring out "what beats Snake" and we found several counterpicks and counter-characters. Despite Snake being proclaimed as a "counter" to MK, it was Metaknight that took the top spot from Snake and has stayed there by a large margin ever since.
This alone is evidence that Metaknight is something special. The points above individually mean nothing, but together they mean that Metaknight detracts from the metagame. At low level play, Metaknight is the signature character of "broken" with all his powerful options and gimps, at mid level play he is the magic pill that finally gets you out of the slump (it gets tiring losing to the same character, right?), and at high level play he is the constant "safe option", a pocket secondary that EVERYONE can pick up and play effectively with little to no serious training in addition to Metaknight being a viable main on his own.
This creates a metagame focusing around Metaknight at all levels. Low level players have already been conditioned to see MK as the dominant threat due to his dominance, and mid level players are often seen choosing Metaknight to solve their problems; it is only through a community-wide soft ban and personal preference that he hasn't fully permeated the scene. Many players do not pick Metaknight because he is "too gay" or they simply want to pick another character because they love that character! When you are playing to win, Metaknight is the primary serious option and this has been apparent to us at high level play. No other character has been a more consistent main and secondary at the top level of play.
In a tournament setting, the ideal (and the reason people pick up secondaries) is to never play a matchup worse than 5/5, and not open yourself up to stage counterpicks that disadvantage all of your characters. Players often develop secondaries to account for certain stages and their bad matchups (such as an Ice Climbers main on Brinstar). In a game with such a dual-counterpicking system, a character with no bad stages or bad matchups (matchups worse than 5/5) is "broken" in the sense that anyone who does not play that character is opening themselves up to stage and character counterpicks. By completely removing the counterpicking aspect of the game, Metaknight not only becomes the ideal guaranteed universal option that every reasonable player should use, but also removes the importance of the rest of the cast (why pick a character with a bad matchup when you don't have to?).
When the game focuses on beating someone that is commonly played, easy to use, powerful, eliminates common game mechanics (like edgeguarding and counterpicking), and whose sole weakness is a temporary "since everyone plays MK, we know the matchup vs. MK better than the MK does" you get a shell surrounding the ACTUAL game beneath. A game with a multitude of counterpicks and an incredibly large group of viable tournament characters that are otherwise removed solely by Metaknight is possible. The game shouldn't be about solely beating Metaknight, and the best option shouldn't be to pick Metaknight. We have all played smash without Metaknight, and it is a more enjoyable and more competitive smash that increases character diversity by a significant margin.
7. Meta Knight is a very serious detriment to the mid level of play.
Traditionally, the SBR has always catered to the top level of play, but is this always the right course of action? When considering a character like Metaknight, it is wise to consider the effects on the community as a whole, and most notably, the mid level of play.
Very few players truly play the game at high levels, and the vast majority of players are at what is considered a "mid" level of play. And at this mid level of play, Metaknight dominates at an unprecedented level. It is not uncommon for smaller regions to be dominated by a Metaknight who does not practice at all and often puts minimal effort into the game. While such a player may not perform well at a national tournament against high level players who have spent countless hours studying the matchup, he is capable of beating everyone within his skill set, even those who put significantly more time into their characters. If the region progresses significantly, eventually either the Metaknight who does not practice is toppled, or forced to actually practice and/or learn matchups to remain on top.
This odd situation has occurred in many regions, including Ohio, Washington, Idaho, Puerto Rico, Eastern Canada, New Mexico, Arizona, and likely many others not listed. And while in some cases, the region's top players become better and eventually surpasses the mid-level MK mains and overcome the matchup, the MK main still continues to outplace everyone in their skill level, simply due to the ease of use of the character.
Metaknight's ease of use, at mid levels of play, becomes the magic bullet, letting anyone who switches to MK immediately outplace anyone at their skill level. And unlike other characters known for simplicity (Mr. Game & Watch in Brawl, Sheik in Melee), the character does not begin to show flaws as high levels of play are approached, but rather, only gets better. Meanwhile, the other players in the region have to put enormous amounts of effort simply to be able to fight Metaknight. Often, the solution is to simply pick up Metaknight to deal with Metaknight, as a main, or a second (as achieving higher levels of play is not a satisfactory short term answer, and still will never give you an advantaged matchup).
An excellent recent example was Washington's monthly GameClucks tournament that occurred in June, during the weekend of Genesis. The top players travelled to California to attend Genesis, and when the tournament actually occurred, seven of the top eight players used Metaknight in their later matches (switching to him when their opponents did), and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in doubles were all double Metaknight teams. These results are unusually saturdated with Metaknights compared to average Washington results. What happened? As players lost matches, they switched to their Metaknight secondaries, allowing them to beat players at the same skill level, unless those players switched to Metaknight in return.
Why are we bringing this up as a point? Obviously, it doesn't concern high level players directly. Yet, the problem that arises is that as people switch to Metaknight to surpass the players in their skill pool due to his ease of use, players get frustrated. As people switch to Metaknight to beat Metaknight (or pick him up as a secondary), the tournament scene at lower to middle ends becomes overly saturated with the character, and some players end up quitting in frustration (or, of course, maining Metaknight).
8. The community favors a ban.
It is important to note that the majority of the Smash Bros community has voted in favor of banning Metaknight in three different polls. If Metaknight is banned, he must obviously have a strong effect on high level play- but as the SBR, it is important to make note of the community as a whole's view on the character, and factor this into our decision.
Do not forget the public viewpoint:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=200718
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=205886
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=230733
As Brawl progresses, more regions report Metaknight problems. Regions like Puerto Rico have quelled it with a soft ban on Metaknight counterpicks ("soft bans" are social stigmas against picking a character. In the case of Puerto Rico, people who switch to Metaknight during their counterpick find their names recorded and announced after the tournament, discouraging them from doing so), and many other regions similarly look down upon Metaknight mains. Other regions, such as SoCal, NorCal, Washington, Arizona, or Eastern Canada find their players and tournaments gradually becoming more MK-centric, and support the ban (several of these regions running MK-banned tournament series).
The community's view is a very important point that cannot be overlooked.
9. Meta Knight is already clearly bannable, but we have artificial and unclear rules in place to keep him in the game.
Without rules clearly targeting Meta Knight, he would be literally undefeatable.
The infinite dimensional cape clearly breaks Brawl entirely, for reasons that don’t need to be explained here. We have removed it using a rule, but it’s very hard to detect and enforce. You cannot really tell if someone taps the c-stick up once or twice to gain that extra inch of distance they need to escape or hit a perfect edgehog. Then there is the Extended Dimensional Cape, which while not infinite, can be used to stall out a match. If you’re in trouble, simply use the Extended Dimensional Cape and cross the level safely. Once you get there, come out of cape and go back to the other side using Extended Dimensional Cape again. Throw in a technically illegal but impossible to detect tap up on the c-stick and you’ve got a completely safe way to cross the stage.
We have rules in place to prevent planking and stalling, which have become big issues. We’ve tried various amounts of ledgegrabs being allowed, but planking and stalling have remained issues. Meta Knight players have found ways around these rules, and have stalled. See Dapuffster v Plank at Apex, or, more recently, Dojo v DEHF at Genesis for examples of stalling that cannot be limited by any reasonable rule. Air camping or air planking, whatever you prefer to call it, makes many matchups unwinnable, and not just against low tier characters. Diddy Kong, Falco, Ice Climbers, Marth, Donkey Kong, Lucario, and to a lesser extent Wario and Snake, have their matchups tilted strongly towards Meta Knight’s favor because of air camping, and are all in B tier or higher. These techniques that skirt the lines of the rules but cannot be truly banned or limited make Meta Knight a broken character worthy of a ban.
Over time, TOs have continually refined their rules to try to reduce Metaknight's dominance of various aspects of the game. Early on, stages like Norfair were banned primarily due to Metaknight's abuse of ledge camping. MK mains responded by learning abusing the ledge on every stage. TOs responded with the ledgegrab rules, which MKs responded to by stalling out their ledgegrabs. TOs have begun to lower edgegrab limits, and now MKs are beginning to abuse aircamping. The character will continue to cause problems as long as he is legal.
Conclusion:
With these points in consideration, we believe that Metaknight as a character is:
(A) Within our community's banning standards
(B) Detrimental to Brawl's metagame
(C) Has a negative impact on our community
and thus, we believe that Metaknight should be banned.
Counterpoint #1- The game is still growing and evolving
When Brawl was released, we saw a multitude of characters succeeding in all areas. Shortly after tournaments became common, Snake became THE character. He was seen in 1st place on many results pages, most especially East Coast, with DSF in West Coast and Florida being inundated with Snakes.
In a very short time, merely a matter of weeks, the smash community put its head together and found a multitude of weaknesses for Snake. This included counter characters (ROB and D3 both did well against him in tournament play) and counter stages (Snake routinely lost on stages that required more aerial movement, like Rainbow Cruise).
Most advanced techs for Melee were found mere months after its release. We're a larger, more organized, and more competitive community now than we were when Melee started. Snake was dominant and we knocked him off his throne with Metaknight, who has stayed in the #1 position ever since (a strong argument against Snake counter Metaknight, as Metaknight is the most common character).
The reason this hasn't been done with Metaknight is because despite the game "growing and evolving", Metaknight has none of the weaknesses other characters has... and is growing with them. In fact, Metaknight's plethora of options in all circumstances has made him grow FASTER than other characters. It is not a coincidence that most of the top ranked characters from Ankoku's chart are either Metaknight himself, or characters that do better than most against Metaknight, and it is no coincidence that it has gone on this long.
Counterpoint #2- Metaknight really IS too good/over centralizing
Metaknight holds roughly 22% of ALL tournament places, the most of any characters. 22/100 doesn't seem like much, but this is a single character taking nearly 1/4th of ALL tournament PLACEMENTS... out of 36 characters.
Second place is Snake, with roughly 13% of all placements, a 9% decrease from 1st to 2nd place. Third place is currently held by Dedede, who is actually ranked at 4th place, with 7%, a 6% decrease from 2nd..
Fourth place is held by Falco at 5%, a 2% decrease from third place. It only gets WORSE. Metaknight is incredibly overcentralizing, especially when combing all the tournament placements of Snake and Dedede results in 2% less than Metaknight alone!
In conclusion, the most common tournament placings in the top 3:
Metaknight- 22%
Snake-13% (9% less than MK)
Dedede- 7% (15% less than MK)
This is not taking into account the top 8, which many have noticed to have several more MKs than other characters... So MK is actually more dominant than these percentages dictate.
Anti-Ban Side
In the realm of Brawl, there are many attributes to take into consideration such as KO power, weight, speed, recovery, range, projectiles, and the ability to chaingrab to name a few. What Metaknight lacks in some of these areas other character’s from the roster more than make up for such as Snake’s powerful up-tilt, his convenient weight, and his amazing projectile game or Falco’s chaingrab, convenient priority moves (rapid A and forward+b), and his penetrating lasers or Ice Climber’s ability to remove a complete stock from any person in the game with a single grab or Pikachu’s similar new, universal chaingrab that ends placing the opponent in killing percent. In a game that holds all these unique and available tactics to exist Metaknight does not contain a single attribute that clearly demolishes the tactics presented above. Rather, Metaknight is equipped with a combination of great attributes that when compared to certain character he stays within bounds while other traits such as infinites, weight, and projectiles are completely absent from his arsenal.
Metaknight is not broken.
EDIT: See below for results, as the original post was in the SBR.
If you take the time to look at all of these results anyone with good judgment can see that the word “dominant” may need to be reexamined. Mew2King, one of the best Melee players and arguably the best Brawl player easily pours countless hours until the point of obsession attempting to make this “broken” character invincible, and yet Ally has a winning record of 2-1 in regards to out-placing (obtaining 1st place) over Mew2King in this season.
Moving back to the results you’ll notice that Meta Knight is not taking every top spot, does not congest the top places, and at multiple occasions is barely present. Among the top placements, you can find a multitude of characters such as Snake, Wario, Marth, Diddy Kong, DDD, Falco, Olimar, and Ice Climbers.
There are many non-Metaknight mains including Ally who have trained their characters to be more than a force to reckon with such as Anther’s Pikachu, Fiction’s Wario, DEHF and SK92’s Falco, mikeHAZE and NEO’s Marth, Razer’s Snake, Atomsk’s DDD, Lain and Meep’s Ice Climbers, and ADHD and Ninjalink’s Diddy just to name a few. If you compare the top Metaknight player’s such as Mew2King, Tyrant, and Dojo they only make up a small fraction of a large talented whole.
The Smash community does not know the meaning of a overly dominant character. Take a look here: Imagine that a game with such heavy character dominance is not only widely accepted, but one of the most successful fighting game of our generation.
As of August 2009, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has only been out for a little over a year. As time progressed from the game’s release, the high multitude of anxious gamers helped evolve the metagame through the process of discovering new tactics with both characters and game engine. Needless to say the process has slowed since the game’s release which is logical, but it no where near complete. It is an irrefutable fact that the game is still young and we can expect to see more changes in our metagame as time progresses.
Once Metaknight was determined to be the best character in the game, there was a huge flock for players to jump on the “best character” bandwagon which caused Metaknight’s character development to increase at an alarming rate. The rest of the character’s quickly became fixated on creating a strategy to beat Metaknight and through the journey have discovered techniques that apply to both Metaknight and the rest of the cast.
It is reckless to ban a character when the metagame, reflected through character techniques and tournament results, continues to grow and evolve.
The “counterpick system” is a player-created engine that is used to identify character weaknesses thus allowing a player to strategically take countermeasures to put that person at a disadvantage. This artificial medium does not go hand-in-hand with a fighting game and is more of a benchmark tool rather than a rule of play. Brawl’s predecessor, Melee, relied heavily on counterpicking since there were a large array of characters that were tournament viable that had weaknesses against each other, and because Melee never had a clear best character.
Since when did it become a requirement for fighting games to include a counterpicking system? It may be “ideal” but many of the current generation of Smash players have adopted to the Melee metagame expecting for Brawl to follow suit.
In Smash 64, Pikachu was stated as being the best character having no counterpicks in regards to characters and stages. The game grew and flourished for many years.
Years later Brawl is released and a best character is announced: Metaknight. Possessing all of the same traits Pikachu had in 64 in terms of dominance, what makes anything different now?
The counterpicking system is not a requirement for any fighting game to exist; rather it is a system that is naturally derived from the game itself thus it should not be forced upon a new game based on a previous one.
"Too good" is better defined by money winnings than frame data or other debatable things. Through-out April, May and June, Metaknight won 30.18% of all cash prizes from Brawl Singes events. Winning 3 of every 10 available dollars swiftly dismisses any claims of a character's dominance. Moving on, all citations of a character's attributes are readily explained as top tier traits. Metaknight having the best recovery is easily comparable to DDD having the best grab, Falco having the best projectile, etc.
Going back to "broken", this argument has already been covered several times. A character breaks game play when that character does not adhere to the fundamental rules of game play or that character cannot be beaten. Metaknight is not broken because he can be beaten and because he does utilize the game mechanics of hit stun, shielding, jumping, recovering, DI, free movement, and player-controlled input. Metaknight is not broken.
Addressing over-centralization, of the 570 observations from the chart of tournament placements above, only 123 of them are Metaknight. This means that roughly 22% of tournament placements are Metaknight, even at top level play where Metaknight is the most threatening. The game cannot revolve around beating a character that takes about 1/5th of the highest tournaments placements. Metaknight does not institute over-centralization. But consider that the public polls have been pro ban; the community wants him gone. When referring back to the public polls, note that the SBR is charged with leading the competitive community. This does not necessarily mean parroting back to them their tournament preferences based on a sample poll. Consider equally that a large portion of our membership is not competitive and will thus skew the vote with their bias. Even if you wanted to favor the competitive community, you must first properly represent their views before making that decision.
If Metaknight's ease of use allows him to completely demolish the mid levels of play, and potentially risks ruining the experience of many players and reducing overall tournament attendance, should this be considered? Yes, definitely. However, this is where we cannot expand further. We currently have no means to measure Metaknight's relative use at mid-level play past what we see at tournaments. As such, any claim to mid-level play holds a flimsy basis, and any refutation produced becomes equally shaky. We'll have to prove a Metaknight saturation at middle or lower levels of play before we can make any decisions based on them. As for tournament attendance, there are no noticeable changes in tournament attendance, so it unfair to say that Metaknight has the potential to harm attendance unless proven otherwise.
We must first define what tournaments measure. Ideally, tournaments measure individual player talent and the ability to achieve victory over a set of opponents (the other entrants to the tournament) in a set a of rules defined prior to the event. This is done though a combination of attributes, such as game knowledge, consistency, talent, character choice, and decision-making.
In this manner, it is clear to see that Metaknight defeats only a portion of the rules instituted. Playing Metaknight cannot replace the ability to achieve victory over the opposition: he cannot replace game knowledge, consistency, talent, or decision-making. He cannot keep other talented players from entering events, and he cannot prevent your opponent from picking a formidable character against the player. The counter system has a relatively low impact in the final determination of tournament placements. Because of this, tournaments will continue to measure the ability to win though the vast majority of qualifications needed to win, regardless of his effect on the counter system.
People fail to realize that removing the top character from any video game will make the game more "fair" for the rest of the characters. Removing the top player (M2K) would give other players a better chance at getting first but this doesn't make it right. This changes, however, if the character is deemed "broken" which has been disproved above.
Atlantic North
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3880
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3994
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3993
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3785
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=5271
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3971
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=6187
Atlantic South
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=240230 July 5th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=240070 July 3rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=239167 June 20th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=236828 June 6th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=233853 May 23rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234383 May 16th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=230666 April 18th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=228582 March 28th
Midwest
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=227045 March 20th-21st
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=226953 March 22nd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=227721 March 28th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=227792 March 29th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=229805 April 11th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=231647 April 25th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=231647 April 26th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=232557 May 3rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=232643 May 4th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=233038 May 7th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=233419 May 10th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234166 May 17th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234865 May 23rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=237702 June 13th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=238593 June 20th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=239467 June 27th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=239362 June 27th
Texas
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=214290 March 28th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=142123
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=228910 April 5th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234222 May 17th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=235027 May 23rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=238582 June 22nd
Hawaii
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=228699
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=233642
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=236150
EUROPE
Netherlands:
Brawl at Go:
1. Gaki (Wolf/Marth)
2. Gmoney (Falco)
3. Boku (Donkey Kong/Marth)
4. Mr-R (Marth/Zamus)
5. istudying (Diddy Kong/Ice Climbers)
5. Skippo (Toon Link)
TNOT3:
1. Mr-R (Marth/Zamus)
2. istudying (Diddy Kong/Ice Climbers)
3. Kaak (Mr. Game & Watch)
4. Gmoney (Falco)
5. Gymmo (Dedede/MK/Kirby)
5. ssj5goten (Fox)
United Kingdom:
TKI:
1. Aiko (Wario)
2. Coey (Marth)
3. Koop (DDD)
4. GLadam (Snake)
5. GAwes (Kirby)
5. Fuzzyness (ROB)
Spain:
I want my money back
1. Marcbri (Falco)
2. Greward (Olimar)
3. Miquel (Pika)
4. Neji (Diddy)
5. Veyron (DDD)
5. El_Bardo (DDD)
France:
Bushido Nibai Impact
1. Glutonny (Wario/Marth)
2. Kaos (G&W/MK/DDD)
3. Hope (Olimar / MK / Snake)
4. Bjay (Marth)
5. Leon (Peach / Marth)
5. Kill1 (Snake / MK)
Bushido Impact 8
1. Kaos (G&W / DDD / MK)
2. Glutony (Wario)
3. Leon (Peach / Marth)
4. Gemini (Samus)
5. Achoral (Ness / Luigi)
5. King (G&W / Wolf / Falco)
Germany:
SMACK
1. Armada (Sheik)
2. reaper (MK/ROB/Diddy)
3. Smasher89 (ICs/Snake )
4. Pamaro (GaW)
5. Bjay (ROB/Marth)
5. Izaw (Link)
FM#7
1. Prinz (ROB)
2. Yomi (Kirby/Olimar/DK)
3. BlackZettix (Falco/GaW)
4. AZenith (Snake)
5. Tero (MK/DDD)
5. Makkura (Wolf/Snake)
Because this is such a major issue, we decided to let the community have a say in it as well. This idea was coined by SamuraiPanda, so you should thank him for including the community in this. Below you’ll find the arguments presented by respectively the pro-ban side led by Praxis and the anti-ban side led by InfernoOmni. Please read through these and make an informed decision. The results of this poll will count towards the SBR decision. One vote will be added for the side that reaches majority and an additional vote for every 2.5% past 50%.
Moderators are watching this thread closely. Spamming, flaming, trolling and especially the use of alternate accounts will be infracted without warning.
Pro-Ban Side
We believe that Metaknight should be banned from competitive play, for both the health of the game and of the community.
As such, this document has been written to outline several key points to explain the reasoning behind a ban. We will begin with the first point explaining ban criteria, and follow into what makes Metaknight "too good" of a character. The latter points delve into the effects of MK on the metagame as a whole and the community. We appreciate your taking the time to read our argument and make an informed decision.
1. Metaknight is bannable.
Before we choose to ban or not to ban metaknight, a criteria must be set on what it takes to ban a character. We will write two criteria on what it takes to ban an aspect of the game. You may ask “where did you get this criteria, did you pull it out of your behind, like a Gordo or Stichface? No. Our ban criteria is derived from two sources: history/practice (past smash games, stuff we did ban in Brawl) and to a lesser extent, popular opinion.
To summarize our ban criteria and the reasoning behind it – before we go into the details to support it- here we are.
Criteria to ban something in the game
[1] That aspect of the game must be so different from everything else in the game that it is an alien to the rest of the game.
[2] That aspect of the game must decrease the quality of every aspect of Brawl.
Now, why set these criteria? Is it arbitrary? No. The reason these are ban criteria is because:
A- Everything we have banned in Super Smash Brothers history has met both of these criteria, and
B – Besides Metaknight, there is nothing we have yet to ban that satisfied both of these criteria.
The issue is simple. Metaknight shares all the same aspects of Brawl that we have ALREADY BANNED – In Brawl, and to lesser extents, Melee and Smash 64. Thus, Metaknight should be banned as well.
Before we go into some details, please realize that the ban criteria the anti ban side come up with are likely not in accordance with past smash games but more likely in accordance with other fighting games. Then ask yourself what is more important: to ban what we the smash community have decided has been banworth over our series’ 8-10 year history, or to ban what other communties have set as ban criteria? Obviouisly, because this is a Smash game, the ban criteria we have set in SMASH GAMES SHOULD OUTWEIGHT THE BAN CRITERIA SET IN OTHER FIGHTING GAMES. We are the smash community and we are our own entity. Our game is NOT Street Fighter. We choose as a community to follow our own path and, while we take guidance from other communities, our own history sets a better standard than the history of other games.
Now, we will show the ban criteria. Then in A, we will explain how everything we banned as a community fits the ban criteria. In B, we will show how Metaknight fits the criteria.
[1] The aspect of the game must be so different than every aspect of the game that it is alien to the game.
A - What have we banned that follows this criteria?
Examples: Items, Crazy Stages, Stalling Techniques
The first thing people will say is that items are banned because they are random. That is not why they are banned. Otherwise, why do we set the first stage on random? Why do we allow King DDD to use forward b and Peach to use down B? Why is Halberd not banned (it has random hazards) Items are banned because winning based on a random event is foreign to all the other reasons you should win. As a community, we want winning to be based on overall skill set, not your ability to deal with a random event. You cannot disagree that if you are far better at dealing with food on very low than your opponent, you will likely win the items match. It has a very low effect on the outcome, yet food on very low is banned. The random factor is even smaller than the hazards on some legal stages. It’s just that as a community, the skill of being able to deal extremely will with a random event is ALIEN to the rest of the skills of the game – mind games, spacing, tech skill, and so on. This applies to crazy stages. We don’t want to see how good you are at teching. If you were perfect at teching, nobody would ever beat you on Hyrule Temple in Melee or Luigi’s Mansion in Brawl. You’d be unbeatable. But winning based on teching alone isn’t a skill you’d want to test. Same goes for stalling. It takes skill to stall. Both players can do it. So why not allow it? It’s because it’s alien to spacing, mind games, tech skill. It’s alien and we don’t care to measure this as valuable.
B. Why Metaknight follows this Criteria
This point is supported by the rest of the pro ban argument. It’s all the stuff about MK having no bad matchups – its about MK’s unique ability to stall matches and break the planking ledge grab rules. It’s about MK’s over focus on the Metagame. Sure, it takes skill to win with MK. But guess what? It takes skill to stall too. It takes skill to deal with food on very low. It’s just that, these aspects are so foreign to the rest of the game that they should all be removed. With MK in, success in brawl is determined in your ability to beat one matchup, honestly. Notice that the best players in the world are those that are simply good against MK. This is the #1 far and above beyond aspect that makes or breaks you as a player, even if you are meh at every other matchup in the game. It’s foreign and fits the ban criteria. With MK removed, the game isn’t about defeating one matchup so much as it is about winning a massive load of matchups.
[2] That aspect of the game must decrease the quality of every aspect of Brawl.
A – Examples of things we banned that fit this – Crazy stages, Stalling, Items
Yup, the exact same examples. When you are playing on a crazy stage, every aspect of Brawl – counterpicks, excitement of watching the match, spacing, mind games are all minimized in favor of playing on the stage. Stalling. Stalling decreases the quality of watching matches, decreases viewing interest in the game, spacing, mind games and everything. It becomes a battle of who can avoid contact. Much like MK’s existence becomes about defeating MK and the ability to counterpick MK. Items. I’m not talking about bombs, and crazy things. we mean FOOD ON VERY LOW. Why is this banned? To be honest it’s because, bluntly, WE JUST DON”T LIKE IT. Can one seriously argue that food on very low is going to make a much more skilled player lose to a less skilled player? No. But, food’s EXISTENCE decreases the importance of every single other thing – mind games, spacing, tech skill. We just WANT to play a game where these qualities are the be all end all to test, not a game where food decreases the importance of these. Quite honestly food on very low is banned because it gets in the way of the game we want to play.
Yes, the argument boils down to “MK is not broken enough to be unbeatable, but MK is broken enough to ruin every quality and aspect of the game in the same way everything we have ever banned has been.” That is where we come up with the banned criteria. Things we’ve banned in Smash Brawl, Smash Melee, and Smash 64. If you are getting your ban criteria on PERSONAL DESIRE or OTHER FIGHTING GAMES, is it really as substantial as getting it from all the banned aspects of the series of games Super Smash Brothers Brawl? What we have banned as a community and the reasons we have banned them are ALIGNED with why the pro ban side wishes to ban Metaknight.
2. Metaknight is the best character in the game by a significant margin.
It is universally unquestioned that Metaknight is the best character in Brawl, and with good reason. The term broken is often coined; and since the term often is used with different meanings, we should begin with defining the term "broken". For our purposes, we will define "broken" as "A word used to describe an element in a video game that does belong, and is above aspects or mechanics of the game." We as pro ban believe that Metaknight is "broken" within this definition.
An analysis of Metaknight's moveset demonstrates his capabilities as the best character. Such an analysis is too lengthy for this writeup, but see Praxis' brief list or perhaps Fiction's lengthy document.
Individual aspects of his moveset are merely tools MK has available to him, and obviously do not in themselves prove Metaknight to be broken. The deeper issue is that, when this moveset is combined into one character, the result is a character that bypasses several aspects of the game. The following points will examine how Metaknight fits this description.
3. Metaknight has a perfect recovery and an abnormally safe ledge game.
One of the basic game mechanics that Metaknight bypasses is that of recovery. Metaknight's recovery is virtually perfect; he always has a safe option to recover, unless he has needlessly wasted them. With the combination of his multiple jumps, shuttle loop, two glides each capable of crossing clear to the other side of the stage, tornado, Drill Rush, invulnerable Dimensional Cape (as well as Infinite and Extended Dimensional Cape to cross the stage), and quick aerials with little ending lag make his recovery not just safe, but unstoppable barring a mistake on the part of the Metaknight. By bypassing the entire edgeguarding aspect of the game, Metaknight takes less damage and virtually never gets gimped, which, when combined with his excellent momentum cancels, greatly minimize the seeming "lightweight" disadvantage.
The pro-ban side has prepared a video demonstrating why MK's recovery breaks normal standards of recovery and breaks the game's normal edgeguarding mechanics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDCG6NF10oU
Metaknight's extremely powerful recovery ties in to the issue of safe options, which will be discussed shortly.
Another point is Metaknight's ledge game. Typically, in smash, being on the ledge is considered a disadvantaged position. In Brawl, there exists a subset of characters who are safe on the ledge as they remain on the ledge (playing on ledge the entire match is referred to as "planking"). These characters include Mr. Game & Watch, Marth, and of course, Metaknight. A ledge grab rule was created to discourage planking from dominating matches, and for the most part, it has been effective- except where Metaknight is involved. Metaknight is the only character in the cast capable of stalling offstage in an unapproachable position over an extended period of time in between the ledgegrabs (and further, gliding under the stage to the opposite ledge if threatened). As a result, we see Metaknight players continuing to abuse such strategies in spite of rulesets designed specifically to stop it; and said rulesets were instituted for the most part due to Metaknight users abusing planking in the first place.
4. Metaknight has too many safe options.
In Melee, and in Brawl, most characters are capable of limiting the options of each other until the opponent is in a disadvantaged situation. Snake, Diddy, Falco, Wario, and ROB are examples of characters that excel at limiting the options of their opponents. In any situation, there is generally a certain amount of options the opponent can take that will result in either them being hit, you being hit, or neither being hit, and the goal is to put the opponent in a situation with minimal options that result in you being hit or neither.
For example; Fiction's Wario is trying to approach a Snake. Out of lets say 20 scenarios, he gets hit in 10, he hits snake in 5, and neither of them get hit in 5. He wants to make sure he keeps using those 5 options where no one gets hit until he can find the situation where he can hit snake without being hit in return. If Fiction were to simply rush snake without using the neither-hit option, he would have a 2/3 chance of getting hit..something that he doesn't want. When snake gets Fiction in a bad situation, such as having used his double jump above his head, while Snake has shot a mortar up in the air and has a grenade on the ground, there are more like, say, 5 situations. In those 5 situations, most snakes can cover 2-3, while a very good snake (such as ally), could possibly cover all 5 at once, making sure that Fiction gets hit no matter what he does. This is called A DISADVANTAGED SITUATION.
Unlike the rest of the cast, due to his numerous jumps, glides, priority-ball specials, quick low-lag aerials, best airdodge, and powerful defensive moveset, MK has a "safe" option in almost any situation that results in the neither-hit result. As MK cannot be trapped in such a manner, MK is capable of continuously choosing safe options until punishment opportunities arise. This is why so-called "gay" Metaknight playstyles are so effective. MK is capable of abusing his safe options, and in some matchups, to an absurd degree- for example, the DEHF vs Dojo matchup, in which Dojo ran the timer out by simply remaining in the air using his aerials defensively the entire match (a match which a Genesis judge wanted to DQ him for, despite the fact that no rules were violated).
Due to these points, we believe that Metaknight is a character that is not in line with the rest of the cast, and thus not fit for competitive play.
5. Meta Knight breaks the counterpick system.
Super Smash Brothers Brawl is based on counterpicks, both via stage and character; this is most especially true in singles. The existence of said counterpicks is ignored only by the most obtuse and stubborn members of our smash community, with the majority of competitive smash players embracing the concept and learning stages that are good or bad for certain characters as well as getting secondary characters to create more favorable matchups.
Generally, counterpicks are character dependent more than stage dependent. The most extreme example generally involving infinites or zero-deaths, such as Pikachu vs. Fox, or D3 vs. DK, and less extreme simply based on movesets, mobility, edgeguarding, gimping, combos, juggles, and a variety of other factors leading many to see obvious advantages in matchups like MK vs. Luigi, Falco vs. D3, or Marth vs. Jiggs. Stages also generally play a factor, admittedly less of one due to our banning of extreme stages like Shadow Moses or Bridge of Eldin. Stages increase our odds of winning by naturally enhancing our characters strengths as well as our opponents weaknesses; you will find Falco winning on Jungle Japes often due to his spike into the water negating many recoveries while Falco's side-b does just fine in getting him back to the stage, and Metaknight's gimping abilities are no stranger to Rainbow Cruise.
We've built Smash on the back of this counterpick system to make things fair. There are no "fair" stages; Snake does extremely well on all flat stages with platforms, most notably Smashville and Battlefield, but pales in comparison to ROB on mobile stages like Rainbow Cruise or Frigate Orpheon, and the Ice Climbers themselves would easily prefer Final Destination. We allow for double blind picks and force the winner of the prior game to choose their character after the stage is chosen, and then allow the losing player to counterpick with a character of his choice, resulting in at least one "uphill" battle for each player and one "fair" starting match via our stage strike system.
Unfortunately, Metaknight breaks both the stage aspect and the character aspect. The only stages Metaknight has shown to do poorly on have been Shadow Moses, Bridge of Eldin, and other ridiculously one-sided stages. As for characters, Metaknight has shown to have only even matchups at best and has continually outshined every other character in the game. Because of this, Metaknight inherently breaks the counterpick system.
Should you consider Diddy a good character (as many do), an even matchup with MK, and a tournament viable character in many other matchups, you would have company. However, that Diddy player will have to go through a counterpick that is not favorable for him in every set in addition to all the bad matchups he must face when he runs into Marth, ROB, or anyone else that has an advantage over him. Metaknight never has this issue in any way.
The MK numbers never go down. If MK had a counter, this would not be occurring and instead we'd see an influx of the counter character to Metaknight. If we suddenly saw a rise in Donkey Kongs, wouldn't we see a large number of Dedede secondaries within a month or two? Metaknights numbers have consistently increased, not decreased, and it is due to his lack of a proper counter character and stage.
6. Metaknight detracts from the metagame.
As the game has grown, each region has seen their own share of strong players playing strong characters of a large variety. As time went on, we discovered Snake to be extremely powerful and he dominated the tournament scene. The game then became figuring out "what beats Snake" and we found several counterpicks and counter-characters. Despite Snake being proclaimed as a "counter" to MK, it was Metaknight that took the top spot from Snake and has stayed there by a large margin ever since.
This alone is evidence that Metaknight is something special. The points above individually mean nothing, but together they mean that Metaknight detracts from the metagame. At low level play, Metaknight is the signature character of "broken" with all his powerful options and gimps, at mid level play he is the magic pill that finally gets you out of the slump (it gets tiring losing to the same character, right?), and at high level play he is the constant "safe option", a pocket secondary that EVERYONE can pick up and play effectively with little to no serious training in addition to Metaknight being a viable main on his own.
This creates a metagame focusing around Metaknight at all levels. Low level players have already been conditioned to see MK as the dominant threat due to his dominance, and mid level players are often seen choosing Metaknight to solve their problems; it is only through a community-wide soft ban and personal preference that he hasn't fully permeated the scene. Many players do not pick Metaknight because he is "too gay" or they simply want to pick another character because they love that character! When you are playing to win, Metaknight is the primary serious option and this has been apparent to us at high level play. No other character has been a more consistent main and secondary at the top level of play.
In a tournament setting, the ideal (and the reason people pick up secondaries) is to never play a matchup worse than 5/5, and not open yourself up to stage counterpicks that disadvantage all of your characters. Players often develop secondaries to account for certain stages and their bad matchups (such as an Ice Climbers main on Brinstar). In a game with such a dual-counterpicking system, a character with no bad stages or bad matchups (matchups worse than 5/5) is "broken" in the sense that anyone who does not play that character is opening themselves up to stage and character counterpicks. By completely removing the counterpicking aspect of the game, Metaknight not only becomes the ideal guaranteed universal option that every reasonable player should use, but also removes the importance of the rest of the cast (why pick a character with a bad matchup when you don't have to?).
When the game focuses on beating someone that is commonly played, easy to use, powerful, eliminates common game mechanics (like edgeguarding and counterpicking), and whose sole weakness is a temporary "since everyone plays MK, we know the matchup vs. MK better than the MK does" you get a shell surrounding the ACTUAL game beneath. A game with a multitude of counterpicks and an incredibly large group of viable tournament characters that are otherwise removed solely by Metaknight is possible. The game shouldn't be about solely beating Metaknight, and the best option shouldn't be to pick Metaknight. We have all played smash without Metaknight, and it is a more enjoyable and more competitive smash that increases character diversity by a significant margin.
7. Meta Knight is a very serious detriment to the mid level of play.
Traditionally, the SBR has always catered to the top level of play, but is this always the right course of action? When considering a character like Metaknight, it is wise to consider the effects on the community as a whole, and most notably, the mid level of play.
Very few players truly play the game at high levels, and the vast majority of players are at what is considered a "mid" level of play. And at this mid level of play, Metaknight dominates at an unprecedented level. It is not uncommon for smaller regions to be dominated by a Metaknight who does not practice at all and often puts minimal effort into the game. While such a player may not perform well at a national tournament against high level players who have spent countless hours studying the matchup, he is capable of beating everyone within his skill set, even those who put significantly more time into their characters. If the region progresses significantly, eventually either the Metaknight who does not practice is toppled, or forced to actually practice and/or learn matchups to remain on top.
This odd situation has occurred in many regions, including Ohio, Washington, Idaho, Puerto Rico, Eastern Canada, New Mexico, Arizona, and likely many others not listed. And while in some cases, the region's top players become better and eventually surpasses the mid-level MK mains and overcome the matchup, the MK main still continues to outplace everyone in their skill level, simply due to the ease of use of the character.
Metaknight's ease of use, at mid levels of play, becomes the magic bullet, letting anyone who switches to MK immediately outplace anyone at their skill level. And unlike other characters known for simplicity (Mr. Game & Watch in Brawl, Sheik in Melee), the character does not begin to show flaws as high levels of play are approached, but rather, only gets better. Meanwhile, the other players in the region have to put enormous amounts of effort simply to be able to fight Metaknight. Often, the solution is to simply pick up Metaknight to deal with Metaknight, as a main, or a second (as achieving higher levels of play is not a satisfactory short term answer, and still will never give you an advantaged matchup).
An excellent recent example was Washington's monthly GameClucks tournament that occurred in June, during the weekend of Genesis. The top players travelled to California to attend Genesis, and when the tournament actually occurred, seven of the top eight players used Metaknight in their later matches (switching to him when their opponents did), and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in doubles were all double Metaknight teams. These results are unusually saturdated with Metaknights compared to average Washington results. What happened? As players lost matches, they switched to their Metaknight secondaries, allowing them to beat players at the same skill level, unless those players switched to Metaknight in return.
Why are we bringing this up as a point? Obviously, it doesn't concern high level players directly. Yet, the problem that arises is that as people switch to Metaknight to surpass the players in their skill pool due to his ease of use, players get frustrated. As people switch to Metaknight to beat Metaknight (or pick him up as a secondary), the tournament scene at lower to middle ends becomes overly saturated with the character, and some players end up quitting in frustration (or, of course, maining Metaknight).
8. The community favors a ban.
It is important to note that the majority of the Smash Bros community has voted in favor of banning Metaknight in three different polls. If Metaknight is banned, he must obviously have a strong effect on high level play- but as the SBR, it is important to make note of the community as a whole's view on the character, and factor this into our decision.
Do not forget the public viewpoint:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=200718
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=205886
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=230733
As Brawl progresses, more regions report Metaknight problems. Regions like Puerto Rico have quelled it with a soft ban on Metaknight counterpicks ("soft bans" are social stigmas against picking a character. In the case of Puerto Rico, people who switch to Metaknight during their counterpick find their names recorded and announced after the tournament, discouraging them from doing so), and many other regions similarly look down upon Metaknight mains. Other regions, such as SoCal, NorCal, Washington, Arizona, or Eastern Canada find their players and tournaments gradually becoming more MK-centric, and support the ban (several of these regions running MK-banned tournament series).
The community's view is a very important point that cannot be overlooked.
9. Meta Knight is already clearly bannable, but we have artificial and unclear rules in place to keep him in the game.
Without rules clearly targeting Meta Knight, he would be literally undefeatable.
The infinite dimensional cape clearly breaks Brawl entirely, for reasons that don’t need to be explained here. We have removed it using a rule, but it’s very hard to detect and enforce. You cannot really tell if someone taps the c-stick up once or twice to gain that extra inch of distance they need to escape or hit a perfect edgehog. Then there is the Extended Dimensional Cape, which while not infinite, can be used to stall out a match. If you’re in trouble, simply use the Extended Dimensional Cape and cross the level safely. Once you get there, come out of cape and go back to the other side using Extended Dimensional Cape again. Throw in a technically illegal but impossible to detect tap up on the c-stick and you’ve got a completely safe way to cross the stage.
We have rules in place to prevent planking and stalling, which have become big issues. We’ve tried various amounts of ledgegrabs being allowed, but planking and stalling have remained issues. Meta Knight players have found ways around these rules, and have stalled. See Dapuffster v Plank at Apex, or, more recently, Dojo v DEHF at Genesis for examples of stalling that cannot be limited by any reasonable rule. Air camping or air planking, whatever you prefer to call it, makes many matchups unwinnable, and not just against low tier characters. Diddy Kong, Falco, Ice Climbers, Marth, Donkey Kong, Lucario, and to a lesser extent Wario and Snake, have their matchups tilted strongly towards Meta Knight’s favor because of air camping, and are all in B tier or higher. These techniques that skirt the lines of the rules but cannot be truly banned or limited make Meta Knight a broken character worthy of a ban.
Over time, TOs have continually refined their rules to try to reduce Metaknight's dominance of various aspects of the game. Early on, stages like Norfair were banned primarily due to Metaknight's abuse of ledge camping. MK mains responded by learning abusing the ledge on every stage. TOs responded with the ledgegrab rules, which MKs responded to by stalling out their ledgegrabs. TOs have begun to lower edgegrab limits, and now MKs are beginning to abuse aircamping. The character will continue to cause problems as long as he is legal.
Conclusion:
With these points in consideration, we believe that Metaknight as a character is:
(A) Within our community's banning standards
(B) Detrimental to Brawl's metagame
(C) Has a negative impact on our community
and thus, we believe that Metaknight should be banned.
Counterpoint #1- The game is still growing and evolving
When Brawl was released, we saw a multitude of characters succeeding in all areas. Shortly after tournaments became common, Snake became THE character. He was seen in 1st place on many results pages, most especially East Coast, with DSF in West Coast and Florida being inundated with Snakes.
In a very short time, merely a matter of weeks, the smash community put its head together and found a multitude of weaknesses for Snake. This included counter characters (ROB and D3 both did well against him in tournament play) and counter stages (Snake routinely lost on stages that required more aerial movement, like Rainbow Cruise).
Most advanced techs for Melee were found mere months after its release. We're a larger, more organized, and more competitive community now than we were when Melee started. Snake was dominant and we knocked him off his throne with Metaknight, who has stayed in the #1 position ever since (a strong argument against Snake counter Metaknight, as Metaknight is the most common character).
The reason this hasn't been done with Metaknight is because despite the game "growing and evolving", Metaknight has none of the weaknesses other characters has... and is growing with them. In fact, Metaknight's plethora of options in all circumstances has made him grow FASTER than other characters. It is not a coincidence that most of the top ranked characters from Ankoku's chart are either Metaknight himself, or characters that do better than most against Metaknight, and it is no coincidence that it has gone on this long.
Counterpoint #2- Metaknight really IS too good/over centralizing
Metaknight holds roughly 22% of ALL tournament places, the most of any characters. 22/100 doesn't seem like much, but this is a single character taking nearly 1/4th of ALL tournament PLACEMENTS... out of 36 characters.
Second place is Snake, with roughly 13% of all placements, a 9% decrease from 1st to 2nd place. Third place is currently held by Dedede, who is actually ranked at 4th place, with 7%, a 6% decrease from 2nd..
Fourth place is held by Falco at 5%, a 2% decrease from third place. It only gets WORSE. Metaknight is incredibly overcentralizing, especially when combing all the tournament placements of Snake and Dedede results in 2% less than Metaknight alone!
In conclusion, the most common tournament placings in the top 3:
Metaknight- 22%
Snake-13% (9% less than MK)
Dedede- 7% (15% less than MK)
This is not taking into account the top 8, which many have noticed to have several more MKs than other characters... So MK is actually more dominant than these percentages dictate.
Anti-Ban Side
Argument #1: Metaknight is not broken.
Functional definition for "broken": Character somehow ignores game mechanics, cannot be beaten, or has some random uncontrollable effect. Metaknight does not bend the rules of smash to bypass hit stun, DI, KOs, free movement, or other concepts familiar to smash game play. Tournament results have disproved Metaknight's invincibility, and he can be beaten in the realm of human ability. Every input in Metaknight's control is known to have a predictable outcome, and every attack is known to have a set of unchanging properties. Metaknight does not have the inherently random nature that items do, and he cannot mimic the random nature of some stages, such as Delfino Plaza.In the realm of Brawl, there are many attributes to take into consideration such as KO power, weight, speed, recovery, range, projectiles, and the ability to chaingrab to name a few. What Metaknight lacks in some of these areas other character’s from the roster more than make up for such as Snake’s powerful up-tilt, his convenient weight, and his amazing projectile game or Falco’s chaingrab, convenient priority moves (rapid A and forward+b), and his penetrating lasers or Ice Climber’s ability to remove a complete stock from any person in the game with a single grab or Pikachu’s similar new, universal chaingrab that ends placing the opponent in killing percent. In a game that holds all these unique and available tactics to exist Metaknight does not contain a single attribute that clearly demolishes the tactics presented above. Rather, Metaknight is equipped with a combination of great attributes that when compared to certain character he stays within bounds while other traits such as infinites, weight, and projectiles are completely absent from his arsenal.
Metaknight is not broken.
---
Argument #2: Metaknight does not dominate the metagame.
Argument #2: Metaknight does not dominate the metagame.
EDIT: See below for results, as the original post was in the SBR.
If you take the time to look at all of these results anyone with good judgment can see that the word “dominant” may need to be reexamined. Mew2King, one of the best Melee players and arguably the best Brawl player easily pours countless hours until the point of obsession attempting to make this “broken” character invincible, and yet Ally has a winning record of 2-1 in regards to out-placing (obtaining 1st place) over Mew2King in this season.
Moving back to the results you’ll notice that Meta Knight is not taking every top spot, does not congest the top places, and at multiple occasions is barely present. Among the top placements, you can find a multitude of characters such as Snake, Wario, Marth, Diddy Kong, DDD, Falco, Olimar, and Ice Climbers.
There are many non-Metaknight mains including Ally who have trained their characters to be more than a force to reckon with such as Anther’s Pikachu, Fiction’s Wario, DEHF and SK92’s Falco, mikeHAZE and NEO’s Marth, Razer’s Snake, Atomsk’s DDD, Lain and Meep’s Ice Climbers, and ADHD and Ninjalink’s Diddy just to name a few. If you compare the top Metaknight player’s such as Mew2King, Tyrant, and Dojo they only make up a small fraction of a large talented whole.
The Smash community does not know the meaning of a overly dominant character. Take a look here: Imagine that a game with such heavy character dominance is not only widely accepted, but one of the most successful fighting game of our generation.
---
Argument #3: The game is still growing and evolving.
Argument #3: The game is still growing and evolving.
As of August 2009, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has only been out for a little over a year. As time progressed from the game’s release, the high multitude of anxious gamers helped evolve the metagame through the process of discovering new tactics with both characters and game engine. Needless to say the process has slowed since the game’s release which is logical, but it no where near complete. It is an irrefutable fact that the game is still young and we can expect to see more changes in our metagame as time progresses.
Once Metaknight was determined to be the best character in the game, there was a huge flock for players to jump on the “best character” bandwagon which caused Metaknight’s character development to increase at an alarming rate. The rest of the character’s quickly became fixated on creating a strategy to beat Metaknight and through the journey have discovered techniques that apply to both Metaknight and the rest of the cast.
It is reckless to ban a character when the metagame, reflected through character techniques and tournament results, continues to grow and evolve.
---
Argument #4: Implying that Metaknight breaks the counterpick system also implies that Brawl is a game based on counterpicking.
The “counterpick system” is a player-created engine that is used to identify character weaknesses thus allowing a player to strategically take countermeasures to put that person at a disadvantage. This artificial medium does not go hand-in-hand with a fighting game and is more of a benchmark tool rather than a rule of play. Brawl’s predecessor, Melee, relied heavily on counterpicking since there were a large array of characters that were tournament viable that had weaknesses against each other, and because Melee never had a clear best character.
Since when did it become a requirement for fighting games to include a counterpicking system? It may be “ideal” but many of the current generation of Smash players have adopted to the Melee metagame expecting for Brawl to follow suit.
In Smash 64, Pikachu was stated as being the best character having no counterpicks in regards to characters and stages. The game grew and flourished for many years.
Years later Brawl is released and a best character is announced: Metaknight. Possessing all of the same traits Pikachu had in 64 in terms of dominance, what makes anything different now?
The counterpicking system is not a requirement for any fighting game to exist; rather it is a system that is naturally derived from the game itself thus it should not be forced upon a new game based on a previous one.
---
Argument #5: Metaknight’s extraneous circumstances are already resolved.
Metaknight has been explored to the point where stalling has been a major issue with the character. However, the two primary methods of stalling already have solutions, and are no longer evidence for a ban. The IDC has already been formally banned and is no longer an issue. Planking is banned in some areas, but this problem is not specific to Metaknight. Even more specifically, the Dojo vs DEHF ruling from Genesis was not a situation with Metaknight, rather just a poor judgment call. Any basis that would further extend past the basic definition of a ban for a more specific criterion has no application to this debate.---
Counterpoint #1: Metaknight is too good and/or over-centralizing.
"Too good" is better defined by money winnings than frame data or other debatable things. Through-out April, May and June, Metaknight won 30.18% of all cash prizes from Brawl Singes events. Winning 3 of every 10 available dollars swiftly dismisses any claims of a character's dominance. Moving on, all citations of a character's attributes are readily explained as top tier traits. Metaknight having the best recovery is easily comparable to DDD having the best grab, Falco having the best projectile, etc.
Going back to "broken", this argument has already been covered several times. A character breaks game play when that character does not adhere to the fundamental rules of game play or that character cannot be beaten. Metaknight is not broken because he can be beaten and because he does utilize the game mechanics of hit stun, shielding, jumping, recovering, DI, free movement, and player-controlled input. Metaknight is not broken.
Addressing over-centralization, of the 570 observations from the chart of tournament placements above, only 123 of them are Metaknight. This means that roughly 22% of tournament placements are Metaknight, even at top level play where Metaknight is the most threatening. The game cannot revolve around beating a character that takes about 1/5th of the highest tournaments placements. Metaknight does not institute over-centralization. But consider that the public polls have been pro ban; the community wants him gone. When referring back to the public polls, note that the SBR is charged with leading the competitive community. This does not necessarily mean parroting back to them their tournament preferences based on a sample poll. Consider equally that a large portion of our membership is not competitive and will thus skew the vote with their bias. Even if you wanted to favor the competitive community, you must first properly represent their views before making that decision.
If Metaknight's ease of use allows him to completely demolish the mid levels of play, and potentially risks ruining the experience of many players and reducing overall tournament attendance, should this be considered? Yes, definitely. However, this is where we cannot expand further. We currently have no means to measure Metaknight's relative use at mid-level play past what we see at tournaments. As such, any claim to mid-level play holds a flimsy basis, and any refutation produced becomes equally shaky. We'll have to prove a Metaknight saturation at middle or lower levels of play before we can make any decisions based on them. As for tournament attendance, there are no noticeable changes in tournament attendance, so it unfair to say that Metaknight has the potential to harm attendance unless proven otherwise.
---
Counterpoint #2: Metaknight circumvents the current counter picking system.
Counterpoint #2: Metaknight circumvents the current counter picking system.
We must first define what tournaments measure. Ideally, tournaments measure individual player talent and the ability to achieve victory over a set of opponents (the other entrants to the tournament) in a set a of rules defined prior to the event. This is done though a combination of attributes, such as game knowledge, consistency, talent, character choice, and decision-making.
In this manner, it is clear to see that Metaknight defeats only a portion of the rules instituted. Playing Metaknight cannot replace the ability to achieve victory over the opposition: he cannot replace game knowledge, consistency, talent, or decision-making. He cannot keep other talented players from entering events, and he cannot prevent your opponent from picking a formidable character against the player. The counter system has a relatively low impact in the final determination of tournament placements. Because of this, tournaments will continue to measure the ability to win though the vast majority of qualifications needed to win, regardless of his effect on the counter system.
---
Counterpoint #3: Metaknight is easy to use and makes the game less fun and less fair.
Ease of use is entirely subjective and cannot be proven or disproved in any way. This is a silly argument that carries only emotional appeal and can't have any real impact on a final decision regarding a possible ban. People fail to realize that removing the top character from any video game will make the game more "fair" for the rest of the characters. Removing the top player (M2K) would give other players a better chance at getting first but this doesn't make it right. This changes, however, if the character is deemed "broken" which has been disproved above.
Synopsis
Atlantic North
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3880
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3994
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3993
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3785
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=5271
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=3971
http://allisbrawl.com/ttournament.aspx?id=6187
Atlantic South
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=240230 July 5th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=240070 July 3rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=239167 June 20th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=236828 June 6th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=233853 May 23rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234383 May 16th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=230666 April 18th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=228582 March 28th
Midwest
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=227045 March 20th-21st
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=226953 March 22nd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=227721 March 28th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=227792 March 29th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=229805 April 11th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=231647 April 25th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=231647 April 26th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=232557 May 3rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=232643 May 4th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=233038 May 7th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=233419 May 10th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234166 May 17th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234865 May 23rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=237702 June 13th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=238593 June 20th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=239467 June 27th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=239362 June 27th
Texas
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=214290 March 28th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=142123
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=228910 April 5th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=234222 May 17th
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=235027 May 23rd
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=238582 June 22nd
Hawaii
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=228699
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=233642
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=236150
EUROPE
Netherlands:
Brawl at Go:
1. Gaki (Wolf/Marth)
2. Gmoney (Falco)
3. Boku (Donkey Kong/Marth)
4. Mr-R (Marth/Zamus)
5. istudying (Diddy Kong/Ice Climbers)
5. Skippo (Toon Link)
TNOT3:
1. Mr-R (Marth/Zamus)
2. istudying (Diddy Kong/Ice Climbers)
3. Kaak (Mr. Game & Watch)
4. Gmoney (Falco)
5. Gymmo (Dedede/MK/Kirby)
5. ssj5goten (Fox)
United Kingdom:
TKI:
1. Aiko (Wario)
2. Coey (Marth)
3. Koop (DDD)
4. GLadam (Snake)
5. GAwes (Kirby)
5. Fuzzyness (ROB)
Spain:
I want my money back
1. Marcbri (Falco)
2. Greward (Olimar)
3. Miquel (Pika)
4. Neji (Diddy)
5. Veyron (DDD)
5. El_Bardo (DDD)
France:
Bushido Nibai Impact
1. Glutonny (Wario/Marth)
2. Kaos (G&W/MK/DDD)
3. Hope (Olimar / MK / Snake)
4. Bjay (Marth)
5. Leon (Peach / Marth)
5. Kill1 (Snake / MK)
Bushido Impact 8
1. Kaos (G&W / DDD / MK)
2. Glutony (Wario)
3. Leon (Peach / Marth)
4. Gemini (Samus)
5. Achoral (Ness / Luigi)
5. King (G&W / Wolf / Falco)
Germany:
SMACK
1. Armada (Sheik)
2. reaper (MK/ROB/Diddy)
3. Smasher89 (ICs/Snake )
4. Pamaro (GaW)
5. Bjay (ROB/Marth)
5. Izaw (Link)
FM#7
1. Prinz (ROB)
2. Yomi (Kirby/Olimar/DK)
3. BlackZettix (Falco/GaW)
4. AZenith (Snake)
5. Tero (MK/DDD)
5. Makkura (Wolf/Snake)
He's the best character in the game and ridiculously broken...
