Brawl's Unorthodox Legal Stages (And Why They Were Banned)

When a new platform fighter is released in the modern era, players know almost immediately which stages work and which ones don’t. But how did we get here? Join me in discussing the early, mostly undocumented trial-and-error era that ultimately ‘set the stage’ for a decade to come.
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HUGE shoutouts to ‪@cfino9‬ for finding a lot of the clips used (most notably the Rainbow Cruise Pikmincide, my favorite clip in the video)
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Music used:
-Intro / Persona 3 Reload - It’s Going Down Now (Regular + Instrumental)
-2:10 / Persona 2 Innocent Sin - Unbreakable Tie (PSP Opening Theme)
-2:46 / Persona 2 Innocent Sin - Yukino’s Theme (Special Remix)
-5:32 / Tatsunoko vs Capcom - Morrigan’s Theme
-7:51 / Streets of Rage - Fighting in the Street (Stage 1)
-10:01 / Bullet Casters - Ella Battle Theme
-11:29 / LEGO Rock Raiders - Track 4 (PlayStation)
-12:46 / Anata o Yurusanai - Between Lie and Truth
-Outro / Persona RE_Brilliance - Signs of Love (Alright Mix)
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Video footage/credits:
-Sample L: Maze tourney clip / • GAMESTOP tournament- S...
-Apex 2013 Mikeneko vs ZeRo / • Apex 2013 Winners Quar...
-PS1 Melee glitch clip / • Plup vs S2J - Melee Si...
-Norfair clip / • C3 ranbat 5 SSBB final...
-Pirate Ship clip / • Ken and Isai ARE BACK!...
-Justin Wong evo clip / • EVO - Ryzen(Falco) vs ...
-Sheik PS2 combo clip / • SiiS6 - Singles Bracke...
-PS1 MK/Peach clip / • Brawling For Evo HDL (...
-Yoshi’s Brawl clip / • Keeblerchips (Pikachu)...
-ADHD vs Ally Pictochat clip / • KTAR 3: WF ADHD (Diddy...
-EVO2008 Ken Luigi’s Mansion clip / • Brawl Evo 2008 Winner ...
-Corneria clip / • Balanced Brawl Genesis...
-Frigate Orpheon FlipClip / • Apex 2013 - ESAM vs CT...
-Cute lil baby monkey clip(i’m so sorry for using it this way) / • Monkey Baby Bon Bon go...
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I used a .psd template from CosmoStudio [ www.freepik.com/free-psd/gold... ] for that sick “Golden Era” graphic
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Interested in discussing or playing Brawl? @Brawl_Central on Twitter is the big hub for modern Brawl. Visit brawlcentral.carrd.co for all the community links! You can talk about the game or find people to netplay with there :) they can even help you set it all up if you’re not sure how to!
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If you have any questions about my content, please @ or DM me on Twitter @Brawlternative or send a message to my personal Instagram account, @sjsaksma.
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Thanks for your support!
-SKUNCH

[@Brawlternative]

i genuinely think the production cycle of this video has made me the only person on planet earth who now gets sentimental over Sample L: Maze

[@TheRedStinger82]

The Sample L: Maze meta was real

[@Glory2Snowstar]

Bath gang where y'all at?

[@A.Cobalt]

Nah, I love Maze, unironically have some really good memories of it

[@PorLoaf]

The sample stages and the whole aesthetic of the stage builder in general will always have a special place in my heart

[@ShadowsWrath4]

You could say you hold this L dear to your heart.

[@humongofrog]

Competitive integrity be damned, give me back hype rainbow cruise matches that go to timer.

[@Brawlternative]

DUDE i know i shit on that stage a bit in the video but it was SO fun to play in tournament

[@Trekiros]

I had an agreement with a tournament buddy - whenever we met in brackets, we would ALWAYS play on Rainbow Cruise. Tournaments had the gentleman rule, which went "if both players agree, they can play on any stage", so even though people gave us weird looks, we were like "no that's a tournament match I swear"

[@moistmarsupial3528]

nice username. Myth gang

[@bb010g]

As a PM player, I loved Rainbow Cruise in friendlies. heck, depending on the matchup we'd let it ride on Kongo Jungle 64 too

[@alfonshedstrom9859]

Rainbow Cruise creates lowkey super hype matches

[@TheRenegadem]

"what game is this from" will be a line I will think about forever

[@HoistTheSailsGentlemen]

Anyone know the video that's from?

[@Duskia]

remember people weren't such nerds about smash bros back then and the internet was still in its infancy lol

[@Brawlternative]

​@@HoistTheSailsGentlemen Totally missed that clip in the credits, sorry! Updated the desc :)

[@zachpro5475]

Unband new pork city

[@LisReal2401TPFi]

Unban Hyrule Temple

[@TheRedStinger82]

Unban bridge of eldin

[@cozy_boi]

Catch me counter picking to new pork city because I know I'm gonna lose anyway 😎

[@guidemissile1494]

unban maze

[@garbless]

unban home run contest

[@cetitanenthusiast776]

Can't believe I missed out on "1v1 me bro, 3 stocks, Fox only, no items, Hanenbow" in a legal tournament setting

[@jasper7439]

Sounds way more fun to me lol

[@testleadss]

low items*

[@yggdrasilsaltar]

this is a certified Sample L: Maze classic!

[@zawarudo497]

1 stock items on 1 minute timer battlefield only is definitely one of the rulesets of all time

[@999darkhorse]

im pretty sure it wasnt even 1 stock it was just smashfest or whatever that shits called with a 1 minute timer

[@Brawlternative]

@@999darkhorse It was mostly just 1 minute timer matches, but I found a few matches on youtube where they genuinely did 1 stock 1 minute. horrendous

[@999darkhorse]

@@Brawlternative that kicks ass

[@cadeldance2538]

"John, brawl doesn't have enough legal stages for its competitive scene" "UHHHH THE CUSTOM ONE THEY USE AS AN EXAMPLE?!" "Oh damn alright"

[@cr4sh25]

@@cadeldance2538 hey, we also used custom stages in tournaments for a while intentionally. The only reason they didn't stick is the bad blast zones. Brawl community did some cool shit. kzbin.info/www/bejne/l5Owk4BojNpge9ksi=QYVpz8PxlW3flvfN

[@da_real_bup]

Should've used mushroomy kingdom smh (The scrolling smb stage I forgot the name)

[@wadespencer3623]

@@da_real_bup This is a wild example of somebody somehow learning about Mario stuff entirely through Smash Bros. No judgement there it's just odd to see. It's Mushroom Kingdom! And in fact modeled after the original Mario Bros game's first stage. The Mushroom Kingdom being where Princess Peach and supposedly the Mario bros actually live.

[@da_real_bup]

@wadespencer3623 bro I know about mario I mean have you seen my pfp 💀 I jus forgot the name

[@Wing_cap]

Meta Knight being even more busted on his own stage is just, 🧑‍🍳👌

[@kipper1668]

Penguin: Home-field advantage

[@mattwo7]

Couldn't Kirby take literally the same advantage from that stage?

[@saturnmunchies]

Sakurai knew what he was doing when making brawl LOL

[@finalmix4375]

The Rainbow Cruise match actually looked like both players were playing a "Platforming" fighting game

[@Ten_Thousand_Locusts]

Right? I swear competitive sure has a way to suck all the fun out of games.

[@smasher8uhx932]

That actually looked like fun

[@ShadowEclipse777]

​@@Ten_Thousand_Locusts this, I'm a filthy casual who like items and crazy stages, but I actually have fun playing lol

[@Ten_Thousand_Locusts]

@@ShadowEclipse777 lol same, probably why Brawl is still my favourite of them all. It's was the most unapologetically "casual".

[@Tybis]

I think players wrongly associate "the stage does weird things" as "this stage is ban-worthy" because of how often the two things are paired together. Like, I understand why Halberd isn't usually legal because it buffs Meta Knight (and the claw can go to hell). But at the same time, Halberd's laser is probably the best designed damaging hazard in Smash history because of how much control players have over it and how much time you have to play around it. And as you said, even though you don't want to get hit by it, you can still SDI out of it. It straight up punishes camping and makes the players interact, which is pretty nice for a game that's known for defensive play.

[@jayjaydeth]

From my experience, both viewing and playing, a vast majority of the time there's an unspoken gentlemen's agreement with the laser that you wait for it to prepare to fire and then wait it out with the laser firing between you or you just play normally and avoid where ever it happens to be shooting which was often times in the middle of the air somewhere. The reason for this was because if you had the target on you it's pretty much impossible to aim the laser somewhere helpful like a ledge because your opponent has an ungodly amount of time to be somewhere else and if you do happen to get it to cover a ledge, well now you have a laser behind you and someone in front of you who, mathematically speaking, has a good chance of being someone with a chain grab on you. Best case scenario, you get your opponent off stage with the laser between your opponent and the ledge... which your opponent is obviously going to try to avoid, but even then, regular gameplay would have you mid knockback often times when the laser fires. So, yeah, I think I've seen the laser do literally anything maybe one time in casual gameplay and never once in tournament play. It's a "hazard" about as much as the parasol, hat, and purse are in 75m.

[@brennantmi5063]

Yeah laser does not really do anything. Play the stage enough and you will get a wonky dead from being targeted wile you are trying to recover . However I am shocked it survived as long as it did because of how insane MK's home field advantage is. I don't know if any other stage/character combo that is close to as synergistic as those two. Shame to because of how cool and beloved it is. (the claw can go fuck itself)

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

Compers would sooner ragequit that admit that adapting to and abusing rng is itself a skill.

[@FalseHerald]

Yeah, I'm sure you're way more skilled, so why don't you challenge the nearest competitive player to a 20 dollar money match on halberd? It's free money :)

[@ShadowEclipse777]

But it's fun and competitive Smash players despise fun (half /s)

[@Tybis]

Lylat Cruise's tilting isn't truly random. The stage randomly cycles between certain background animations, but the tilting is a fixed pattern for each background and can be learned.

[@megapussi]

this is exactly the kind of esoteric game knowledge that I love the smash community for

[@Maxx00]

Finally, someone who understands its skill based😅

[@Brawlternative]

NUH UH

[@lunarkomet]

​@@Maxx00you're joking right?

[@Maxx00]

@@lunarkomet my lucario hates that stage with a passion

[@xBlaster]

Whoever legalized Rainbow Cruise is a genius

[@danielcatlett3845]

Sample L: Maze is great and all, but I wanna talk about the real GOAT stage. Sample S: Hole

[@smackstar1015]

They should legalize Sample M: Bath.

[@SmashMarioPro]

The person asking "which game did this come from?" during the match was just so funny but also one of those "how do we tell them" moments

[@Brawlternative]

I found the footage first and popped off, didn't actually hear the "which game did this come from?" until i clarified the audio a bit in editing. in that moment i was in that pic where the two guys are digging a hole with pickaxes and the top one turns around right before he hits the diamonds but i was the bottom guy who kept digging

[@smallwaves]

10:23 Ivysaur can't catch a break

[@Moss_Dude]

Is.. nobody going to point out that the platform guy on yoshi's island is named STANLEY?? Not Randal?

[@elio7610]

what? it has a name?

[@kurodyne9692]

The cloud has no name, but Randall was a name suggested by FastFox on Smashboards and it stuck.

[@Moss_Dude]

@@kurodyne9692 The cloud in melee is named Randal, but the white slime thing on the brawl stage is Stanley.

[@UniGya]

I have always thought random stage with items on is, while absolutely unbalanced, an insanely funny format for a tournament. Just not any tournament with a significant prize pool

[@DarkAura19]

Oh GOD I was a part of that Gamestop tournament. Going there and getting humbled by people as a middle schooler is what made me fall in love with competitive tourneys to begin with.

[@maneruloquendero]

Well, with so many legal stages, the party game finally felt like... A party game

[@Brawlternative]

I talk about Brawl from a competitive lens (since that's where a lot of my interest comes from) but Brawl is an absurdly good party game, and nothing I or anyone else says will ever take that away

[@ZACHaDN]

play it as a party game then you knob

[@CaptianKatsura]

I still think Brawl was the best Smash game in terms of Casual Play, at least when you weren't randomly tripping...

[@FlamingZelda3]

@@CaptianKatsura the single player was goated

[@waves9515]

@@CaptianKatsura Yeah I feel like Brawl is peak casual smash, even as a melee head. It was the last smash game before items started getting *really* overtuned to the point where even my casual friends started wanting to turn them off lmao Also, yeah, Subspace is goated

[@ItsMeChair1]

10:59 to be fair, it was banned in melee at the same time, and melee is 6 years older.

[@elio7610]

it seems weird to me somehow but it was the biggest gap between smash games.

[@ItsMeChair1]

Erm, actually, the gap between Brawl and Smfoursh is slightly larger, being 6 years 7 months, slightly more than 6 years and 4 months.

[@naerolf09]

"1v1 me fox only no items final destination" ❌ "1v1 me 1 stock items on random stage" ✅

[@IWish2500]

Here before Coney reacts

[@JaysYoshiYT]

Same

[@competitively3315]

Me too!

[@Sompursone]

Yo same

[@zweePOP]

who is coned

[@quitothings]

Same!

[@JoSephGD]

It's funny how Brawl's insanely lenient ruleset early on mirrors Melee's quite well. Melee's legal stage list wasn't set in stone by this point in time, no wonder that stages that took a while to be banned in Melee would also either show up or have a derivative stage show up in the legal stage list.

[@i8dacookies890]

Sample L? More like Sample W.

[@hoagieland3716]

Honestly, one of the worst things to happen with later Smash titles was the complete homogenization of the stage list. A game like Smash Ultimate with more stages than ever plays with only like 5 unique platform layouts and no hazards with many of the counterpick stages just being very slight variations on the same exact layout (ie. the stage is very slightly longer or the blast zones are very slightly different). The only real issue with Brawl’s more spicy stages is MK himself being even more broken on them (especially Halberd and Delphino), but this can be remedied with the proposed stage clause ruleset to not allow MK to ever play in those stages without agreement. Don’t get me wrong, some stages in Brawl were absolutely terrible for competitive and were just awful to play on. But later Smash games taking away all of the more interesting stages is just another reason why I feel general interest in Smash tournaments has gone down

[@ethans9379]

I'm always a little sad when fun stages are banned and the legal set of stages is tiny

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

Agreed. But hey, why should we care what the hygenically challenged say about a game.

[@Adr16n1122]

In retrospect, its very funny that there was a struggle to find playable stages, but there was a mapmaker with some very neutral building blocks in the game at the same time.

[@jayjaydeth]

The problem with that is coordinating all Wiis you're using for your tournament to have the exact same custom stage. Not only does it add time to set up, but you also have to get a sizeable portion of other TOs to agree on what said stage should even look like AND want to add it to the official legal stage list. Because otherwise, if you're not using the official stage list, you're not running an official tournament, so already a lot of players are simply not going to want to show up. But even then, if you don't care about all of that and you don't care about the turn out and you feel like you've created the greatest stage of all time, most people are just going to ban it anyway because they probably haven't played on it before and would rather play on a more comfortable stage. It's a good idea in theory, but I think that first complication is probably most of the reason why it wasn't implemented. Every TO in the history of ever is going to want to limit their potential headaches. A freely editable stage is definitely going in the "DO NOT WANT" pile.

[@wavebuster61]

I wish current rulesets for smash Ultimate could do a better job at finding a middle ground between competitive and whimsical. My biggest gripe with the game is the stagelist... two PS2s, two smashvilles, everything is so painfully neutral what's even the point of counterpicking? Great video as always

[@lisatroiani6119]

imagine if, after like a big competitive tournament or something, there was an anti-competitive game, items on, and every legal stage gets inverted (banned stages are legal and legal stages are banned) that’d be pretty fun and a nice breather

[@Xyrofen]

I was there, Gandalf. There was so much jank in the early days of Brawl, on top of how strange the game works on its own. Tournaments were so...backroom and/or underground despite there being a small resurgence of MLG, Evo, and excitement around a new Smash game. I've got so many stories. The simplest, and from the first (the Gamestop) tournament I went to, being that we were handed controllers, not allowed to use our own, not told which port we were, not allowed to pick our character, and then the other player and I immediately running off the stage at the same time because we didn't know who we were playing as (thinking we were the other character). Really set the tone for playing that game competitively. Also, everything I ever did with the Smash Twins in Oregon. So much...stuff.

[@timnoskill]

would love to see a vid just on brawl evo 08, where a random kid randomly joined bc he was on vacation and brought out the rob to beat ken's legendary marth to win the entire thing

[@Brawlternative]

Coney said he wanted to make a video on this so I'm avoiding the topic :)

[@Brawlternative]

you might also note near the end of the video i say "mid level players struggle to kill on skyworld" and its direct footage from evo2008 grands LMFAO

[@timnoskill]

@@Brawlternative sounds good, I’ve been waiting on a vid on it from someone since it’s such a wild story - I even went ahead and wrote half of a script before I ended up scrapping it. Grands was so funny 😂

[@CONEYZZ]

​@@Brawlternative its all yours friend

[@blue-eyesdepresseddragon3753]

I genuinely believe god doesn't want Justin Wong to have nice things LMAO

[@Brawlternative]

LMFAO

[@geekerandy8773]

11:37

[@jadetealaaron2003]

10:43 I love how the title card for the SMW Yoshi's Island stage is just "Bro..." It's not even the stage name lmaooo 😭

[@Glory2Snowstar]

That rant starting at 10:17 is the magnum opus of Brawl's stage analysis. S-tier channel, thank you for a hilarious lunch break!

[@Trekiros]

As an old brawl player, every one of your videos makes me don the biggest nostalgia grin. Like, yes, of course Brinstar was legal, it was a great stage! Diddy Kong could make his bananas bounce up to 4 times on the blobs, and you could use the tendons to refresh your moves! And yes of course on the slanted edges of Yoshi's Island, you would use tilts that were affected by the slope, allowing you to use things like a dtilt as an antiair for example. It never took off, but I remember at some point there even was a small movement I was really into, where people started advocating for a list of I think it was 2 custom stages built by the community, which would help get us to 5 "actually neutral neutrals". The reason that fizzled out is, TOs refused to have to deal with the added logistics of ensuring those stages would be present on every single console. That was a wild time but I remember it all so fondly.

[@Goldenleyend]

Watching brawl with items on in EVO was surreal, and it honestly feels like that's the essence of smash. Having fun.

[@theSato]

holy shit you actually do the most kino editing, IMO you are going way above and beyond even the gold standard that AsumSaus set for Melee with this channel. Hope you don't burn yourself out by COOKING SO MUCH FINE GOURMET CUISINE sir the That 70s Show overlay parody was probably my favorite of this episode, but man, so many good edits and they're all noticed and appreciated by this viewer it may become a reoccurring trend where I just comment about all of your edits on every episode to give them the praise they earn lmao p.s. you ruin my day a little every time you say "smfoursh" but I am entering the acceptance phase about it....

[@Cainb23]

Unorthodox stages legal >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> watching matches on BF & FD clones every single match

[@ckorp666]

ps2 was the worst thing about ult tournaments until steve. and they added like, three more stages w/that white bread layout too

[@redmage5251]

i imagine watching these stages is more fun than trying to have a competitive match on them though

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

​@@redmage5251no, its fun to play on them too.

[@TheTrueBrawler]

@@ckorp666 Constant Pokemon Stadium 2 is still the worst thing about Ultimate tournaments even in a post-Steve world. Funnily enough, Steve's extreme prominence in the meta just makes the stage problem even more baffling. Like, why do people willingly letting Steve players gentleman rule their way onto the character's best stage, counterpicks included?

[@haidynwendlandt2479]

That sitcom advertisement in the corner to subscribe is easily the best way that I’ve ever seen it done

[@Suprapika]

I'm glad you got to show that Ivysaur swing thing on Pirate Ship, good thing someone mentioned that in the Ivysaur video.

[@TheLetterJ0]

It's been years since I last played Brawl, so I had forgotten how many goofy fun stages there were.

[@telreyne]

We are definitely in the Brawl Renaissance and god is it beautiful

[@agoaj]

I won my local Brawl launch tournament, got lucky enough that Marth was unlocked by the time I was up, I remember destroying a Meta Knight on Maze. It was less a smash tournament and more of a russian roulette exhibition.

[@agoaj]

They gave me a wrestling trophy for winning, and I couldn't move on to regionals because I was flying out that night for an internship at Treyarch.

[@EternalYoshi]

I remember a different list and that's because Tristate stage lists were generally more conservative. Generally, if a stage was banned, it was either banned much earlier in tristate or not legal at all. For example, by 2014, Halberd and Delfino Plaza were both banned in many tristate events becuase Meta Knight and his sharking was too overbearing on those stages. Anyway, Rainbow Cruise was a popular counterpick against characters that stayed on the ground more or focused more on stage control, such as Snake, Diddy Kong, and Ice Climbers. When the stage got banned, those 3 characters' stonks went up.

[@cbd075]

I love the escalating energy as the counterpick stages got crazier, your content is so great man I’m always hype to see you pop up in my notifs

[@Martini_1911]

Hell yeah, opening with "It's Going Down Now" as background music goes HARD. I love the Persona 3 Reload soundtrack

[@Brawlternative]

ME TOO!!!!

[@jonacarweenie]

Loving this channel! Brawl is just old enough to start getting nostalgic over and I think that's the reason me and so many others have been loving these videos about it's history

[@Wizzkidwas]

I've always wondered why there was never a standardised custom stage that was competitively viable Glad to see it did actually happen once

[@AndrewAJT]

Good video. To be fair about the crazy stages, the other smash games also had stages like that legal in the past. Melee had pokefloats, rainbow cruise, corneria, green greens, and mute city legal. 64 had Hyrule and peach’s castle legal in the past. Eventually all 3 games started narrowing their stage lists around the same time

[@johnstevenson3628]

4:09-4:44 This was the best explanation of the typical tournament stage selection that I've ever seen. Everything works together to make it an informative, yet concise explanation.

[@CHEESE_BUNGER_mush]

Sample L: Maze was always my favourite smash bros stage. Shame they had to ban it after the first tournament

[@Brawlternative]

I was always more of a Sample S: Hole kind of guy personally

[@HexNSplat]

I think no one has mentioned this yet but DUDEEEEEE that intro of pikachu... looked SUPER SICKED loved that entire section LOL

[@Brawlternative]

thank you!! wanted to do something different w the intro since it's stayed the same across all the other vids :)

[@cr4sh25]

Just for the record. Saying that we didn't know what made a viable stage is innacurate. The lists were intentional and we knew exactly what we were doing. It was just a different philosophy. Many more of those stages are perfectly fair competitively than y'all think, but they got whittled away mostly because people weren't having fun with them. Also mk. Thing like green greens infinites notwithstanding, some stuff really was broke. If you want to blame or praise someone for the insanity of the stage list suspect #1 is probably Overswarm, he's on yt too.

[@Tybis]

I think people don't want to admit that stage lists are mostly based on what players enjoy, and not on some objective scientific analysis or whatever.

[@xolotltolox7626]

​@@Tybisyeah, in ultimate, so many stages that would be perfectly fine are banned because players are whiny bitches, especially with slopes Or shit like "oh my god the background of northern cave is so dizzying", shut up and get over it, you're a grown ass man. Get a medical exemption if it's such a big deal They just want 5 FD

[@Brawlternative]

at the end of the day this is a fun little video with some theatrics and dramatics, but I can admit that I might've played this specific aspect up a little too much lol

[@cr4sh25]

@@Brawlternative Oh you're good man! Honestly this feels like the least accurate of your videos. Jungle Japes for instance is very near the bottom of the list for viability (like, below pirate ship probably), green greens was banned for wall infinites and blast zones not the bombs etc, but that's so easy to forgive with how high the quality is on these videos. You got most things right and I absolutely ADORE that you're putting together huge-effort videos from a game that's been so important in my life. Keep it the fuck up, dude. Huge props.

[@autismcenteral7306]

You deserve an Oscar for editing, great job!

[@lakidaalakisda700]

looooove watching the clean-as-hell visual work on your vids.

[@maybestunner]

Dude I love your editing

[@pmahcgop6693]

Love every video you’ve been posting and the persona music works so well.

[@Radenovic]

Rainbow Cruise was honestly a much better counterpick than many of the other listed counterpicks. Probably because of its lack of randomness, making it more rewarding to play on because you could actively learn the stage without risking being fucked over at the stage's whim. Of course, the layout was asymmetric, and some spots were obviously better to control than others, but at least its constantly changing layout made it impossible to camp a single spot throughout the entire match, making it less problematic than something like Corneria. Different sections also favored different character archetypes, so you could even see some cool character-specific comebacks, which gave the stage some flavor. There's a reason why RC outlasted many of the other stages on that list, even if it did deserve to be removed in the end. It was also legal in Melee for a time, so there was obviously SOMETHING that made people want to play on it. I'd also like to give a special shoutout to a super obscure counterpick that I saw in a few local areas during early Brawl: Create-a-stage. Terribly unbalanced, competitively unviable, and a logistical nightmare, but man was it funny to see someone just open the stage builder and throw shit on the screen and see what would happen in game 2.

[@VocalMabiMaple]

That subscription reminder was so fucking smooth holy shit

[@KnightFerrocous]

It is really funny to me how Nintendo didn't learn from how one sided and unfun a lot of the Brawl maps were and seemingly doubled down on bad maps in Smash 4. That game had so many unfun gimmick maps it was insane.

[@patricktinley6581]

Innocent Sin music? I didn't know you liked persona 2 like that. Great video

[@Brawlternative]

always been a turn-based grid combat kinda guy :)

[@cameronhoglan]

The editing on these videos is always ridiculously good

[@worrier]

This channel rocks! Can't wait to watch all your previous videos too!

[@thenintendo64nerd]

videos just keep getting better. just outstanding stuff my man

[@jackhamson6161]

Love your channel man it’s one of the best out there

[@kodra1510]

You really upped your game man this videos so well edited

[@backwardslongjump]

Man the editing in this video is so good. Incredible stuff

[@henkiestudios5117]

You are so underrated, keep up the good work!!

[@AnarchoCatBoyEthan]

good video! nice lil bumper, what a cute idea

[@StepBaum]

Great video, from the editing, to the presentation of what you said and the music choice

[@vgzombie]

Your music choices are always impeccable.

[@stormRed]

This editing style is jaw-dropping!

[@kirbman255]

Dude!! Your production quality is exceptional and your video is very engaging, great work!

[@goldenpsi8764]

Dude your videos are SO good, such a good vibe and well made, keep it up :)

[@andypeoples7175]

Great video!

[@competitively3315]

One of the best smash channels right now. Keep up your good work.

[@philcoast1031]

I might've only played Brawl casually back in the day, but I love your videos both for the deep dives on all the things I missed or didn't notice, and your style and production values (and music choice - Dominic Ninmark rules). Can't wait for the next one.

[@jahbariw5534]

Absolutely loving the persona music, sound effects, and visual effects in this one!

[@anna_arw6006]

I really appreciate the period accurate Persona 3/4 music and aesthetics used here. Its a really nice touch. Thanks for another great video BT

[@RokusWing]

Such a good video! Keep it up

[@N7Sovik]

10 year Melee vet here, damn good video talking about brawl’s stage history. Super well done editing as well. Keep it up!

[@unibrawn]

thank you for your work chef

[@Materialist39]

I played through brawl single player (a bit of multiplayer) and was never a super big fan, even casually and before knowing anything about the comp scene I preferred melee. But man every video of yours has been absolute fire. I am learning so much weird trivia and history about this game, and enjoying all of it. Keep it up dude, you’ve got the sauce for this.

[@famicom180]

Just commenting to say that brawl was my favorite childhood game and I’m so hyped to have found a KZbinr that specifically focuses on this entry of the smash series. Instant subscribe for me dawg.

[@DevelonLP]

you dont know how much it means to me that there is an active brawl channel and even better one that documents and is about history and knowledge. thank you so much

[@zb8611]

I love this channel and all of your videos. I played in Brawl tournaments. Got CPed to Rainbow Cruise more than once :'). I loved that time and these videos bring the memories back. Your production quality and editing is top notch as well. I hope you never stop making these. Thank you!

[@typestyle2067]

I love this channel so much, its like the asumsaus of brawl.

[@johnstevenson3628]

Fantastic work! The editing, clips, explanation, everything was on point. The graphics and music were especially well-done and compliment your explanations/narration. Additionally, I loved the call-to-action, you do a great job of making them enjoyable and funny. Can't wait for the next video. Keep up the great work! 👍

[@FlamingZelda3]

brawl youtube content is one of my favorite things in the world. thanks for the video!

[@vollrathfgc]

During work i was legit thinking it had been a while since you uploaded I get home and youve uploaded This happens a lot with me

[@shatteringstar8335]

Holy shit the production on these videos is insane

[@cullenhutchison6528]

I remember making a stage I called "Sample L 2.0" in Stage Builder that was similar to Sample L: Maze but took inspiration from the layout of Temple as well. As a casual, it was one of my go-to custom stages to play on with my family.

[@xBronzeFalconx]

Im really loving these videos, keep up the great work! Would love to see a video dedicated to All is Brawl, not enough new age players know about it

[@thatgamingkiwi1630]

I remember as a kid making a stage simply titled "Watch da spikes". It was a long row of spikes with an equally long platform of falling blocks placed above. Because of how the spikes worked and the platforms being solid it meant if you fell on the spikes ONCE you'd get stuck under the platform, being bounced around by the spikes until someone freed you.

[@bluef0x3]

Sees brawl related channel. Immediate subscriber gained. I really love the editing you put into these videos, really well made

[@baronesscatfish]

This video has AMAZING editing and comedic timing.. kept me interested & entertained the whole time. It also brought back a lot of good memories, because Brawl released right when I was in high school. My best friend and I took it really seriously and would host tournaments at our high school. We did our best to come up with our own competitive rulesets, like no items & a stage list similar to the 2014 rules, with no knowledge of the outside competitive community, tier lists, or anything of the sort. I remember watching the other kids do Shiek forward-tilt chains or spam Kirby down-special, and win! It was obviously a bit wild but, the innocence of it makes it a really fun period in my life. Glad to hear we weren't too far off from SBR. I've fallen away from Smash as I've gotten older, and Brawl remains my absolute favorite, even with all its strangeness. Thanks :)

[@MaximumRK]

Whoa Brawl had an actual meta and stagelist? That’s awesome. I’m gonna keep checking you out.

[@maeveiscoolll]

i have never played brawl but these videos are the most intruiging and entertaining smash videos i have seen. i love this channel.

[@papapatches5546]

if you run into the boat from the water on the left side of pirate ship, the boat will kill you as well. edit: as well as on green greens, some characters like dedede have infinite chain grabs because of the walls there