10 Fighting Game characters that had to be BANNED in tournament

[@thebananamelon5065]

I love how all the most OP characters are secrets or bosses that aren’t actually meant to be played. And then there’s Meta Knight. You don’t even have to unlock him

[@latios2266]

You forgot Pet Shop

[@manafbenayache1880]

I can’t wait to fight that bird he seems strong ! But he gotta use all of his cheapness and off game codes to win against me ! Cause I m really tough and I have face so many cheap and broken characters since 26 years now ! Can you believe that 26 years of fighting games against tough players and hardest CPU ! NB i m a PC player since more than that but it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use joystick 🕹 if you think so means you underestimated me pals ! The only way you can play against me and have the advantage that I m not at my full power is giving me a joypad ! It sucks in fighting games !

[@raychangalarza179]

You dont have to unlock peth shop, actually the secret characters in that game arent that great lmao

[@localpyromaniac.]

​@@latios2266 fuck petshop

[@atmylimitrgggh]

@@raychangalarza179 best one is new Kak and he’s just a worse version of the second best (arguably best) character in the game

[@gamer-qk8vd]

Couple interesting notes on Brawl Meta Knight: -tier lists are infamously structured around how other characters perform against MK -MK is the reason stages like delfino plaza were banned in some regions. his aerial ability was so strong he could travel under the stage from ledge to ledge while swinging up airs through the stage the entire time

[@shadou1234567]

i love that ike actually deals pretty well with most high tiers in Brawl, but he sucks so much agains MK that he is a bottom tier

[@keeganw965]

Also all his sword hitboxes are transcendent (passes through other hitboxes) Meaning you can never trade with him efficiently

[@toribirb]

Didnt metaknight get unbanned later on? I mean the game is absolute kusoge with ice climbers chain grabbing to death, meta knight rocking a 2 framer and godlike stall abilities etc.

[@keeganw965]

@@toribirb Yes but only because top players wouldn't attend tournaments that had banned him. Modern rulesets have him properly rebanned

[@alphajnitro0072]

@@keeganw965 Nah he's still unbanned in a lot of modern tourney. Take super smash con that happened like last month.

[@Beuzer0]

For a while, Marie was banned in Skullgirls, because someone found that picking random actually gave the player a miniscule chance to get the boss Marie, which was obviously broken. That person also hacked the game to be able to pick her all the time and made a video about it. So she became officially banned before a fix.

[@michaelpopowich5095]

@@MostlyLost she probably is still banned because she's a boss character like Bison and Oni

[@ben10inches]

​@@michaelpopowich5095 she's probably gonna have a different moveset and obviously reduced hyper-armor. she'll most likely play like an entirely different character from boss Marie

[@RainerCozmo]

In case anyone is interested, Pet Shop is now not the only character banned in JoJo's HFTF. Kakyoin is now generally banned from high level play, and is often considered to be BETTER than Pet Shop by some players. Kak had hard knockdowns from near full screen, airdashes, excellent mix, huge combo damage and potential for TODs, and his nets in particular can invalidate a large portion of the cast.

[@eins2001]

Kakyoin got donut'd

[@Arvenyte]

I mean, no one can deflect the emerald splash.

[@grandgojira5485]

They couldn't deflect the Emerald Splash

[@24hourPrince]

Meta Knight actually was never permanently banned across the board, there were some tourneys that banned him but it was never a universal rule or anything. He was still by far the best character in the game, and the viability of the rest of cast was almost entirely determined by how well they did against Meta Knight. He also had a few glitches and techniques that were banned, like a glitch which involved his dimensional cape move, where he becomes invincible and invisible and teleports a short distance in any direction. There was a glitch that could allow you to start the move and by tapping a certain button in rhythm you could stay invisible and invincible permanently. That was obviously banned, and there were also rules against stalling because due to how mobile he was in comparison to the rest of the cast he could often permanently stall offstage with little to no risk at all, and rules against that were implemented. There were also multiple stages that had to be banned solely because MK could abuse their geometry in ways that made certain matchups completely unplayable, despite those stages being perfectly fine for the rest of the cast. He was an overall (k)nightmare for the meta of competitive Brawl and most of the competitive ruleset had to be designed around him because he was just that broken.

[@juanmendez3212]

Hell throw Kirby in as well. It’s the same character

[@LemonYerg]

@@juanmendez3212 look at a tier list for brawl

[@wintersmill4853]

Nerd response: we’ll actually… blah blah blah blah.

[@control_r5238]

Well actually smash is a party game

[@shanetaylor761]

@@wintersmill4853 troll response: well actually I have nothing of substance to say but....blah blah blah.

[@TehDompie]

The thing with the Metaknight ban, he did get banned at a major tournament but since most pros played MK, they didn't go to that tournament. Other TO's saw that and decided it wasn't worth it to ban MK and risk losing top players and potential viewership. It mostly came down to some local scenes would ban him, but he remained legal in the big tournaments.

[@shinreimyu]

To add, I think the consensus is that ICs were worse for the game than mk since the game was too slow for most characters to challenge them unlike in melee where the faster pace meant that you could challenge them with execution, but even then wobbling was banned over there

[@MidwayWuzzupman]

They didn't call him Meta Knight for nothing. Meta Knight WAS the meta for Brawl.

[@capefeather]

Meta Knight is a pretty unique case because it's not so much that he broke the game to an unplayable state, but he warped the game to become something different. Probably why people could end up justifying not banning him

[@risemixFGC]

@@shinreimyu this was meta knight player cap and cope. meta knight was legitimately too good for tournament play. people who called it early were told there wasn't enough data. by the time there was enough data, the argument was just like, "well i've already practiced all this MK so i'm not going to tourneys if you ban him." keep in mind a lot of top brawl players literally just went to tournaments with as few entrants as possible to skim money from them, that got harder if you weren't playing a character 3x as good as the next best character. i was a player who went to tournements in NYC/NJ area, the best region, during the brawl hay day, this isn't conjecture. i'm telling you what happened. brawl scene was just kind of a moneymaking scheme for top players, literally everything they did was designed to increase the spread of tourney among them. frequent splitting, brackets literally designed to ensure they had easier brackets than other players, collusion was rampant. it was bad

[@Minwu325]

@@risemixFGC meta knight IS that much better than all the other characters, but its facts that many of the other top tiers were cringe ass zoners or icies

[@jdawg1712]

Michelangelo was banned from Super Smash Con just mere weeks after the release of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. (a game FILLED with busted characters) Mickey’s Forward air/air grab combo was a infinite that was extremely easy to do. Thankfully the developers just patched this out.

[@BainesMkII]

That's what happens when you schedule a decent money tournament right after the release of a brand new game that was arguably rushed to hit its release window. Didn't they also run the tournament on the Nintendo Switch, the platform that was guaranteed to not see a patch released in time?

[@jdawg1712]

@@BainesMkII yeah, I believe it was on the switch.

[@skeepodoop5197]

You know a charecter is too powerful when they are banned before the first damn tourney.

[@darthraider450]

First it was Sandy with the grab punch trick, then Michaelangelo with the air grab throw combos, now it's Oblina who still hasn't been nerfed properly yet. Oblina is insane tier for a good reason. Also according to IGN, SpongeBob has moved up to S Tier as well with Catdog and Aang.

[@pureblood369]

akuma is the only one that got banned in street fighter and teken

[@filippo2777]

happy to see PetShop in the list properly explained without any misconception, for real. it's also worth pointing out he can charge icicles while blocking totally safely, making even pressuring him unsafe if prolonged too much, and since in hftf you are forced to block meaties on wakeup unblockables are actually unescapable, making a knockdown often mean the end of the game (not like PetShop needs it, since his damage output is enough to kill you with a 1 bar meter positive combo), his dash is also good enough to catch you with an icicle + d.2a from midscreen and kill you with it, all of this counting icicles themselves are a really damn good space control tool, since staying under one means getting unblockable'd

[@wrentheenby]

and then kakyoin is somehow even better lmao

[@triggerpull9275]

And yet, kakyoin is ultimately the better character, simply because he doesn't have the miserable HP petshop has

[@Error-wn5gy]

Ok so what if we put this on a character with high hp and stand gauge? And thats how kak was made

[@AffyMoon]

It's funny how everyone went from considering Petshop the most broken character, to including Kakyoin in the list, then to ultimately decide Kakyoin was even better than Petshop all in the span of a few years lmao. Makes sense tho, Kakyoin has it all, Petshop's insane damage potential, most of the best normals in the game, a stand gauge for extra defense, which was Petshop's one weakness and he has good mobility. Only thing Petshop has over Kakyoin are his icicle tech

[@filippo2777]

@@AffyMoon Kakyoin was placed above PetShop in the tierlist a long time before banning him. what made the ban take this long is the fact that Kakyoin is playing the game way better than everyone else, while PetShop is straight playing his own game

[@gutts4208]

Launch Leeroy in Tekken 7 was super strong. He literally tore the competitive scene apart and was nerfed later on but he needed to be banned at EVO Japan 2019.

[@snaffu1]

Adding on to the SC2 bans: It worked out that all three were banned because Heihachi had stupidly good pokes and ridiculous guaranteed damage when you put things together, plus his mixups were so hard to react to at a high level. Spawn wasn't terribly busted at first glance, but he had two ways to set up guaranteed 100% combos on most stages(if they were wide enough), or a good chance at a ring out otherwise. And Necrid... Necrid was just stupid good. He was an amalgamation of moves taken from the entire roster, with a few originals thrown in, and juiced up on steroids. Blockstun for days, +frames on tons of moves, crazy good start up on most of his pokes, one of the fastest unblockables in the game, just frames everywhere, and his damage was LUDICROUS. All in all, it was logical from the jump to ban console exclusives, but it definitely worked out in the end lol. Fun to play them at home, though! Necrid made a lot of single player challenges absolute jokes once you figured out his kit.

[@JesusGarcia-ol4bg]

And here I thought Heihachi was low tier lol

[@anonymoose2474]

What about link?

[@goldskarr]

​@@anonymoose2474Link is just happy to be here.

[@TheZotmeister]

@@anonymoose2474 I have a story about SC2 Link. In my brother's hands, he was Hilde two games early. Link has this throw that sends the opponent flying SIDEWAYS much too far. It was STUPID easy to get ringouts with it. He would deadpan "Bye." before using it. It got to where he'd say it two seconds before the throw... and he was right. One time the bastard said it _before the start of the round_ and *still* pulled it off. It was so frustrating. When I became a streamer many years later, I borrowed the deadpan "Bye." and it became a catchphrase, complete with emote... but I borrowed it from my brother emotionlessly winning match after match with Link.

[@CodenameJT]

@@anonymoose2474 wait, link was in soulcalibur 2?

[@ZarytheMovies]

Finally a solid video explaining why Petshop has been banned in HFTF. A lot of videos usually go 'oh yeah he can fly and spam and uh yeah' and leave it at that but the real problem Is the unblockable icicle hold (that works while blocking), high damage from easy confirms and the amount of matchups that can be made be the most boring match on earth betcause they can't catch the fuck or fight back. Cheers jmcrofts

[@philithegamer8265]

Kaks actually the OP character in the game but he's banned for good so...

[@bucci2100]

thing is, he is better than petshop because he is playing the game really well, but petshop is just such a different character and is broken because he isn't playing HFTF anymore it's like a whole different game when petshop is in the mix.

[@SivartAuhsoj]

One thing you didn't mention about Hilde is that she was built to have to hold down buttons and release/negative edge them for some of her powerful attacks. This came with the downside of not being able to tech throws while holding down any of the buttons needed to tech them. However, when playing on pad, you could map buttons in a way that allowed you to tech throws while holding down the buttons at the same time, effectively removing the handicap that she was built around.

[@alonsocarrasco5460]

Haha I was just replying something similar, iirc she wasn't really that good, it was console remapping that broke her.

[@TGMShoNuff]

Isn't she the only character that also has bound in the game? Big E exploited the crap out of her at one point...

[@ROYBGP]

Hilde's doom combo was fucked fucked up

[@user-fe8gx3ie5v]

@@TGMShoNuff The WWE wrestler? LOL.

[@TGMShoNuff]

@@user-fe8gx3ie5v ......no, man. And to add, just wow.

[@nielsbeukers6319]

Characters that totally shouldn’t be banned: my character Character that should be banned: your character

[@crazymumbo]

What if we play the same character…?

[@Pukukupu]

@@crazymumbo I guess you're the same person then

[@marlonmontelhiggins8570]

@@Pukukupu - 🤯

[@Robeebert]

This is a good ruleset

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

This. 100%This. your character is a broken boss character mine is the tool of the consumate professional and you only say he's broken because all the best players choose him. Get good.

[@douglashadry8659]

Algol was also bannned in Soul Calibur 4 because he had infinites on half the cast. That said, the infinites were very situational and didn't come up in play very often, and I think, at least by the end of SC4's tournament lifespan, most people agreed he probably shouldn't have been banned in the first place. Unlike Hilde. Hilde needed to go. As if doom combo wasn't bad enough, she was an amazing character even without. Best sidestep in the game, safe, huge damage. She wouldn't be banworthy without Doom Combo, but she'd have been top tier without it.

[@AkuenSan]

I'm sort of surprised you didn't mention Gambit from MvC2 being banned because of his glitch where he can just fly off the screen and never come back. :P

[@ethancastelino]

Hftf Kakyoin is another banned character and generally considered the best character in the game due to his long and high damage combos, great 50/50 mixups(that lead in to combos), & some of the best normals and movement in the game. Most people consider him as strong if not stronger than pet shop

[@Shieldclock]

I've never seen kakyion banned before. I also think looping an unblockable (petshop) trumps having great mixups in terms of reasons to ban a character

[@wrentheenby]

you forgot the N E T S

[@wrentheenby]

@@Shieldclock kakyoin is currently considered better than petshop bc of nets and his 50/50s. his movement is also crazy.

[@toribirb]

Dont forget the infinite air dashes while in stand mode for stalling abilities. I was messing around with hftf and I was in awe when I discovered kakyoin can air dash infinitely

[@StellaEFZ]

He's not banned entirely yet

[@jasonpinon6873]

There were a couple of characters banned in SFV due to glitches for awhile: Chun-Li with her ability to LEAVE THE PLANET and Blanka (again) when he had a moved that stopped time on accident. Now, these were glitches and not intended to work that way but I wanted to mention it.

[@fastmovingvolcanomatter]

Were the characters banned or were the glitches banned? For example, in Melee, Ice Climbers have a glitch that can completely freeze an opponent in place after a throw. That glitch is banned but ICs themselves are legal.

[@kid-kuma]

Those characters were never banned due to glitches. It's a known rule in all FGs that you can't do game breaking glitches in tournament, this never results to the character being banned.

[@notproductiveproductions3504]

As someone who can’t pull off game breaking glitches, I wouldn’t know

[@NeilMacay]

There should have been an entry for literally ALL of the KOF Bosses lol Even Omega Rugal in 2k2 is banned by a Mexican state Governor!

[@Magus12000BC]

'95 Rugal and Saisyu would like a word with you.

[@Error-wn5gy]

98 UM regular rugal is a mid teir hero iirc

[@JozefLucifugeKorzeniowski]

{spits on ground at mention of the name omega rugal} Coño

[@saadhasan2518]

Yeah every arcade in Mexico has a picture of Rugal which says that he is not allowed for all sorts of play.

[@nakedbeekeeper9610]

Of course it had to be Mexico 😂

[@LamborghiniDiabloSVPursuit]

Normal Kakyoin in HotF is also generally banned in competitive tournaments, because he can perpetually stunlock you with mystic trap spam. Coupled with his insane maneuverability and screen reach, he can pretty much do damn well anything he pleases. No, this does not cost him any resources, most of these are basic moves that do not cost meter to use. New Kakyoin however, isn't nearly as cheesy and is allowed to be use anywhere.

[@rodrigofreitas3387]

The character Sasori, in Natutimate Accel 2, was also banned in Brazil tournaments because of his problematic move set. The player can attack and instantly use his counter to avoid get punished. He also passively receive half damage and do double damage after get below 30%HP

[@JesskuHatsune]

another thing about Meta Knight is that in Brawl, there was an in-game tripping mechanic where at at any point a character is walking or running, they can trip.....but because of Meta Knights ability to air camp he didn't have to worry about this making him an even more unfair character.

[@1000g2g3g4g800999]

Random tripping only occurred at the start of a dash, or turning around from a run. You would only trip walking if you were hit with a hitbox that causes someone to trip, like a banana peel or a lot of low normals.

[@earthboundgeek]

Ivan Ooze is the #1 most broken fighting game character of all time!

[@LowellLucasJr.]

That but Gill is pretty scary as well!

[@sukasukakwee9332]

nahh, t5 jinpachi untouchable

[@JoaoLucasK]

Have you seen the Eternal Champion (from Eternal Champions)? The guy has multiple forms, and in one of them, he can simply turn himself invincible for some seconds and go ham on you. And because, unlike other characters, he has unlimited power meter, he can use that whenever he pleases.

[@SirCorn]

Yes no kidding.

[@Kawlinz]

@@JoaoLucasK same with Ivan Ooze - normal move is an invincible shield that shoots homing fireballs which you can repeat as soon as you're no longer invincible... And you can do the move while in hit stun. I think he takes the cake.

[@ishmaelcohen-scali8093]

I think for a brief period of time, Sailor Uranus from the Sailor Moon fighting game was banned. She is UNGODLY busted. Insane normals, the only forward dash in the game, with her back dash and forward dash basically being akuma teleports on crack, that she can use to buffer a frame one Spd, as well as having a very good projectile, long reaching, fast normals that lead to high damage combos. You will see players switch off their mains for her in tournaments and win when she's allowed.

[@philithegamer8265]

Yeah but who legitimately in the FGC cares about Sailor Moon S?

[@aroperdope]

​@@philithegamer8265 You'd be surprised

[@Chamomileable]

Additionally: in the Samurai Shodown V Special community, Enja is banned. He has access to a hidden input that makes him INCREDIBLY fast for the game. There's additionally a speed up glitch using the 1p start button that's banned.

[@JRY17]

Small correction on Gill. The element isn't dependant on his direction it's which side of his body he uses. His right was fire left was ice. He was using both elements when facing each direction.

[@aztro.99]

it rlly just matters what move he uses and which limb does that move

[@jestfullgremblim8002]

@@aztro.99 exactly. A move that uses fire when looking to the right will use ice when looking to the left. But not every move uses the same element when looking at a certain direction

[@liamfoote7164]

Yeah but the side of the body he uses gets flipped when he switches sides. So any given move will be one element on one side and the other on the other side.

[@kevingriffith6011]

Honestly I'm surprised that they haven't put Ivan Ooze in Battle for the Grid just to capitalize on his status as a legendarily overpowered character, it practically markets itself. (Not suggesting a 1 to 1 port, of course, just throw him a brand new moveset and make him hype to watch and I'd be all in on it)

[@captainnavigator6534]

There is a weird rights situation with the Power Rangers movie characters iirc, that's why he isn't in the game

[@bhlakbatosai]

@@captainnavigator6534 plus Rita Repulsa was announced as the last of the new Season 3 dlc. They're probably gonna get this sorted out by then and announce him for Season 4.

[@MinchPlayer]

"what other characters do you think should have been banned" Unrelated footage of testament from GGAC on the background

[@bowserfriend]

Yep totally unrelated :)

[@kinginthenorth1437]

The banned costumes reminded me of the Bruce Wayne skin in Injustice 2 which didn't get banned but was miserable to play against. Since Batman has moves where he hits you with his cape, the capeless Bruce Wayne skin had hitboxes without visual indicators.

[@jondoepenn3637]

Back in the day, people used to complain about how good Eddy Gordo was in Tekken. Super easy to learn his combos and very hard to counter at times.

[@genesisfgc]

I know that in Smash for Wii U, Cloud got banned in the teams format because of how broken he was in that, double Cloud was a very popular team that had mutliple ToD combos, as well as great edgeguarding, ledgetrapping, huge hitboxes, and of course limit camping was very prominent.

[@nathanielbass771]

heck, I think that in the Smash 4 games, all the DLC characters should be banned. There is no way to practice against them without literally paying for the privilege... so players without the DLC will have literally no idea how to fight stuff like Bayonetta (top tier), Cloud (top tier), Ryu (pretty much every attack he has has super armor...) etc

[@tonberry2670]

Or they could practice with a friend who has them. Which is very likely how you're going to be practicing because of how bad the online is

[@OzvenomDnD]

Only at certain events late in the life cycle, but damn he was so good in doubles

[@FamilyTeamGaming]

​@@nathanielbass771 Crazy exaggeration. Ban every DLC character in every fighting game ever then. The one ban that really SHOULD have happened was Bayonetta. But by the time people learned to abuse her enough to turn to game into "Smash 4 Bayonettas in Top 8", apathy towards the game was so big that nobody really cared.

[@notarealspy4090]

​@@FamilyTeamGamingextreme apathy seems to be the only thing I hear about smash bros these days

[@Se7enRemain]

Fighting game top 10's are such a guilty pleasure for me. I'll never turn my nose up at em

[@qty1315]

Top 10 weakest?

[@autumnoraki]

Justice in GG was a fucking monster, I still have nightmares of my friend bullying me with her ridiculous toolkit to this day...

[@Robert_D_Mercer]

That's funny man, when I played- JUSTICE IS A WOMAN?!

[@cheesy6122]

@@Robert_D_Mercer and has the soul of Sols dead wife Aria

[@StellaEFZ]

She was banned NOT because she was strong, rather because she is not in the arcade release

[@StellaEFZ]

In fact, even in XXAC there are characters stronger than Justice

[@paperluigi6132]

@Leith Aziz PAGY wasn’t she reborn as Jack-O?

[@BluestCapybara2400]

Another one from HFTF is Kakyoin that was banned recently and is considered the best character in it, kinda like the same reason for Pet Shop, but he was harder to play but had better reward

[@bucci2100]

kak's probably easier to play because he is more flexible as you can play him how you like, zoning, defense, offense, mixups, okizeme, can also vortex if you want to pity your enemy, etc.

[@kappakappa1307]

Yeah I learned kak for a hftf in a school tournament.

[@doomslayer1841]

Kakyion also has an instakill combo

[@dfg3021]

Super late comment but a super obscure one Feral Chaos from Final Fantasy Dissidia Duodecim was banned in what little tournament play the game ever saw because he had a spammable negative edge projectile move that could have practically zero startup and was even stronger at point blank range He wasn't banned because he was insanely strong, because honestly, the character had a lot of built-in exploitable weaknesses He was banned because he had one move that you could just mindlessly press while locked on and its tall ass hitbox and other absurd properties essentially made it impossible to deal with effectively enough to counter

[@Steve_P_B]

I know that for a long time people were screaming for Sheeva to be banned from Mortal Kombat tournament play because there was so many people who would just spam the Sheeva Stomp where she jumps off screen then lands right on top of you and it was as close to impossible to defend against as you can get. Ultimately though, eventually Netherrealm studios ended up nerfing her

[@fifaworldcup1994]

Would've been hilarious, since Sheeva was never a top tier to begin with.

[@ericb3157]

Quan Chi in MK4 has a similar move...

[@Calmedfatigue]

My buddy decimated me with that stomp, so anytime he picked Sheeva, I would do the same, and it would just come down to who could hit the buttons faster 😂😂😂

[@BBY393]

That strategy didn’t see success in tournaments where players had already labbed counters to Sheeva stomp. She would get punished for more damage than she could earn off a stomp. The nerf only came after a twitch event showed how little casual players knew about stopping it.

[@chaos9790]

the clip of the girl crying over it comes to mind

[@MrMixtape]

Personally I think any character who can beat me should be banned but that's just me Side note: Kratos in Mortal Kombat 9 was banned for similar reasons; he was a PS3 exclusive character and wasn't available on Xbox 360 or PC, so he got the ban hammer.

[@BenJohnson0531]

I agree. If you beat me it’s because you cheated and your character is broken 😤

[@Deman_Dema]

Petshop's icicle fall can also be use while blocking too. It almost impossible to pressure him, because there will be icicle drop down on your head while he is blocking.

[@mas8705]

Funny enough for a game that just came out: there was a small time where Michelangelo from the Nickelodeon smash game got banned for a wee bit due to having a broken combination that let him KO at 0%. It got fixed, but that was still an awkward time for the ninja turtle.

[@HenshinFanatic]

So they made a lore accurate Mikey and regretted their decision almost immediately? ROFLMAO

[@chadicus8725]

Really cool to see somebody actually talking about how petshop is actually op instead of making up stuff. Nuts speed, nuts damage, very free unblockables (many characters also have ub setups but none are this free) godly blockstrings, most characters need to learn character specific combos, etc. Next talk about kak and his nets ;)

[@kenrickkahn]

Pet Shop seems to be damn unstoppable! Damn!!

[@T4N7]

Link was overpowered in the casual environment due to 1 simple factor, the Megaton Hammer, if my memory serves me well it swung with the same speed as any sword he used but seemed to have a hitbox to fit the shape of the hammer which made it difficult to duck under or jump over. I used this tactic to whoop the CPU in single player n among my friends that was the reason we banned him so when I learned yrs later that he was banned I always thought it was cuz of that but it makes sense to ban all the exclusive characters

[@arachnofiend2859]

Related to Ivan Ooze, I'm still sad that Brain Drain lost the character vote to be made into Skullgirls DLC because I really wanted to know what a balanced Ivan Ooze would even look like.

[@archmagemc3561]

At least he made Robo Fortune for us. Another ranged character!

[@adriankingluna818]

If you can made a video of the SNK/KOF bosses would've awesone, because I think those bosses deserve their own list. They are stupidly strong, banned from every tournament and, even with the massive downgrade the developers gave them in KOF 2002 UM, they're still broken asf. By the way, I've seen a couple of MVC2 featured matches of you on a player's channel called Tleloc, is good to see you in other media, mate!

[@BlessTheJay]

"pet shop has the best unblockables" Kakyoin and New Kak: huh... also kakyoin is also banned lately, last year the community realized after 20 years that kak was even better and way more broken than P.Shop

[@GyroMan5136]

while the kaks do have unblockables (all active stands do really) petshop’s are a lot better

[@BlessTheJay]

@@GyroMan5136 true, since it seems that pshop's are easier

[@ricardoludwig4787]

Important note around meta knight in brawl: he was ATTEMPTED to be banned, but by then about a third of all serious brawl players were meta knight mains and even more had them as an important secondary, so when he was banned, a lot of those people stopped going to tournament as a form of protest, so tournaments that didn't allow meta knight performed much worse. As a consequence of this, any later brawl tournament features a new ruleset that is generally more competitive, but is also laser focused on nerfing MK to a point where he is no longer unfair to play against. He is still bar none the best character in the game. (Also my hot take is that Ice climbers needed to be banned more because with the restricted stage list they invalidate characters way harder than mk, but that's just my opinion)

[@LA-dc8lc]

"important"

[@Fausto_4841]

In the first power rangers fighting game on Genesis the Dragon Zord had a broken move. You held down C (I think) then circled the d-pad as fast as you can. It made the Zord freak out and start rapidly cycling thru it's offense animations with active hitboxes. Making for the fastest combo in the game.

[@huitzil2389]

Sailor Saturn in the Sailor Moon SuperS fighting game was one of those boss characters made playable. The character in the setting is the harbinger of death for entire worlds... and the primary reason she's banned, IIRC, is that her standing kicks come out in one frame, which is faster than a character holding back puts up a block. If you aren't already in blockstun, she starts a combo on you whenever she feels like it.

[@nayd5043]

what? no, uranus is the best character in the game and despite having an infinite anywhere on screen she still isn't banned

[@aroperdope]

@@nayd5043 those two sailors that you guys mentioned reminds me of Gill and the bosses from arcana hearts. The girls in arcana are all Moe but the bosses most definitely were not

[@KetsubanSolo]

​@@nayd5043I don't know anything about SuperS, but I think Uranus got nerfed in that title? But nobody plays SuperS, it's all about Sailor Moon S

[@yurifairy2969]

Sailor Uranus has a teleport that can be cancelled into ANY attack.

[@ThunderFist1978]

Was that ever played competitively, though?

[@taco_sensei]

Mmhmm I still get nightmares of Hilde. Confirmed ring outs from start... the way Bamco made her still feel Hilde but made her balanced in SC6 is beyond me. Good shit

[@anatolekuhn9354]

Idk if this counts for this list but the team of two Clouds in smash 4 doubles i believe was banned

[@SPZ-gv2on]

Lots of tourneys did yeah. Doubles inevitably turned into 4 clouds in finals.

[@KHA0T1X]

Don't forget bayo doubles

[@SPZ-gv2on]

@@KHA0T1X Double bayo wasn't that common actually. Although she dominated singles, cloud was much better at dealing with multiple opponents at once safely.

[@DrMasterAlex]

I remember seeing someone compile doubles tourney results in Smash4 post DLC and Cloud was so far above everyone else that he was basically a SSS tier. More dominant than even MK in Brawl.

[@williamhowells806]

@@SPZ-gv2on Yh after the ban it turned into cloud bayo cos that's still better than double bayo

[@Xeroxthebeautiful]

Meta Knight actually didn't get permanently banned until after Brawl was pretty much finished it's completive lifespan. There were several attempts to ban him some of them even getting pretty far but none of them stuck until relatively recently despite most people agreeing now the game would have been healthier in retrospect if he had been banned including most people who were against the ban.

[@gigantomastiaCuddler]

nah majority of good players never have and never will favor the ban, you're just making it up that he's permanently banned even today

[@ghw1985]

When you realize your buddy who has been undefeated in a game was pretty much undefeated because the character he used was broken to the point tournaments banned that character and that I was the only one to beat him is pretty awesome lol

[@kornymunky3157]

I think the temporary Eliza ban is worth mentioning. During that time where she could super cancel some moves without having the meter.

[@SchwiftyVibez]

Spawn Armageddon was made by EA and Namco. The latter helps develop Soul Calibur. Necrid was designed by Todd MacFarlane as well. That's why Spawn was in the Xbox version of SC2.

[@jojobizadTRASH]

Kakyoin is also banned, and Vanilla Ice is soft-banned in the EU. Vanilla Ice is soft-banned since he has a simple unblockable oki and insane damage off of tandem, though if the opponent agrees to play against Ice then he can be playable.

[@Shrek_es_mi_pastor]

New Kakyoin, regular Kakyoin is legal (or are both banned?)

[@jojobizadTRASH]

@@Shrek_es_mi_pastor I think both of their bans have been lifted, I do remember Kak being banned since a lot of pro players would use him to win tournaments recently

[@notyouraveragelemon6128]

Little red riding hood is banned in most tournaments for the Shrek fighting game

[@losertrap1031]

First time I’ve ever watched a video on this topic, I actually really enjoyed it and I know the list was probably hard to make like you said in the beginning but a second one would most likely be received greatly by your fans. I know it would be by me.👍 gonna watch more of ur content now since it’s my first time tuning In.

[@VAFranky]

So glad you mentioned Ivan Ooze! He was super powerful in the movie too. The only thing that could stop him was Kimberly making the megazord knee him in the nuts. Fitting for that to be the only weakness of an immortal godlike being.

[@blazaybla22]

Achilles’ Ballsack

[@AleisterMeowley]

Well that takes me back

[@DanmakuMaster]

Pretty sure it was Aisha that hit the button to knee him

[@evanonodera3809]

Honestly the concept of banning strong characters is why I like ratio so much in marvel games, because it allows for interesting mus and if you were to play a very strong character ie. Vergil then you would have to play characters that are worse. Obviously there is nothing wrong with playing top tiers, but it's always fun to see more abstract teams and even give the spotlight to characters that are super cool but are bad at fighting top tiers. Idk it feels like a soft ban on top tier teams which I think in the context of ratio is super cool.

[@JordonPatrickMears11211988]

@burneraccount gundam versus does the same thing with higher quality gundams being worth more kill points and weaker gundams being worth less, so that if you were playing the HQ gundam you could effectively only die like 2 or 3 times vs like 10 times as a low quality gundam.

[@KingOfDarknessAndEvil]

@burneraccount CvS does that, and Skullgirls has a similar yet unique system too

[@Sc0tt8588]

For Gil: You can hit him during resurrection, stopping the recovery. So while annoying he revives, he would only have 1/4-1/5 hp

[@sukkafoo]

Small point: Hilde was NOT banned for the entire tournament life of Soul Calibur 4. She was only banned after EVO dropped the game from their lineup. She was first banned, I believe, in a "major" in Toronto, but by that time we'd basically quit running the game professionally.

[@monmagog]

Evil Ryu in one of the Alpha games (forgot which one) was banned not because he was good, but because he wasn’t available for all regions

[@thespectraldogg1277]

Must be the expansion Street Fighter Alpha 3 or something?

[@kingdomcome3914]

Street Fighter Alpha 2. More specifically, it was the American version that had Evil Ryu. Evil Ryu had a quirk unique to him that also led to him being banned.

[@the757general2]

The Saturn port of vanilla SFA2 was the only version that had Evil Ryu. The other systems didn't get him till SFA2 Gold.

[@emperor9615]

he knew what he was doing putting oni gameplay behind the introduction

[@GentlemanQ]

Also one of the main reasons to ban Gill is the fact he can easily stun you super easily. A throw can consume up to half of your stun bar, add an easy combo like a target combo to that and you're 100% stunned.

[@AstralTaurus]

One thing about Metaknight is that since the character had a lot of jumps and was essentialy airborne 90% of the time, he didn't have to deal with tripping. (tripping was a mechanic in brawl where your character would randomly stumble over and was very punishable).

[@EmeraldFatalis]

I'm happy you put Justice in the list. My friends would ban me from playing Justice in the original ps1 Guilty Gear because her level 1 super from XX (laser that sweeps the scree from bottim to top) was a normal move not a super and the closer she was to you when doing it the more damage it did! Great for combo finish that ends in complete death.

[@sakuyarules]

Looks like the hilde chapter wasn't split properly, so it covers the next char too, lol. From what I understood though, Hilde's bit issue was that you could charge her normals while doing other things. One of her attacks was her shortsword, the other was her spear (and the final was her kick), but if you held them you could charge them to make them guard breakers; turns out you can charge one of those while attacking/doing other moves, which was almost certainly not intended, and made her really strong. Not surprised to hear that a big ringout combo was part of the ban, but there were a number of stages that might have made that much harder.

[@Violet-Excellence]

A big one I was hoping to see was Kokonoe was banned from Blazblue when she was first added for having a unblockable super. It was a blackhole that sucked you in and couldn't be blocked and led to a full combo. There were a few advanced ways to avoid it but not every character could. kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3TCdXupa7B9m7s

[@user-cz2nq6nm2rj]

Dude your the only other one besides me that mentioned that

[@AikonoYuki]

I was looking for someone to mention her, she was my main at the time. I remember learning that black hole combo lol good times

[@zzyzzyxx3rd832]

Add Karai and Rat King from TMNT: Tournament Fighters (SNES version) and Wyler from Art of Fighting 3 to the list of playable bosses who are banned in tournaments.

[@drstclair]

Talk about a recent one, Michaelangelo was banned from the first LAN Nickelodeon All Star Brawl tournament due to his light nair being a braindead combo to death. The ban was for a single tournament, as a patch was released shortly after which changed the angle at which the move sent opponents

[@FractalPrism.]

Yun from 3rd strike: his super gives him a delayed 2nd copy of any normal attack, so each button press is duplicated. that on its own is a pain since the window where you could take actions is cut in half. it also causes all his normals to have Super priority, which makes all his attacks counter any normals you throw out. additionally the meter was really short so its easy to gain full meter even if they block your combo. given the forward momentum of several moves he has, its relatively easy to land a basic normal, combo it into a juggle, then keep you airborne until the super runs out. not fully ban worthy but certainly in need of balancing.

[@rock85cool]

I’m pretty sure the term is “player advantage”. I remember this being really bad in FPSs at one point as well. Basically buying “advantageous” skins in games. Overwatch was also accused of having P2W skins as well at one point.

[@syducer4905]

Some local tournaments would ban the infrared skin for scorpion in MKX. Some other characters that were SOMETIMES banned locally were tekken 4 jin, tekken 5 steve, and the DLC guest characters from sfxt were usually banned

[@sqr3895]

One of my favorite characters to explain how overpowered characters can get is geese howard in SvC Chaos. Geese has easy combos, max mode loops, perfect anti air, really good counter, absolute perfect screen control. There is seriously no way to beat him, and even if you think you can Geese has a two combo infinite. cl.HP > f+HK is a infinite.

[@alonsocarrasco5460]

Only one who can fight him is Zero, who's also broken as hell

[@oscarmarin2621]

One that comes to mind is Heidern in KOF2001 Great idea bringing him back. He was a charge character back in 98. They made him a motion character but didn’t change any of his move properties. Hilarity ensued

[@Stumblebee]

Thanks for the shoutout, Crofts!

[@Jsobone]

I remember Tengu was banned from Doa2U. Also in DOA4, but for different reasons. 2 because he was a boss character with unbalanced moveset. 4 (alongside spartan) because organizers didn't want to have to unlock them. At least thats what it seemed like haha.

[@Shioshiodome]

Metaknight was only banned for maybe a month at most, was quickly undone due to people just not attending said majors

[@RW-fj5xy]

MK was actually only banned in one ruleset, and has been unbanned in Brawl tournaments for a long time. His stalling is also nerfed- there is a limit to the amount of times you can grab the ledge, as well as a ban on going back and forth under the stage excessively (referred to as scrooging because “nobody would do this except for money”)

[@MD-vs9ff]

Forcing TOs to change the rules just for your stupid character should have gotten Melee Jigglypuff at least an honorable mention.

[@williamhowells806]

@@MD-vs9ff eh you can say that about a lot of characters.icies wobbling, sheik regrab, Mario and Samus stalling on battlefield

[@Rocketknightgeek]

I remember that back when Killer Instinct released Spiral he had a common glitch where teleporting into the corner would freeze the game. You could still pick him but you had to accept that triggering the glitch was an instant loss.

[@jholiday13]

Didn't they ban cinder and orchid cuz of their infinites?

[@AsiaDanceScene]

When I was playing Smash I remember a lot of talk about Bayonetta ban than a Metaknight ban especially after that EVO final

[@SCHeartless]

It’s funny how certain console exclusives were banned to make it fair for the arcade tournament scene, but I remember back in vanilla sf4, Justin Wong used fei long (console only) vs daigo (who only played arcade) and they let the match rock. Maybe because tournaments were being played on consoles at that time

[@eins2001]

Both fighters may have okayed it with officials off-screen

[@Kenlac92]

Another problem in tekken, more so in ranked, is when a player has their character weilding a shield. It hides the arm being used in a throw, making it hard to know which button to hit for a break.

[@Narokkurai]

Algol was also banned in some regions of SC4 tournaments. I think the Euro scene just made a blanket rule of "no boss characters", but the US tournament scene was also considering banning him due to his extremely gimmicky projectiles, teleports, and overpowered ring out combos, but I think they ended up keeping him legal since the community was already starting to dwindle and they didn't want to piss off the few players they had left.

[@TruLuan]

yeah, and I don't think I've ever heard of Yoda and Vader being banned from tournaments. Yoda was low tier so no one really used him. Vader was a really strong character that I've seen quite a few people in tournaments use. they were DLC content so you could buy Yoda on the PlayStation 3 version and you can buy Vader on the Xbox 360 version to have them both.

[@anonymoose2474]

@@TruLuan they weren't originally DLC. They got unbanned once they became purchasable on both consoles

[@jeremyriley1238]

Other banned characters I know of include Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Kratos from Mortal Kombat 9, and Michelangelo from Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl

[@sabishiihito]

Gouki/Akuma doesn't seem to be as banned as before in SSF2X/HSF2 these days. I've seen him in quite a few Japanese HSF2 match vids

[@WaddleDee105]

"Ivan Ooze is broken" is an absolute classic

[@loading....001]

Y'know, for some reason I like how Evil Ryu was banned from SFA2 for like all of comp's lifetime of the game because of PAL just not having it, glad now-a-days fightcade exists so that he can break the game possibly

[@nextgencowboy]

It wasn't just PAL. Evil Ryu was a north American exclusive.

[@bzchoy]

He's not even that good. He's just a lesser Akuma, in a game where Akuma is only mid-tier.

[@philithegamer8265]

@@bzchoy Yep.

[@mjul7003]

Competitive Smash player here. To elaborate on what exactly made Meta Knight so broken, it was really a combination of everything that could make a character good. The game had some problematic mechanics by nature and Meta Knight abused them so effectively that a lot of stages & tactics got banned because of Meta Knight alone. Mr. Crofts went over all of them, a lot of them involved stalling in some way. But even with most stages banned and EXTENSIVE rules in place to prevent stalling, Meta Knight was one of the best in every category. His attack range was huge, his damage output and launch lower were high, his frame data was fantastic, he had strong options in every situation you could imagine, strong mixups, and he generally had zero true weaknesses to speak of. The entire competitive meta revolved around Meta Knight. Whatever your character did, Meta Knight did better, and did more on top of it. Here are some overpowered attacks Meta Knight had. -Down Smash: Near instant startup, very high damage and kill power, nearly impossible to punish without a read. Spamming it in every matchup is a legit strategy. -Neutral B, Mach Tornado: A floating spinning attack that literally destroyed shields, was safe, had fast startup, did surprising damage, was difficult to trade with. This attack is so difficult to strategize against that spamming it is an actual Brawl meme. Up B: A looping strike that led to a glide. The hitbox is fast, massive and deals huge damage and knockback. Imagine a DP that can transition into safe pressure, that's exactly how this move was used. The glide mechanics made it very hard to punish this move most of the time. Down B: Literally broke the game by letting you go invisible and unhittable forever. This is banned. Up Air: Frame 2 startup, you could pull it out up to three times off a short hop, facilitated most of the banned stalling strategies and is generally impossible to punish most of the time. Easy combos for days, safe pressure in many situations, and was also abused to reverse a mechanic called "staling" (stale-ing), which would make moves weaker if you used them too often. Staling was a huge deal in Brawl and Meta Knight had easy ways of bypassing it. And remember, he small, fast and strong at the same time as having attacks like these!

[@uncomfortablysilent5384]

Don't forget that in a game with tripping, Meta Knight didn't have to deal with it at all, since he could just stay in the air with his absurd mobility

[@mjul7003]

@@uncomfortablysilent5384 Of course. I'm sure you noticed, but I kept my explanation as simple as possible in consideration of the more traditional FGC players who maybe don't understand the finer points of Smash, its strategies and/or its mechanics. But you're absolutely right, having neutral strategies that completely bypassed the risk of tripping was quite a big deal.

[@williamhowells806]

Also Pikachu has an infinite on meta knight and people still think the match up is even or still meta knights favour

[@blazefactor6849]

@@williamhowells806 I mean, Pika can infinite the entire cast, it's just extremely technical and difficult to reliably pull off.

[@williamhowells806]

@@blazefactor6849 Yeah but gotta look at it as both characters being played as well as possible so it's still important. Top players like esam where still able to do it when given the chance

[@killerb255]

In a Jaleco game from the 90s called Tuff E Nuff (or Dead Dance in Japan), the final boss Jade was a broken piece of shit. He had one-button low fireballs that were very fast and went through opponents' fireballs. He can also throw high fireballs at the same time as these (that also ate opposing projectiles). He also had a dive kick that went about 2/3 across the screen, so he can follow up a high/low fireball wall with said dive kick, and there wasn't really much you could do about it.

[@apruebadeidiotas]

There was also a ban on SNK bosses like omega Rugal in KOF 98. He was selectable oby hovering the normal version and selecting him while pressing start. Also I think Shadow and Marionette from darkstalkers are banned can't remember clearly.

[@SpitefulAZ]

Also Gill's normals do damage on block. And his angel wings super does like 25% or so of a life bar on BLOCK.

[@Yuutsu6]

I remember when soul caliber 2 came out… I went to the local Game Crazy to pick up my copy and they happened to be running a tourney. I thought it would be a fun way to first experience the game (lol) and ended up winning as Link. Good times.

[@myfriendscallmeblue3035]

0

[@aroperdope]

That game in Chronicles of the sword mode and story mode on the hardest difficulty was hell on Earth. They guard impact everything!!!

[@dk1800ify]

Jm: "does this super damage look fair to you" *gill doing half health on a super* Me: "looks at guilty gear strive supers"

[@Dat1MangaGuy]

*cough* May *cough*

[@truazure9916]

Ivy from soul caliber was also banned due to a infinite combo that basically made her able to insta-win. Just thought I’d put that out there.

[@CrusticusGameing]

Adding onto the character skin ban, Brawlhalla and Rivals of Aether did a crossover event where a Brawlhalla character (Ragnir) got put into Rivals as a skin for one of their characters (Maypul), and due to the skin having weird/mismatched hitbox properties compared to the original character it had to be banned from competitive play.

[@DankDynamite]

Just remember that Oni from SF4 is banned

[@Jaan-kitts]

Oni was not banned, Sandford Kelly used him.

[@wh0racle3]

@@Jaan-kitts It's an old Twitch Chat meme. That's why JM put oni at the start of the video lol.

[@illDiology]

Anime!

[@blacklite911]

@@wh0racle3 yea but I think he was banned for a little bit at first because some arcade cabs were able to unlock him before his official release in supersf4

[@TheEvilCheesecake]

"oni is banned" is banned

[@JacobHenwood]

Great video! I would really like a full list of characters that are standard roster characters. Bosses, secret characters, and console exclusives should get a special mention, but you expect them to be banned a lot of the time.

[@nicholasfarrell5981]

Man, never thought I'd see Ivan Ooze mentioned on a list about . . . well, anything in 2022.

[@desmien679]

I'd also add Eyedol from Killer Instinct. There were 2 ways of getting him which depended on what version of the game you played. A later version of the arcade and the SNES version required a different character to be chosen and combination of buttons/joystick (dpad for SNES) direction. One amusing thing about playing this character single player was that upon beating the game, the ending cutscene for Eyedol was a twist to Blanca's SF2 ending cutscene that was dark but a bit comic. It's also possible that Orchid might've been banned from tournaments due to the heart attack finisher.

[@kauanjos3199]

Link's shield in soulcalibur 2 looks like a cardboard shield 😭

[@johnprivat4379]

Another character who was banned from the tournaments is Uranus from Bloody Roar 4. Thanks to her stats that were almost full at everything compared to the other characters stats that are balanced. I know it's old times but I felt like it was worth mentioning it. I really miss that game.