The History Behind Melee's Banned Stages

[@Celia_Dawn]

Surprised PokeFloats didn't get a mention - that one's usually one of the go-to's

[@Coco-qy6st]

Trying to future proof the video for when Pokefloats is legal again.

[@craigmartin8468]

Lol it wasn’t mentioned so people would comment for the algorithm they definitely thought that through.

[@hibernate44]

Didn’t get a mention since it was so obviously not a good stage.

[@Quackra]

@@hibernate44 It is one of my favorite stages in the game, but it isn't neutral for sure.

[@basedbastard5311]

The perfect anti wobble is pokefloats what do you guys mean.

[@kishprime7719]

Always happy to give you guys more details on this if you want haha. I have a couple sets in particular that I could cite. I'm pretty sure that Pipes match between Zel and Eddie happened much earlier than 2006, and frankly I have no memory of that game having any marked impact on the TOs making the call. At MLG 2004 Nationals, it was already a point of disagreement between myself and M3D, with M3D leaving it on for the event. KishSquared and I just went double-spacies for the lulz to steal a game win off of Ken and Isai at that event. We already had it off at our events by then, and M3D and us were the main drivers of the longer stage list. Those 6 neutral stages were already agreed to by that point too - in fact at Flame of Bowser 2 (I think this was April 2004), one of the premier Midwest regional series at the time alongside Show Me Your Moves, we tested a 6-stage only event and pretty much everyone thought it was lame and boring, so back to the full ruleset we went, though we kept the 6-stages for the first-stage random. The death knell for Peach's Castle for me personally came at MELEE-FC6 in 2006, after I three-stocked KDJ on two neutrals and he went there 5th round for an easy win. Was already questionable at the time but I left it on because there wasn't a huge push to get rid of it, but it was never on any of our rulesets after that.

[@SZalewski]

The Zelgadis vs Eddie pipes match happened at MLG SF 2005

[@kishprime7719]

@@SZalewski Yeah that checks out, and that was in February. I think by 2007 we were down to the Ship 11 in total as acceptable stages. Also as a correction to my initial post, we still ran a bigger neutral random list for awhile, I think we still had on Poke Floats, Mute, Rainbow, KJ, and Brinstar on random through 2006.

[@nobodysbusinezz]

the ironic part of the final destination only Stans is that it isn't even the most balanced stage.

[@aperson3575]

I know brawl isn't covered on this channel but I always found the evolution of those stages to be fascinating. Stages like Delfino Plaza, Halberd, Frigate Orpheon, and most famously Pokemon Stadium 2.

[@LordPhilipJFry]

The fact that we kept using those stages for like the first two years of Smash 4 amazes me. I despised Halberd despite the fact that it actually benefited my character.

[@DevelonLP]

the fire emblem Stage is such a classic to me in brawl that i still use it in smashu vs friends

[@illford]

I'm mad that MK and ICs meant all the cool stages couldn't be used. God I loved Halberd and Frigate

[@Mepphy99]

i miss Halberd to this day

[@OmegaGlops]

Surprised to see that Fourside's legality in doubles was never brought up. That was actually used in competitive play for quite some time!

[@kishprime7719]

Nah, Fourside was one of the first ones we dropped, that went out by MELEE-FC1 in 2004.

[@MeesterTweester]

The Ness killer (ironically)

[@jarroddobben]

I fuck with the banned players disclaimer, a great way to acknowledge the reality of past controversies without digging them back up

[@tree363]

I'd much prefer if I knew who those banned players were though. I don't know who in the video has done something wrong.

[@ZeroJanitor]

@@tree363 DaShizWiz is definitely one of them.

[@Michael-hc2hp]

@@tree363 I think it's RockCrock and DaShizWiz

[@r.i.petika829]

@@ZeroJanitor why was he banned?

[@TheZexal]

@@r.i.petika829 looking online, seems RockCrock was banned for sexual assault and sexual relations with a minor. DaShizWiz on the other hand was apparently banned after assaulting a gas station clerk during an altercation.

[@Soulful_Oatmilk]

Been a while since I heard ppmd being called "Doctor PP" lmao Very well done video!

[@icemann6017]

Kongo Jungle 64 was a legal doubles counterpick until 2016 or so. Check apex 2015's ruleset, it was also allowed at TBH5. Although almost no one counterpicked it, only sets you can find are wobbles sets in arizona, and mexican tournaments

[@Materialist39]

I picked it at one of my first tournaments in 2014 despite the other 3 players begging me not too lmao You’re 100% correct it’s official ban was just a formality

[@jacobtietjen2099]

Rip to my goat PokeFloats, the worst stage to ever be competitively played on ever

[@kishprime7719]

Oh no, there are way worse stages we played on competitively. Poke Floats was kept on waaaaaaaaay longer than many others. MK1 is my personal nomination for one of the worst. Big Blue was on at MELEE-FC1!

[@M0NK3Y42]

I was at a tournament with my best friend one night who fucking LOVES pokefloats to the point where he memorized the pattern of all the mons including goldeen and wobuffet. So he wins his first game (super low diff) and when his opponent ask what his ban is there's a long puase and he's just like.... I unban pokefloats. His opponent was like sure fuck it.

[@proudhondaowner-1]

Keep it up guys, this content is top tier

[@absnxl3077]

Not a ban, but freezing Pokemon Stadium was a good idea. Plup falling through the center of the stage and S2J cracking up after he stomped him will never not be funny 😂

[@illford]

I'm mad they freezes it. I kinda liked the avriance from a spectator perspective. It's kinda strange to see that pretty much every stage is just a variant of Battlefield or FD really. I understand from a play perspective it makes a lot of sens eto remove them but there aren't a lot of hazard stages, except Dreamland and FOD but I feel like a lot of people prolly want their hazards gone. Maybe this is just because I'm used to later games having larger viable stage lists

[@Nightwalker86]

Late to this but good to see KishPrime posting. If you are ever curious about Melee's past, these guys are still around. In particular I'd recommend KishPrime and his brother, jv3x3, M3D, and myself (Umbreon). All were major influences to the rule set, stage lists, and how the competitive scene has evolved over the first of Melee's 2 decades.

[@PhysicsAdept]

Lol, so glad my weak soul was afforded a trigger warning about banned players. Now I can sleep at night. TY

[@awkwardcultism]

One thing I think is important to be made perfectly clear is that these stages aren't actually "banned". Most tournaments include the Gentleman's Rule, which allows a tournament match to be played on any stage as long as both players agree. This is where clips of tournament games being played on PokeFloats come from. The lack of play isn't because the stages are banned, it's because nobody wants to play on them.

[@snuffysam]

Well, being banned does mean that you don’t have to use one of your stage strikes on that stage, that your opponent can’t force you onto the stage for their counter pick. So it’s not that *nobody* wants to pay on the stages, it’s that both players in the set rarely agree on using a banned stage. I’m sure there are tons of players who would cheese their opponent on icicle mountain if they could do so legally

[@nickq8093]

5:46 yes, so many people try to pass off the stage bans as "people didn't like them", no, stages were banned because exploitable aspects made certain characters overpowered on those stages and were damaging to the balance of the game. it doesn't only extend to matches between top tiers either. if fox and falco have trouble recovering against peach on mute city, how would the marios and luigi fair? if falco can abuse strong neutral and low ceilings against sheik, how do you think zelda or GnW did? stage bans have always been about reducing centralisation of the tier list and overall helping mid and low tiers compete better.

[@Quackra]

Exactly, they were just giving those examples, because they were probably the ones that did it in for that stage. Kongo Jungle was probably the best example of it outside Mute City

[@williamwest9204]

Except alot of times now the reason is random. Like hazardless yoshi story being banned cauze its quote "weird" or warioware hazardless being banned cause it benefits heavyweights a little more cauze you cant run away. OR Wileys castle hazardless being banned cause the stage is FD with walls. alot of modern bans are just lazy now.

[@nickq8093]

@@williamwest9204 we're talking about melee, not ult.

[@Zellthan]

@@williamwest9204 yoshi's is typically a counterpick stage, not a banned one. Warioware is banned primarily because of the blastzones being super close, not the stage itself. Wiley's castle is banned so that you dont have to wastr both of your strikes on banning FD twice.

[@FlamingZelda3]

@@williamwest9204 the issue here is the smash community split back when brawl came out, so while there's some overlap between the two communities, the logic behind rulesets and stage bans is different between the melee community and the broader smash community.

[@BobbyReborn]

Brings a smile to my face to see so much vintage PPMD, Armada, and M2K footage Great vid keep up the great work!!

[@ricardoludwig4787]

I kinda wished this video was longer so it could be more in depth, there's a lot of interesting info in melee history

[@ecoharbor1558]

Feels like an AsumSaus vid but a little more faster. Really well done!

[@pacoramon9468]

Smash could have 1000 stages and 4 of them would be legal.

[@pitouflin]

this video coming out just before BoBC4s ultimate ruleset features no bans on Bo5 feels like a subtle little taunt. Genius

[@nathanlevesque7812]

._.

[@deadwatchalt]

Bc gang

[@444tuneski]

i knew that voice was familiar, love ur content cinnarin!

[@andysauro1500]

I remember Chudat getting REKT by Pokefloats separating Nana. So much so to the point he picked up Young Link.

[@nickq8093]

yeah icies simply don't function as a competitive character on that stage. if you wavedash with icies while on a slope and nana has basically any momentum she disconnects as soon as she jumps, it's *awful*

[@lobanaoz7863]

Amazing content, as usual

[@Jackbest202]

Imagine losing a major because of claptrap that would be so funny

[@stephanieshiver1258]

Definitely do more of these I’m pretty curious about why the others got banned as a new fan.

[@omegaorigins9917]

we love pgstats

[@ankleknuckle]

yoooo cinnarin!! sick to see her on one of these vids, i love her tiktok history videos like this

[@Toonie]

Amazing video guys!

[@wombatpandaa9774]

It's a shame Mute City doesn't have ledges. Seems like it'd be a decent counter pick stage if it wasn't so heavily weighted against two major top picks.

[@scooter9537]

nah it would undoubtly be banned by todays standards anyway.

[@Sly88Frye]

I'm going to admit that ever since brawl came out I stopped playing melee. It's not because brawl is less competitive it's just that there were more characters I enjoyed playing on that game and when smash 4 came out I actually had already stopped playing for all for a few years prior to that anyways and when ultimate came out I just jumped over to that. Honestly I can't see myself going back to playing melee but I still find it interesting to watch videos that analyze the competitive scene and some of the weird stuff that goes on in the game

[@noirlavender6409]

5:03 this is what fighting steve is like nowadays on ultimate, if you manage to reach him or break his walls you end up eating shit and being heavily punished for it

[@williamwest9204]

It seems the stage rules were heavily influenced by the top players losing to counterpicks

[@vyor8837]

A counterpick shouldn't be a free win.

[@ultrascarlet5275]

How can you say that after seeing Peach circle camp Ganon like that? That was straight foul.

[@williamwest9204]

@@vyor8837 its not, never has been, but choosing a stage to level the playing field more when your opponents character is designed better? That should be an option long as its within reason

[@williamwest9204]

@@ultrascarlet5275 cause that shit happens in every game regardless of stage. Go watch ZSS sometime or MK in brawl. Shit happens on battlefield

[@vyor8837]

@@williamwest9204 MK was a broken character

[@awzumzap3634]

that text at 0:55 needs to be brought up more instead of people trying to act like people didn't exist

[@JorgeLopez-su3le]

Who was it even referring to?

[@happens4656]

@@JorgeLopez-su3le I bet they had a section on pokefloats and then removed it.

[@somechessguy]

I dunno about a specific game, but Corneria had numerous "infamous" matches on it before it got universally banned.

[@hrstar24]

Mang0 rest on the Arwing Kreygasm

[@bellajulesfashion]

Simna Ibn Sind's Ness on Corneria made a pretty strong case for banning the stage.

[@alekthevampire]

What was his strat?

[@bellajulesfashion]

​@@alekthevampire You get a percentage lead and sit on the front laser where it's incredibly difficult to approach him. Other characters can't do this bc the laser will eventually fire, but Ness can just absorb it with Magnet.

[@profsmog3406]

Good video, ultimate would would be cool next!

[@bobboberson8297]

shoutouts to the tournaments that ran kongo jungle in doubles until a few years ago

[@abarette_]

-so why was Kongo Jungle banned?-

[@ln8496]

Actually if you get shined on a slant you dont experience hitstun. You can grab fox out of that there.

[@nathanlevesque7812]

whiff

[@PoseidonGaming100]

Thats a bug that happens on one point of yoshis slant specifically

[@xavieraldredge3961]

CIN! LETS GO!

[@cooltaylor1015]

Why are Venom and Corneria and Hyrule Castle banned? Those are my go-to stages. Of course, I usually play 4 player timed battles with max weapons, and I like to have a big area for people to be able to get away from each other.

[@chromulus2225]

Hyrule castle is banned due to circle camping and just its size in general. Take for example Fox vs Ganon Fox gets a lead and then just run around in circles on Temple and Fox will never lose since Ganon has no hope to catch him. Venom is banned for a similar reason, but more so lower wing camping. Get a lead and sit on the lower wing with a character like Marth and what can anybody do? If they try and drop through the upper wing they just get up tilted and comboed to death. Corneria has a similar issue again with camping. Not many characters get up from the right side of the stage without burning up-b making them very vulnerable to someone on the fin of the ship. Also the cannon on the left side of the stage can be stood on leading to an almost impossible to reach spot for a good number of characters leading again to more camping. Pretty much all these stages end up having the best way to win in a 1v1 setting be get a lead and then wait in a spot that the opponent can't get to you without putting themselves at massive risk. This ends up resulting in games that just go on and on for since the person camping has no reason to leave and the person who is trying to get them can't reach them without dying. These stages can work well and be great fun in a casually setting with friends, but once money is on the line people will use every cheap trick in the book to win and thus these stages just have too many exploits to be viable for a competitive format.

[@FamilyTeamGaming]

"Big area for getting away from each other" is reason alone to ban them. Imagine a fast character gets a stock on a slower one. Now they can just run away forever and that is optimal, if anything, since it is extremely unlikely the slower character will ever be able to do any meaningful damage on them again.

[@scooter9537]

stuff like this is why corneria is banned. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpLSfZaGfN2Yr6M

[@thebrunssss]

I wish yoshis 64 stage was legal but they would most definitely need to remove the clouds

[@greenzanman]

these videos are bangers

[@williamwest9204]

Smash Ultimate has the WORST stage list by far. They literally try to remove ALL variables and any stage that benefits a group of characters over others even if only barely. Like they ban yoshies story hazardless cause its "weird"

[@FlamingZelda3]

there are some people in the melee community with that mindset *cough* hax *cough* but most of the community I've interacted with is comfortable with the quirks each stage has.

[@williamwest9204]

@@FlamingZelda3 almost no stage in melee has a querk now lol

[@JusRed48]

I agree that Ultimate should have a wider stagelist but some of the stages like Yoshi's Story are banned just for being so similar to already existing stages, like Battlefield in this case. It becomes a problem if a character say, wants to be on or doesn't want to be on battlefield, and there are too many battlefield variants to ban out.

[@popsodarootbeers]

Ironically I think that brinstar could be the closest to playable of any non legal stage. Lava being "annoying" isn't a super substantial argument.

[@enjikap1217]

less about it being annoying and more about it being uncompetitive

[@correadoggsten]

How have I never seen that m2k PP set

[@aislingbones1854]

Gotta say, banning icicle mountain is a real cowards move. Just adapt.

[@DragonArbock]

I fing love mute city and it makes me sad it's banned

[@conemedemelee20]

2:09 actually brinstar has acid, not lava. Thnxs

[@mrnoneofurbusiness7942]

Damn you're right. I didn't know that.

[@Saltyoven]

Um anyone in favor of the old ruleset being used for double down's casual bracket?

[@Acryte]

AnAlYtIcAl CoNtEnT

[@sagacious03]

Competitively unbalanced or not, I'd love to see a tournament that plays with only Random (Or only banned stages.), & all Items & hazards on. Anyway, neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@CTL]

Scar vs Spammer on Pokéfloats kzbin.info/www/bejne/oaOvdI2ohsuNic0

[@happens4656]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/fnubnWCOhrZkj8k This is the one I remember. Lol

[@dylanmuller2611]

yoshis is next

[@hiddenimg]

I feel like this video seems a bit rushed. Def a lot more details that

[@spencercox9317]

Tbh Mute city and cornaria should come back to add variety and mix up the meta potentially, but beyond those two the rest are probably better left behind in history

[@FlamingZelda3]

mute city not having ledges is really what does it for me. and cornaria's wall on the right side - * *shudders* * I never want to face that in tournament.

[@vDeadbolt]

It's not gonna add variety or mix up the meta in a positive way. Hungrybox is gonna end up being the number 0 player in the world because he is gonna surpass first place by essentially giving stages to where zoners are gonna get a free win.

[@seanb3226]

Wow, Big Blue was legal 😂

[@Crazylrishguy]

Idk, that rainbow cruise combo was great, I just feel like pp knew the stage better, but that's just part of the game. I want to bring back rainbow cruise

[@5iverk]

I have an idea to ban everything that isn't Cornelia because the soundtrack slaps

[@drcreed6320]

Honestly if they started modding setups to let you pick music from any like in Ult im cool with that. One of the few improvements that is actually a universal upgrade

[@nahometesfay1112]

@@drcreed6320 1.03 has that

[@mrgameandmusic]

Just for funsies you guys should do this for the other games

[@-LOTO-]

Things in Melee getting exploited? Can't have that!

[@ballertheking1038]

not mentioning green greens, corneria and poke floats being degen spacie stages is kinda weird.

[@FlamingZelda3]

it might be because those ones are a bit more well known. I for one have never known why mute city or dk jungle were banned (I just guessed because hazards, but i was wrong as this video lays out)

[@ballertheking1038]

@@FlamingZelda3 a lot of people don't know about corneria but greens greens and especially poke floats i can agree with.

[@RosiYYAP]

God, remember when Mango won a set to Stadium's windmill saving him, and people were going off, demanding it be banned. I even saw people insisting we bring back Brinstar instead. Melee players be fkn wild

[@positive.feedback.loop1]

meyley

[@pacoramon9468]

Most of this are ilegal because of Ganon being a shit character.

[@jmendozas197]

PC Chris vs Ken MLG Grand Finals

[@Frilleon]

why is rockcrock banned? didn't the alleged victim come out and say the allegations against him were false? just curious

[@williamwest9204]

They did. The smash community is now alot of young woke kids so Court of public opinion matters more than actual evidence. Good example of that is Nairo being banned on twitch still despite having evidence, testimony, and legal fucking council AND the banning of Samsora because he admitted to withholding evidence that proved Nairos innocence.

[@vDeadbolt]

@@williamwest9204 except nairo was never legally innocent. He settled out of court. If he went on and sued Zack, he would have been unbanned. But his case would have been thrown out the window because there's evidence of Nairo flirting and cuddling with Zack prior to their whole incident.

[@BakedBanana]

oh?

[@welovemrp00]

I love the Melee community, but I just don't get it. I would think a best of three, all stages available, each round with random stage, would be the ideal tournament rules. It would encourage players to pick mains the are more well rounded, and force on the fly adaptation.

[@FamilyTeamGaming]

It was already tried in the early days, didn't really work. Ultimately, when you don't ban stages, if anything it's a case where the rich (the top tiers) get richer. Yeah sure, some of the banned stages drastically disfavour the spacies, but they still favour the other top tiers, and the spacies still take advantage of most of the other banned stages.

[@scooter9537]

@@FamilyTeamGaming ^ this. Basically spaces or puff and peach can abuse nearly every banned stage in the game. Also random stages just adds randomness for the sake of it. And on top of that, A LOT of the stages will just go to 8 minutes with a puff or peach, because circle camping is just the optimal way to play on these stages.

[@connormcnulty6377]

I haven't played Melee in ages, there's no way that's the icon for PokéFloats.

[@theSato]

Thank you guys for including players and their historic relevance regardless of their ban from the community. I'm so tired of cancel culture trying to pretend people never existed or they never did anything good.

[@kaivonafsari9741]

They should bring some of these back to be honest

[@thelemonadestandman]

#LegalizePokeFloats

[@SkillsofAWESOMENESS]

Now do FoD :)

[@sebastianphoton2299]

when are we gonna ban pokemon for what hbox did to chu?

[@scooter9537]

that was stadium with transformations, basically every tournament that isn't giviing nintendo the gawk gawk uses frozen stadium now.

[@xBox360BENUTZER]

Chose stage first and then fighters and you can reduce the ban list while keeping the game more varied and interesting.

[@ultrascarlet5275]

What stagea would be unbanned? Every stage in Melee outside of the whitelist is complete garbage.

[@skylo706]

That would give more problems than solutions sadly

[@mechamobu777]

Retro gamers LOL

[@hahahalala-i1x]

we should just ban melee

[@AppleSSB]

First

[@loub6467]

what if instead of banning stages because they weren't fair, we had just allowed banning characters? so that if someone tried to counterpick to a certain stage so their main would have a strategic advantage, the other player could negate the benefit by just banning that character? it would feel more like the champion bans in league/dota, but playing multiple characters is much more common in those games

[@ImSoClumc]

What if the player only plays one character tho they’d have to play with a character they don’t have much practice with

[@nahometesfay1112]

Competitive Melee tends to focus on depth over breadth, but there are ironman competitions where you have to play multiple characters so it's not too crazy of an idea

[@DJ-0]

I'm not well versed in Melee but didn't the video say that multiple characters of the same class benefit from certain stages you'd have to arbitrarily ban "classes" for that to work no?

[@FlamingZelda3]

@@DJ-0 correct. it'd be a nightmare cause the character roster is already so small.

[@FlamingZelda3]

The issue is how much changing character changes every aspect of the game. in the newer smash games or in a regular FGC game it's normal to main 2 or 3 characters because the fundamentals and framework between characters is more or less the same. In melee your character changes every stat, interaction, and the frame data on all your advanced techs so unless you switch to a character who is very similar you're dealing with an entirely different game. (I play marth (sword dude) and I can't even run properly with sheik (ninja dude) cause all the frame data is different) It's like an MMORPG where you have 1 character you spent 5,000 hours on, and 1 you spent 200 hours on. If the opponent bans the character you spent 5k hours on you're screwed, if both players do that we're hurting the competitive scene.

[@werewer54]

Varying the volume and speed of your delivery is common advice from public speakers but it feels like it was done haphazardly in this video and comes off as unnatural/fake. The target audience for this type of content doesn't expect ted talk level oration, just speak like you would with your friends over drinks.

[@kestrel7493]

Ehh, at a glance I disagree. This video is formal and analytical, so this style of speaking perfectly fits the tone which is far closer to a documentary than anything else. With channels like Melee Stats and TurndownforWalt, both having popular melee documentaries, and many other KZbin channels doing the same with various other topics like Emplemon, I think this has been proven to work.